154: Bookkeeping for Yoga Teachers with Kelly Christian
It’s the middle of the tax season in the US and Canada, and it can be intimidating to think about getting your books in order, filing your taxes correctly, or choosing the right people to help you with this aspect of running your business! Bookkeeping and tax preparation expert Kelly Christian has some helpful information, tips, and tricks to manage some of the finer aspects of bookkeeping.
Kelly is the owner of Kelly Christian & Company, and a Certified Professional Bookkeeper and Tax Preparer. She has over 18 years of experience working with all types of small business owners and focuses on helping them create custom technology systems around their money to get their “money system” in place and their books under control. With a variety of packages from step-by-step help to custom set up, training and guidance, Kelly and her team help clients forget about their bookkeeping so they can focus on their business.
We dive into where to get started with sales taxes, what expenses you can write off in your business, and even the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant. Kelly also has some easy ways you can use technology to simplify and streamline the money side of your business, and some of the software you can use to make this aspect of running a yoga business easier.
Whether you already have your books in order and taxes filed, or if you’re worried about how to get started on them, this episode will be a good resource.
Key Takeaways:
[5:44] Shannon introduces her guest for this episode – Kelly Christian.
[7:28] What got Kelly started in the bookkeeping industry?
[9:54] What does Kelly’s business look like now? She shares a bit more about her team.
“That’s what you’re ideally looking for – someone that has a bit more breadth than just someone that’s just doing data entry. But if not, make sure you’ve got a really good relationship with your accountant or tax preparer.” ~ Kelly Christian
[11:13] What is the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant?
[15:44] What are some things yoga teachers can do on their own to get their bookkeeping under control?
[18:50] When do you need to start charging HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) or GST (Goods & Services Tax)?
[21:03] It is important to keep track of online payment methods to ensure payments, taxes and fees do not “get lost”.
“I would rather people use [a simple software] than nothing, but know that as you grow, you’re going to outgrow it.” ~ Kelly Christian
[25:07] Kelly shares her recommendations for Canadians looking for alternatives to Quickbooks, as well as some free options.
[29:57] What are the expenses yoga teachers should be tracking?
“Tracking is better than nothing.” ~ Kelly Christian
[34:16] What counts as expenses and what doesn’t? Shannon and Kelly dig into some common expenses that yoga teachers ask about including yoga clothing, fuel for travel and home office expenses.
[42:54] It is important to find a bookkeeper or accountant who will be able to work with you in your particular business.
[46:11] Get in touch with Kelly via her website.
[47:44] Kelly has some final words of advice for yoga teachers thinking about their accounting and bookkeeping.
“Get some solid systems. Don’t unnecessarily move into a piece of software, a good spreadsheet works great.” ~ Kelly Christian
[49:25] Shannon shares an update on what she changed in her business regarding accounting and bookkeeping.
Links:
- Kelly Christian
- The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 044: Accounting for Yoga Teachers with Hannah Smolinski
- QuickBooks
- Xero
- Wave Accounting
- FreshBooks
- Hubdoc
- Receipt Bank
- DropBox
- Google Drive
Gratitude to our Sponsor Schedulicity and Yoga for Pelvic Health Teacher Training
Dear Shannon,
I listen to a lot of your podcasts and find them a fantastic resource for information on yoga as a business, as well as using some of your journalling exercises (slightly adapted usually) with my trainee teachers on the courses where I facilitate. Thank you so much for them. I was really impressed with this podcast, looking, as I am, to starting up properly and formally as a provider of non nonsense yoga and philosophy training here in Ireland. By the way, I would love to do a workshop with you on pelvic health over here, combining it with my own yoga and philosophy offering, but that’s another story. I just wanted to point out one thing about this that I thought I might see if I could raise awareness around. I am not sure if I have the skill to do this as elegantly as I’d like to so bear with me. I noticed Kelly said that she’d originally employed someone from the Philippines to help her, but that, although the person was very good, working with someone long distance from a country affected by internet blackouts because of hurricanes and other climatic and possibly political and social, or infrastructural, challenges (she didn’t say any of this, just hurricanes, so I’m surmising here) turned out not to work for her. I just wondered if as yoga practitioners we might reflect on the implications of this. Someone in the Philippines was perfectly capable of doing the work but her situation precluded her. So the world become more divided, work opportunities more unevenly distributed and the whole cycle of samskaras and suffering deepens. What can we, as yoga practitioners, do about this? Perhaps the first step, as always, is just to raise awareness that this is happening. No judgement and as much compassion as can be elicited for ourselves and for the other people, on the other side of this planet, trying to survive. Perhaps the next step is to create some kind of compassionate intention, or resolution. A determination to do everything we can to mitigate this suffering, to be open to opportunities. Then, of course, compassionate actions like supporting organisations in other countries that are doing work, or creating communities within the yoga community that provide support. For instance, I do some work with the Prison Phoenix Trust PPT http://www.theppt.org.uk which works with people in prisons. Prisons in the Philippines are grim. We can highlight conditions and support good work going on there, and elsewhere. I hope you see how this, too, is yoga. Namaste and deep bows.