How to Develop Your Accounting Routines – Ask Clay Anything

Audio Transcription

You have questions on America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your brought up from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of ask clay. Anything on the thrive time business coach radio show.

I am amazing clay. It’s a great morning. How are you, my friend?

Well I’m excited to be talking to you about developing accounting routines, the importance of developing accounting routines. But before we do that, rumor has it, your son just turned to 30 years old. Yeah,

he did. And I’m not sure how that happened cause I’m like 38 I he was adopted. I was, I was young and we adopted im early. This Justin Bryce Hood, you were adopted. Okay. But just will be a shocker for Bryce. Yeah, no Paul, in all sincerity, how long have you been a CPA? How many years or approximately? Did you know the actual number of years that you’ve been a [inaudible]?

Well, let’s see, 1989 I graduated college and I passed the CPA exam that year. So whatever that might be. Almost 30 years.

2018 minus. She’s in 1989 yeah. Okay. So you’re a 29 years. You’ve been a

yeah, that’s funny. Cause that means I became a CPA. What an eight also the year I

did the, Oh Joan, that was impressive how you did this. Justin Paul who became a CPA at the age of eight. Alright. So Paul, we’re talking today about developing your accounting routines. And I have these core ideas I want to get through today. And as we go through these, I’m gonna have you break them down. So one by one I’m going to, I’m going to teach the principle, I’m gonna tee up the principal and then you break it down for us. So principle number one, you have to develop a set place to handle your accounting. You have to have a physical place, the same place every time you sit down to look at your checkbook, to look at your balanced sheets, to look at your credit card receipts. Why do you have to have the same place to handle your accounting, Paul?

Well, clay, we’ll stick with the same theme of, of all the surprises, you know, people, uh, the surprise is, um, doing your accounting is not like, you know, going to Brahms or getting an ice cream where you just kind of do it on a whim. You know, you just, hey, I feel like getting an ice cream. So let’s go get ice cream account. Doing your accounting is not like that because people generally don’t enjoy it. And so if it’s something you don’t enjoy, you really gotta schedule, you gotta make sure you know exactly where you’re going to do these things so you preplan it. Otherwise, uh, instead of doing your accounting, you will go get

[inaudible]. Yeah. Andrew, I was going to be, if you want to come on over, we can do from accounting in the hot tub. [inaudible] to Thea that thought that you, I’m just saying I’m in a hot tub and I thought we could do some accounting of that. Cool. Hot. No, nobody wants to do no,

nobody wants to know. No. All right. So again, find the set place. I want to ask you this Jason, you’re now the, the, the Super Manager for elephant in the room, right? And you have to do daily checklists every day and you, you work at three different stores. So you rotate around. Which store are you at right now? The 17th and Boston location. Okay. So 17th in Boston, downtown Tulsa, elephant in the room, men’s grooming lounge. You’re down there. Uh, talk to me about your set routine. When you walk in the store everyday, what’s Kinda your, your set Mojo, your set routine? Well, set routine is not, am I unlocked the doors? I go straight to the front, grab my checklist for opening for myself, hand out the checklist for the grooming professionals and then we just get the day rock and going through the checklist.

Now when you first started the position and you didn’t have a routine, isn’t it kind of frustrating? You flick, you’re missing a step. Am I forgetting something? I mean, is it when you first learned something? Yeah, I would stand there and like utter dismay thinking what am I doing? So not only is it less efficient, but it mentally can be taxing, right? You know, same thing, Andrew, you’re a photographer. When you used to do wedding photography, did you not have a routine for how you take the camera out, how you verify the batteries are there? Did you not have a set routine? Oh yeah, there’s a, there was a routine for that. And there’s a checklist for checking in and out the gear. There’s a checklist for everything. Routines are so important, and I’m going to tell you this, John Maxwell, the bestselling author of 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, writes, you will never change your life until you change something you do daily.

The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. I’ll repeat that one more time. You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. Let me give you an example of Paul. You’d love this example. There’s a guy who will probably be a client of yours in the future. He owns a full, uh, a small boutique personal training business in Tulsa. His name is sky Magnus, Sky Magnus. That is a name. I love that name. Sky’s a personal trainer. Chow sky. Magnus, he’s going to help you pop in to pump you up. That is awesome. And Sky Magnus, he and I have been working together for about eight weeks and his routine is this. I told him, listen, every single day, get to reviews from your clients. Two objective reviews every single day. Record two podcasts and every single day drop off your free.

One month passes to 10 businesses, two to 10, two to 10 everybody to to stand two to two. And so like he’s walking around Tulsa. I’m going to have an a two to 10 who’d who tend to, and people look at him like, dude, you must be crazy cause he’s, but his business has, I’m not kidding. His business has doubled in eight weeks as a result of just having a routine. So whether it’s accounting or marketing or how you shoot free throws, you have to have a set routine. Now the next, the next move here. Paul, the next move, you have to have a set time to do your accounting. Now you and I were talking a but I went to bed last night at 7:00 PM um, because I had to get up this morning at 2:00 AM to work on the outlines for this week because we booked bunch of celebrity guests on the thrive time show.

I have a routine that I do and I’m telling you just getting up that extra hour and a half early. I normally get up at three 30 but getting up at two it rocked my cranium even though I had enough sleep, I got seven hours of sleep, but still I woke up this morning thinking to myself, wow, this is early. And then, and then I, I looked around and I, and I heard kind of a noise from above and I thought, truly this is God, what are you doing down there? He woke me up, man. I’m pretty, I woke up, God and I, I’d never done that before, but I mean 2:00 AM just that extra hour and a half kind of. You got to mess with my mode show. Can you talk about the importance Paul, of having a set time in your calendar when you are the most mentally clear on a consistent basis to do your accounting?

Absolutely. Clay. Like say when you schedule what’s important and I’m back to the theme of accounting not being fun now. You said something about a hot tub and doing your accounting and I compared that to ice cream cones. I don’t think you should. It would cut probably out to do ice cream.

I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re saying because Clayton ever said anything about hot tub that was mine. There was a ladies man called [inaudible] Andrew if he wanted to come up with and do some now Andrew, do you want to break some ice cream? Be there to do with some academy. I just want you to,

no, but you know when it, when it’s important, you schedule it and you’ve got to schedule it at a time. When you are mentally ready, you don’t schedule it. You know when you’re also out on a date or you’re taking your wife out or you’re coaching kids at baseball, you’re scheduled at a time when you’re mentally, physically and, and it’s again, because accounting is is not that fun. Now when you start seeing results, accounting is our blast because you get to see, oh my gosh, my bank account is

rolling off. Do you want to do small county with Paulo? Don’t you know Paul, I just had a pint of German beer and I’d like to do the chicken dance and then look at some pro formas guns. You know,

this is how it works. Oh, it does. Oh, it doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to have a set time to do your accounting. It’s so important. You have a set time to do your accounting and a set place. Another notable quotable, this Justin, this is, this is a notable quote from Rick Pitino. He says, longterm success is a direct result of what you achieve every day. Goals provide your daily routine. You just have to have a daily routine. Now, Paul, I love, I love your tip number three from your book. I’ll look under the hood. This is a great tip. Develop an organization system for your accounting. This blows my mind. People running around with like stacks of mail and bags of random crap and receipts and boxes and receipts in the truck and receipts in the back of the thing and in their pocket and running around in. No one could find anything and they just, you’re trying to do their accounting and you’ll sit down with a client and they have no idea where anything is at all. So I’m going to give the listener some practical tips about organization. I’d like for you to go a little deeper, have one credit card for all of your business expenses. Paul, why is that a super move?

Well, because again, because you said most people aren’t that organized a, a a credit card, um, is, is an outside source that helps organize for you. And so like I have a credit card for my accounting practice. I have a separate credit card for my ranch. I have a separate credit card for my personal bills because if I do happen to drift and forget, oh my gosh, where did I put this? I have an outside source that I can turn to that is reporting and I can go and get that information. Uh, it, it, you know, it’s a system of organism of organizing those, those processes.

It’s so important. If you’re out there today and you don’t have an organizational system, you think about it today. What do I need to do? My accounting. So I’m gonna make a list of the things you need. I would recommend you have a highlighter. Highlighter. Yeah. Have highlighters. Have them right there by you. Okay. And have a computer if possible with two screens, two screens. One cause you can look at the data from your credit card statement into, you can look at quickbooks or excel or whatever you’re doing, but you want to have two monitors, right? You have two monitors. Have the highlighters there. You wouldn’t have a place where you’ve got the ample time and ample, a uninterrupted time because Paul tried to do your accounting and that front, you know all the new mcmansions, they build all over Tulsa and different cities. It’s a 3000 square foot house called, I call it affectionately the mcmansion pop up.

And the, when you walk into a mcmansion to the right, they always put an office there. And that’s the catchall for kids’ toys. So if you want to like step on a Lego, that’s where you go. If you want to look for a Ah, a leftover waffle, that’s where you go. If your wife wants to talk to your husband, wants to talk to you about something, uh, anything at all, that’s where they go. Cause it’s still with, it’s close enough to the kitchen that you cannot be reclusive, but you have what you’re doing accounting Paul, you’ve got to have a separate place.

You do cl. Hey Clay. And back to the credit card thing. This is, this is a big deal. This is a great nugget for people to understand. Um, you know, there’s something called Iris. So IRS or internal revenue service.

Yeah, the burst your buddies. Earth’s are buddies.

But a lot of when I have, and I handle a lot of audits for with the IRS for clients and a lot of it is perception. And if I’ve got a client that has a credit card and they’re not very selective on what goes on, that credit card is supposed to be a business credit card, but yet they’re, you know, they do visit McDonald’s or they do this, they do that. That perception with the IRS is a big deal. So if I, if I paint a picture that says everything on this credit card is business and, but then there’s things that are obviously not business that that creates a negative perception for an IRS auditor. So, you know, we, you need to be very, very specific and only use that credit card, even if it’s a personal credit card, you only use it for business charges.

We had a, a very, uh, disorganized, a listener who tried to call in while you were talking and Andrew, the call screener wouldn’t let him through. No, but we have audio of what they said to Andrew a while while you were talking to you. Andrew screens the calls and this is what they said. I hopefully you can help this person, Paul

[inaudible] like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. It’s like I took the wrong weight, quit drinking. It’s like I picked the wrong week when I’m fed means

all right, so Paul, if you’re overwhelmed and you feel disorganized, there’s good news for the listeners out there. You are willing to schedule a one on one consultation with a member of your team and as a thank you gift, just kind of what better way to say I love you. Then with the Gift of snowball by Warren Buffet and Warren Buffett’s only authorized biography, the book is called snowball. I’ve read the book and that book is filled with so many nuggets of knowledge. They do not teach you at business college. You can learn a success tips from arguably, arguably the most successful investor of our time. I’d say Warren Buffet, uh, Ray Dalio, Andreessen Horowitz, there’s probably the top three, top four. He, Warren Buffet is brilliant and hits all laid out in the book called snowball. Paul, why would you give all the listeners a book and an hour of your team’s time? What’s psychologically wrong with you? Man?

Well, I know, you know what’s fun about that book, clay is that I enjoyed is the dude’s a knucklehead. You know, when he was younger he was a knucklehead and now he’s a billionaire. And so, you know, really the, the, the theme of that book is he was very intentional and that’s what we tried to get across it at Hood CPAs is come and sit down and talk to us because you’re doing the things, most people are doing 80% 90% of the things to be successful. They’re just not doing it deliberately and intentionally. And we help them just kind of get them on the right track. And this is a start. Good starting point is right in that book. And you know, you, we don’t learn these things in college that you need to do. We learned a lot of background in college, but this is, his book is very practical. And what you’ll see is he’s just just a normal guy that was very intentional with his success, but he was a knucklehead early on.

I encourage you, I encourage you today, if you’re out there today and you say, Gosh, I feel financially underwater, I feel overwhelmed. That’s why we do this show. We don’t do this show to preach to the choir of those who are on fire. No, we don’t try to just do this show so that we’re uh, hey Mr Brewster domus know you gotta build it out. Listen into a show where we talk about all the perfect things that you do perfectly. No, we’re trying to help you. And this just shows not designed to be a, a punitive or we’re sitting there and broadcasting from Mount Judge Ma, we are here broadcasting, teaching you all the things y’all doing wrong. No, we’re here to help you, but we can’t help you unless we get a chance to know you. So I encourage you to go to hood cpas.com today and schedule your free one on one consultation and get your free copy of Warren Buffett’s only authorized to buy book the book called snowball and we come back from the break. We’re going to talk more about the importance of developing your accounting routines right here. Stay tuned. My name is Clay Clark, that man, his name is Paul.

Have you ever dreamed about starting your own successful business? Have you started the business? That just seems to be perpetually stuck because you don’t know how to increase your sales because you don’t know how. Build those repeatable

systems because you don’t know how to find quality employees and because you don’t know how to do that freaking account. If that sounds like you, my friend, than you are in luck. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former U s SBA entrepreneur of the year sent here on a mission to get you into a great financial position. If you want to know the secrets, the systems, and the strategies that Dr Zelner and I have each used to build 13 multimillion dollar businesses between the two of us. You cannot miss this event. Go to thrive time show.com today and book your tickets. And don’t take my word for it. Read our refuse. No upsells. Don’t get rich quick scams, no MLM, just proven system. Pix Conference is coming soon. So get your tickets today at thrive time. Show dot cops. If you can’t afford it now, you can’t. There are scholarships available for up time.

show.com yes. Welcome back. My name is Clay Clark and across from me it is ecstasy to see the number one CPA in every way. A beautiful man with the plan. The Guy who helps people stay on top of their accounting. It’s truly phenomenal. Paul Hood, how are you sir? I am amazing clay and all those little, you know nice things you’re saying to me is not going to get me in the hot tub with the ice pain. We’ve already talked about that. No, I didn’t. I don’t do that. I don’t understand why youth, it always gets trying to be path that McGriff. If, because you had said to me, you said, if I ever wanted to do my accounting reconcile, if you know what I’m saying, I file, we can do that in a hot tub. I don’t understand that. [inaudible] I don’t remember that conversation. Don’t let that guy in the show again, Andrew, don’t let him through that.

Your job is to screen the calls. Do not let him through. I will not let him know. Okay. We’re talking about today, five super moves that you can use to develop solid accounting routines. So let’s recap. Move number one, develop a set place to handle your accounting sounds good. Step to develop a set time to handle your accounting. Step three, develop an organizational system for your accounting. Now, step four, you’ve got to develop the habit of touching it once. Why? Because if you don’t touch it once, what’s going to happen is you’re going to forget something. I’m gonna give you an example. Just this morning, I’m working out and a with John and he says, Hey, I’m Maurice Kanbar. The guy who invented skyy vodka, the guy that you worked with, with the real estate, the guy who invented the first multiplex theater, the guy who invented the modern needle protector that nurses use, the guy who invented the modern stoplights.

We use that guy might want to be on the show, but he would like to have a list of the questions you’re gonna ask ahead of time to see if he wants to in the show. He also says, Hey, tracks tracks. Clay tracks wants to be on the show. And I said, tracks did he used to say the tracks? My sister wants to be on the show. He says, yeah, yeah, I do. Uh, he, he, he wants to be on the show. And I said, do you know what this means? He says, what does this mean? He says, this is the guy who is the, he does the Patriots’ official podcast. And if trags wants to be, if Mike [inaudible] wants to be on the show, oh no, I’ve got to write outline. So he tells me these things, but instead of like saying, Hey, remind me.

See a lot of people have to say that they say, remind me, Hey, could you remind me? Could you remind me to, to come back to that later? No, no, no, no, no. I write it down on a piece of notebook paper and I now, and I put it my pocket and I brought it back and I put it on my desk and I touched it once. But Paul, a lot of times people say, I’m going to come back and I’m going to enter that receipt into my ledger later, but, or I’m going to come back later and reconcile. I’m going to come back later and I’m going to start automating my savings later. But as we look into the calendars, Paul, you and I were doing some deep dive studies and into calendars. You know, I went to a, what was, when we went, we went into hallmark together and we’d go in there to hallmark and right away people had a certain alarms went off.

We’re going, uh, we have a,

a man here in a hallmark together we’re going to need to, or we’re going to need to

do you want him to go

February?

We’re just got two guys here at hallmark

and then I bought a dog calendar and they said, God,

from our, we have a about here,

a picture of a dog calendar. It’s got the puppies on it, you know, and, and Paul’s like, get me out of here. Get me out of here. At least there’s no cat calendar. Well, and the thing is, I got you a matching cat calendar. Yeah,

I need to help her here.

And so it’s very dangerous situation. Very dangerous situation. So we go in there and thankfully we got out of there quick there, but I come out and look at the counter with you. We sit down and said, Paul, there’s a Monday on this county. That’s great. Thanks clay. Your genius. He said, there’s a Tuesday, there’s a Wednesday, there’s a Thursday, there’s a Friday. And he said, clay, this Justin, you’re a genius. There’s a Saturday and there’s a Sunday and you’re going, you you man, I don’t know what school you went to, but you know everything. Wow. And then I said, but there’s no some day.

No Sir,

there is no someday

that they never come.

Talk to me, Paul, about the importance of touching it once. Like you have this set time and place to do your accounting. Why do you have to allow enough time to get it all done at one time as opposed to having not enough time. They have to come back later and say, could you remind me to come back and do this later? Why do you have to touch you once?

Well, you know, most people that don’t just touch it once. You’re kind of like me cleaning the house, you know, I may walk around the house and I’ll pick up something here and I walk over to another room and lay it down in another room and then go and grab something else and then 10 minutes later realize the first thing is still sitting over there. It’s just in a different spot. And that’s what people do with their accounting or really anything else in life that they don’t schedule and you do very specific things to know that, you know I, this is what I’m going to do. And if you just, if you’re just carrying stuff around and say, remind me that later, I’ll do this later. That, that, like you say, there’s some day never comes and you have to have, once you have it in your calendar and you, you can touch it just once, you know when you’re going to address it and it’s just not a, some day I’ll get to it or tomorrow or wear something type scenario and it’s very specific and very intentional.

I don’t quote anything else. We’re not Vic about accounting. I touch it once. Oh, I told chip. You remember that song? You hear it on oh one and everything else. Oh No. Oh No.

Have you heard that song? Could you sing a few more bars? I’m no. Have you ever heard, have you ever heard that song? I have not heard. That’s true. Oh, there’s a song that came out back in the day by a lady named, uh, De de vinyls. And let me just read the lyrics to you. It says,

I love myself. I want you to love me when I feel that feel down. I want you above me. I search my ourself. Otto, want you to find me IFO? Get myself out. I don’t want you to remind me. Oh, well, Andrew and buddy else out. When I think about you want to touch my eyes? Oh, I know. Whoa. Everybody else. Oh No. Oh No.

A shockingly, that was on Paul Spotify. I say Paul. I said, Paul, I met you. Andrew. Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to look into your Spotify without asking you. Furthermore, I didn’t mean to. No, but seriously. Then I say to Andrew, I met me. Okay. Okay. What I said me, I’m sitting right. The point is I’m confessing. I liked the song. Maybe it was Eric Chubb. I know won’t. Okay, we’re moving on. Alright, so now the fifth tip, the fifth tip, you’ve got to schedule a standing monthly meeting with your accountant. Now you might say, well that seems pretty self serving. All you’re trying to do is hook people and make them feel they need. Paul, well, let me tell you this. We work with Dell wrecked clinical research. That’s like a a tag team deal. So we do the business coaching for Dell [inaudible] new exaggeration. It’s called Dell wrecked research.

These guys produce and you’ve seen the numbers, Paul. I mean there are, these guys are bringing in a hundred grand a month. Easy. Unbelievable. They’re very profitable. And they said, we need a proactive accountant. And so I referred them without hesitation to Paul. Hood relationships, very copacetic. Things are good. I work with a tip top canine. Uh, they’re doing very well. They have eight now a cities they’re located in. Each one of the new locations is beginning to really take off. And without hesitation, I recommended that they meet with you. Why is it so important though, whether somebody chooses to use hood CPAs or some other accounting firm? Why do you want to meet with your accountant to have a strategic meeting at least once a month?

Well, clay, you’ve got to measure, you’ve got to measure your results. And I don’t care if you’re training for, for to get in shape or whatever. You’ve got to step on that scale or else you don’t know if you’re on track. And so, you know, you mentioned both those kinds of great people love talking to them because they’re fun, they’re exciting, they’re excited about life, they’ve got a plan and we’re helping them measure those results of the plan and then make little find adjustments to and to, to their path to get them to, to their goals quicker. We were not going to get caught off guard on how much income tax they’re going to owe. We’re not going to get caught off guard on, uh, money that sneaking out or leaking out of the ship, if you will. The money, the money, this money, the money. Yeah. We were on top of the money, clay. And so our goal is literally to help our clients keep more saved, more and protect more. And when you repeat that again, that was good. Yeah. We help our clients keep more of what they make. Got It. Save more, save more of what they make and protect more of what they’re making.

Repeat that one more time. I’m gonna hit the bomb effect after each because that’s powerful. Say I just want to marinate on that one more time here.

Maria helped them keep more. We help them save more and we help them protect this guy’s so filing all these clay, you know, and life, you’re talking about violence. When you’re developing business there, it’s like you’re under attack. There’s always something. There’s a leak, you know, and, and um, we had a, I’ll give you an example. We had a, um, a situation at our office to where I’ve got three offices and all of a sudden I look and I’m spending $800 a month on direct TV One. Why do I have direct TV in my office? I don’t want to encourage my employees to, to watch TV, but we called them and we’re, we’re, we’re canceling it. And they said, well, hey, if you stay, we’ll go from $800 a month to $99 a month. So why didn’t they go to $99 a month without mingling them? But that’s what we do for our clients is we looked and we helped them control their money.

Deep idea to not spend $100 per month on direct TV and you will be a superstar. This seems I’m right. That’s done on tablet. Paul. I like spent $800 on direct TV though. I like directing. You hate directv. Paul. I love Directv, but not $800 a month. I fight you right now. I fight you. I loved her. I love huge directv bills.

No, it’s just, it’s not like deep metaphysical ideas, but a lot of people, they want their accounting to be a deep metaphysical idea. They want to sit there and go, what are your strategies for the fourth quarter? Oh No, Paul, let’s talk about, touch it once. Let’s talk about automating your savings. Why do we as a little bonus tip, why should everybody meet with an accountant and save a set amount of money per month of set percentage, a set gross percentage of their income. Why?

What Clay, you know we’ve mentioned before that we give away Warren Buffet’s book snowball. In that book, he talks about saving before you spend commerce’s saving after you spend, and what you have to do is you have to provide for yourself first. Pay Yourself first. Create that automatic millionaire plan to where you’re taking a percentage of the gross and not a percentage of them that of our cities that gross and you get it outside of that business that you can create a secondary or third source of revenue so that you’re not always dependent upon that. You got to take it a little bit of that milk clay and put it off to the side.

Take a little bit of that milk and put it off to the side. Speaking of putting it off to the side, don’t put off to the side. This, this idea of up an appointment with Paul Hood with Hood CPAs scheduled an appointment today. Go to hood CPA’s dot com scheduled a meeting. Get a free copy of Warren Buffet’s book. Snowball. My name is Clay Clark. That’s Paul Hood and you are a great American. Take care.