705: The Numbers You’re Ignoring (and Why They Matter) with Chante Dawston
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Are you truly making money in your pet care business, or just staying busy? In this episode, we sit down with CPA Chante Dawston to unpack what “knowing your numbers” actually means. We explore why record keeping is more than a tax requirement and how it directly impacts your decision-making. We also discuss cash flow, profit, and the hidden dangers of growing without understanding your costs. This conversation will help you move from guessing to confidently leading your business with clarity.
Main topics:
Importance of financial record keeping
Profit vs cash flow clarity
Budgeting and expense planning strategies
Pricing adjustments and inflation impact
Building consistent financial habits
Main takeaway: “I think the biggest thing that can be a superpower for you in your business, on the financial side, is consistency.”
Consistency doesn’t sound flashy. It doesn’t feel like a breakthrough strategy. But when it comes to your finances, it might be the most powerful habit you can build.
You don’t need hours of analysis or a finance degree to start understanding your business. You just need to show up regularly. Even 15 minutes a week can completely change how you see your numbers.
That small rhythm builds awareness. Awareness builds confidence. And confidence leads to better decisions.
If you’ve been avoiding your numbers, don’t overhaul everything overnight. Just start showing up consistently—and let that habit do the heavy lifting.
About our guest:
Chante Dawston is a CPA and the owner of C Squared Accounting, a firm specializing in financial services for small businesses in the pet care industry. With over a decade of experience, including time as an auditor at Deloitte, she brings a strong analytical and practical approach to business finances. Chante helps pet care professionals better understand their numbers, improve profitability, and build sustainable financial systems. She is passionate about making accounting accessible and actionable for everyday business owners.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Pet Sitter Confessional, record keeping, cash flow, profit, tax planning, financial statements, pet care business, expenses, revenue, equity, budgeting, consistency, QuickBooks, Wave, Xero.
SPEAKERS
Chante Dawston, Collin
Collin 00:00
Welcome to Pet Sitter Confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we're brought to you by our friends at Critter and Pet Marketing Unleashed. This episode is eligible for one CEU from both PSI and NAPPS, so listen to the episode and click the link in the show notes are on our website to take the quiz to get that today. Hey, are you making money in your business or are you just staying busy today? We sit down with CPA Chante Dawston to unpack what knowing your numbers actually means. We explore why record keeping is more than just a tax requirement, and how it directly impacts your decision making, plus we discuss how cash flow, profit, and the hidden dangers of growing without understanding your costs really add up. Let's get started.
Chante Dawston 00:53
Thanks, Collin, for having me. So, I started my firm about two years ago, and then about a year and a half or so I decided to niche down in the pet industry. Prior to starting my company, I had been in accounting for over a decade, and I started my career with Deloitte as an auditor, and I just got to a point where I said, "Hey, like, let's see if I can do this myself, and so took that leap to the entrepreneur space, like you said. I'm a CPA, so I have had my license for about 12 years or so. I am licensed in Florida, but I live in Texas, and I can work with people everywhere. That's a question that I get quite a bit. You're licensed by your particular state, but it doesn't preclude you from working all over, so that's a little bit about me, I guess. The one thing, other thing I'll mention, since this is the pet space that we are in? Is that I have a Great Dane, he's 155 pounds, because everyone always wants to know how much you weigh. Yeah, that's that's a little bit about me.
Collin 02:14
So, life as an as an auditor, previously, I mean, what kind of skills do you pick up from from doing that,
Chante Dawston 02:22
oh, you get really good at questioning things, never kind of taking things for face value, making sure that, like, everything takes in ties, so you want to kind of go back to source documents and not necessarily just trust the numbers that are in front of you. You also get really good analytical skills, because people don't really realize it. But a big part of what we did in audit was kind of doing ratios and other analysis to make sure that numbers made sense, like year over year, or like, if we're looking at the income statement, what we see there matches what we're seeing from a balance sheet perspective. So you really get to kind of understand the big picture of a business and really get to understand like what financial statements are telling you.
Collin 03:20
I like how you started with you're just trying to figure out what, like, does this make sense? Do these numbers line out, and it's not like you're going in trying to find a problem, you're just trying to say, hey, does this all make sense? And then when it doesn't, like, that's kind of, I guess, that's when that digging kind of starts to happen.
Chante Dawston 03:38
Yeah, and that's the thing that we used to always have to tell clients, it's like I am not looking for an issue or a problem or trying to catch you up, like it's actually better for me that I don't find anything as an auditor, like I don't want to have to do extra work, I don't want to have to do extra digit, I don't want to have to do extra documentation, I want everything to be nice and clean. Unfortunately, that's generally not the case. The audit field, especially when you're working with, you know, bigger companies. But yeah, like, I don't want to find the problem. I just want to understand what's happening, what you're doing, and be able to say thumbs up, this looks great.
Collin 04:22
Well, so that brings a question I hear a lot of, of, well, how, how important is record keeping, really? I mean, is anybody really going to.. does it really matter that I have that receipt or not? So, I mean, from your perspective and background, how would you answer that?
Chante Dawston 04:38
I would say it is very important, and not just from, like, you know, regulatory side of things, although it is important there, but for your own personal understanding of your business, like, you can't really know what's happening in your business if you don't have the records, if you aren't keep. In track of things like when you are going about making decisions, you're just pretty much just going to be throwing things at the wall and hoping it sticks if you don't have the data to back it up, and your record keeping is really that data for you, and then of course, like for the regulatory purposes, you want to make sure that you have information to back that up, because with the IRS and many of the states as well that are collecting taxes, like you are pretty much working on an honor system, because it's not like they are asking you for like tons of detail to back up everything, like you're providing them a form with some numbers, and yeah, they have, you know, ways to check things here or there, but a lot of it is just you going off the honor system, and so if they happen to select you for an audit, you want to make sure that you have that additional information to say, hey, like this is where that number came from.
Collin 06:00
Well, you started off by saying it's also for your own personal decisions, and I know a lot of people may say, well, I don't want to record everything, so I don't have to pay whatever taxes, like that's a whole separate question, but it sounds like then you're also kneecamping yourself as a business owner for those, what kind of decisions do you see that people get impacted by because they don't have good record of things.
Chante Dawston 06:27
Yeah, so especially like for you know service-based business, like you know pet sitters and things like that, they don't have a good understanding of where the money is going when they're not keeping records, and so they are thinking, like, oh, you know, I am not having enough money because of, you know, not having enough clients, and so they spend more money, like, on advertising, but that likely isn't going to solve your problem if the issue is really that, like, your labor costs are really high, but you don't know that, because you're not really looking things, and you don't have the records to, you know, back that up, because you know, and service-based business labor costs tend to be the, you know, most expensive thing that you are sending money out the door to, and so if you increase your revenue, it's very likely that that expense is going to increase right along with it, and so it's not going to make a big difference for you.
Collin 07:29
Oh, that decision is it? Is it number of clients or their secret expenses going somewhere? Like, what is that? That is so I love that you picked that example right off the bat, because we see that every day when we look at our own business, of okay, what's our month over month, what's our percent labor? How am I tracking that? Why did it change? What was that thing? Can I keep that from happening again? What, like, because it's one of those things to go, man, I would love, because a business, to be able to pay all of my employees to go to all of the events and stuff that we host, but at some point, then that labor bill, that's gonna be huge for those months that I'm doing events, and if I'm not keeping track of what, when, high, wow, like return on investment for all that stuff, that's just going to be a completely, you know, mystery to me in history, and I just got to kind of go, well, maybe I don't know, and so it kind of sounds like it's all a lot more though than just like one number that we need to be looking at.
Chante Dawston 08:33
Yeah, I mean, you can kind of start off with looking at, you know, kind of the big ones, like, you know, I know most small business kind of focus on the P and L, because that drives taxes a lot, and you know it's fine if you want to start there, but yeah, I would say if you're looking at, you know, your financial statements, looking at your profit line is definitely key, and looking at your cash balance is also key, but I would say, like, if you want to go a little further, there are some, like, ratios, like you mentioned, that you definitely can look at, and, like, really get a better idea of where things are, so equity is a good one to look at to really see, like how you are accumulating wealth in your business, and then the current ratio is a really good ratio to look at, which that is just your current assets divided by your current liabilities, and it really just tells you, like, if you have enough assets to meet your short, short-term obligations. So that's one that I think is really important to start with, because you'll know, like, you know, how long can I opt. Rate in the short term with what I have, do I need to try and find a way to cut expenses and increase my cash, or you know, do I need to try and pay off some of my debt a little faster? It's things like that when you start looking at your numbers that you can start figuring out and asking yourself and kind of positioning yourself a little better.
Collin 10:23
I know a lot of people really like pet sitting and dog walking because upfront costs tend to be like zero. I may already have a leash around, I can get started pretty cheaply, and but what's your take on understanding? You mentioned cash earlier, and I don't think you're talking about just like physical dollar bills lying around in the kitchen. What's the what's the relationship of business to cash and cash flow, and what issues do you see arise from people when those kind of get off balance?
Chante Dawston 10:56
Yeah, so I think a lot of people just think if they have a little cash in the bank, then everything is fine, and obviously you know we all want some cash in the bank, but that doesn't necessarily mean that, like, your business is profitable, and it doesn't necessarily mean that, like, your cash flow is in a good position just because you see, like, money in the bank, and like you could be, you know, in a position where your expenses are much higher than they need to be, and you could have, you know, more cash if you were paying attention to kind of the whole view of your business, so cash can sometimes be misleading, and then with cash flow, like you may constantly have cash in the bank, but it may be like flowing out of your business faster than what you expect or faster than it needs to be based on like how you can kind of change some things like you know you could change the timing on when you pay employees or you know change the timing on when you collect from your customers if that is a potential issue, so looking and under looking at cash flow and understanding like what it's telling you is super important, because it definitely can kind of prevent you from getting into a point where you have a bit of a squeeze, because a lot of people do say, oh, there's something in the bank and I'm good, and then six months later you could, you know, be in a bit of a crunch, and not necessarily understanding why that crunch has happened, because you got so used to having cash in the bank, and one thing to say really quickly about cash is not a lot of people create an emergency reserve, that's something that I highly recommend that small business owners do, even if it's something small, like I know a lot of people are like, you know, I can't afford to put something aside for a rainy day, if you know a lot of people feel like they're kind of just barely making it, but even if it's just like 25 bucks a month, you start small with whatever you can, and you know in a year that grows into something, and when you do kind of get into a bit of a crunch, you have something to lean on, and it helps, you know, in stressful situations and things like that, when you're like, oh yeah, I got that sitting over there that I can then go back to,
Collin 13:42
well, it also builds that muscle of creating margin in the business, and I think that's like that's something that that's a very intentional move. Hey, I feel like I'm just everything goes to zero at the end of every month, everything goes to zero at the end of every month. We got, if we think that some of these things are important, or maybe I want to invest in better leashes down the line, or in some better training down the line, or travel to a conference down the line. How do I expect to be able to do that if I'm taking to zero now? Then it's, you know, from your perspective, I'm sure you're looking at, like, okay, like, what is revenue, what are your expenses, where can you increase, where can we decrease, where can we cut out, and all of a sudden, when you just start getting that little bit of, like, oh, hey, I've got $5 left over this month, oh yeah, it kind of becomes addictive, I don't know, of like, what else can I do, how else can I make this grow faster,
Chante Dawston 14:35
yeah, yeah, and that's the thing, too, is like you want to make sure that, like, you put your position yourself in a position to scale. You want to make sure that you know five years from now you're not kind of in the same place and doing the same thing. You know, I understand that you know everyone loves pets and you are loving what you're. Doing, but you want to make sure that you know it's worth it financially to be in this space, and to have the business.
Collin 15:09
So, you have recently come into the industry after 10 years, and you've held your license for 12 years. You said, what makes pet care businesses a little different, I mean, we all know that we're unique, we're kind of the odd ones out in a lot of cases, that's fine, we embrace that, we love that, but what makes us different, or this industry different, than maybe other small businesses that you've, or the businesses that you've seen, or interacted with?
Chante Dawston 15:34
Yeah, so I would say the big difference that I see is that pet care is something that looks simple, like dog walking, like it sounds like a super simple business. Pet sitting, it sounds like a super simple business, but it's not. There's lots of layers and complexity that comes with these businesses from a financial standpoint. You know, you have the seasonality that you have to deal with, you have, you know, different expenses that you need to pay attention to, from, you know, your, like, I said, your employee costs, you have to make sure you have your insurance, which is, you know, really critical in this business when you're dealing with animals, and you never really, really know what's going to happen. I feel like that is something a lot of other industries people can maybe get away with. This service-based industry is not that I recommend it, but you could probably get away with, you know, not having that right away in your business. But for pet care, I would not recommend that at all, like you want to make sure that you have that in place. There's also, you know, things like the people focus, like even though everyone loves pets, and yes, we call it pet care, but there's also the people aspect that you also have to consider in the business, whether it be your employees or your customers. So, you got to kind of think about the expenses that come along with that, like, you know, do you want everyone to wear uniforms, you know, the cost that's going to be associated with that, and then you know the cost associated with doing things for your clients, like, do you want to, you know, recognize your human and pet clients' birthdays as, like, you know, kind of a small token of appreciation. There's just so many things that you guys in the pet space have to consider, because there is just a little more complexity with you dealing with animals, and with you really having two sets of customers, both the pets themselves and the pet parents or pet owners.
Collin 17:57
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Chante Dawston 20:37
Yeah, I definitely recommend doing like a monthly average, so that it's not something that surprises you when that time comes around, and I'm glad that you mentioned budgets, because I think budgets are a tool that don't get used nearly enough. I think we have been conditioned to think about budgets, wrong, it's a bad word,
Collin 21:04
it's a bad word, it
Chante Dawston 21:06
really is, but like we think about it as like, oh, this is kind of a restraint that I have to put on myself, that's not really what a budget should be, a budget is a tool for you to use to figure out how to make the best use of your money, and so I think that is something that we, not just in pet care, just like people in general, both personal lives and business, need to kind of reframe how we think about budgets and how we use them, because they really could be a really good tool for helping you figure out the seasonality in your business, and how to handle that, or you know, seasonality in your personal life that you may need to figure out. It helps you kind of figure out where you can make changes, you know, those subscriptions that you're paying for that you don't need anymore, or that advertising that you're paying for that you meant to stop because you're not getting the benefits, you know, keeping track of a budget really helps you identify those things and puts you in a better place, and then the other thing I'll mention really quickly with budgets is that, like, you don't have to set it and forget it, your budget should be evolving, so you know every month you look at your budget, you compare it to what's actually happening, and if you see things that just aren't incense anymore, then adjust your budget up or down however it needs to move, but you want it to fit with your business
Collin 22:51
on it. It helps give you that long-term view, especially when you can break it out to those monthly averages, and I'm glad that, again, like you, you think that's a good practice, not only because I do it, so I'm like, yay, someone agrees with me, but also because it, it helps, it helps average it out through the thick and the thin months, like that's what for me, like that superpower, or not superpower, like one of the things that you get insights into, of, hey, if I'm always accounting for this, regardless of whether I'm getting a lot of bookings or a little bit of bookings, I can see how I stand, I can see where I am, and then when you go look to make an increase, maybe you want to give a pay raise to an employee, maybe you want to give yourself a pay raise, maybe you want to invest in that marketing, go look at that and see how that's going to adjust the numbers and go forward and go, hey, you know, I know sometimes averages can be a little misleading because it's like, hey, the average looks good, but me and my low month was actually really low, but you got to start somewhere with that. Do you have, like, a number? I know we talked about, you know, PNL and profit, cash balance, all that stuff. Is there, like, one, maybe two numbers that you look at to see, like, oh, this business is is healthy, and or I have some concerns.
Chante Dawston 24:00
Yeah, so I would say profit is kind of one to just start with, if you're starting simple, because that's your cushion between your revenue and expenses, so you can see, like, how much of a cushion you have or don't have, and then obviously, if you have a loss, you know that there's going to be some concern there, but yeah, I would say profit is the kind of baseline of what you can look at to say, like, is this place business like working for me at all? Is
Collin 24:36
that real quick on profit? Sorry, I did want to jump in. Is that, is that just revenue minus expenses, or should I encounter, like, if, if a lot of people may do just like an owner's draw, where they just take money out at random throughout the month? Should we encounter, should we include that as part of expenses when calculating our profit?
Chante Dawston 24:56
Yeah, so or. Service-based businesses, it's going to just be like your revenue minus your expenses that give you your profit, and typically you don't include owner's draws into that. Owner's draws would come after your profit. If you aren't a service-based business, you kind of have two profit numbers that you would look at. You would look at your gross profit, would be your revenue minus your cost of goods sold, which is like the selling of your inventory. And then you would also want to look at net profit, and net profit would take into consideration those other expenses that both your service and your product-based businesses have, but yeah, owners' draws typically you look at that after you have taken your profit.
Collin 25:52
Okay, and sorry, I interrupted you. You were getting ready to go on to talk about something after profit and numbers, so I can't get you that contract there. Sorry, Chante, no,
Chante Dawston 26:00
that's totally okay. The other thing I was going to say, which I mentioned earlier, is equity, which equity would be on your balance sheet, which I think doesn't get enough love in the small business space, but equity is another good number to see, like whether or not you are financially healthy, because that is going to be like the accumulation of your profit over the year or years that you've been in business, depending on like the periods that you're looking at, and your owner's draw typically comes out of your equity.
Collin 26:38
Okay, so that's where we're so talk to us about how what does the accounting look like on that. When you say it's the accumulation of profit over the year or years, do you just look at the past three years and say what was the profit each year and add that up and it should be going up? I guess,
Chante Dawston 26:53
yeah, yeah, you wanted to go up. I mean, it doesn't always have to. You could still be in an okay position, even if your equity number isn't growing, depending on like what kind of investments you're making, and if you, as an owner, decide, like, hey, I want to take most of this, you know, that's not necessarily a wrong thing to do. It kind of just depends on your goals and that kind of thing, but you'll be able to see, like in the equity, whether or not, like it is a true accumulation of profit, or if there's something else that is causing it to be a little on the lower end, so you can see, like, oh yeah, I had, you know, I don't know, let's say 50k in actual equity, and I took 20k as owner's draw, like you would be able to see that, and if you, you know, want an investor to, you know, come on board, or a partner, or you know, even if you're trying to go to the bank, like them being able to see that, like you are able to take money from your business and still have some equity remaining is a really good thing,
Collin 28:20
because that, what, that, when people say, okay, I want to, whatever equity stake in the business. Now we're talking, yep, see, I told you I'd do it. We do hear sometimes where people will say, oh, I'll give you x money for whatever equity stake in your company, and what you're saying is, yeah, that's a percentage of the stuff that's left over after you've taken out your piece and they get x number of dollars out of what's left over, that's their equity stake in your business based off of that negotiation and stuff.
Chante Dawston 28:53
Yeah, so your equity would include pretty much your profit, and then you could take yours and then also give them theirs out of that kind of same pool, it can get kind of complicated with investors and all of that cuff stuff on how you have to look at equity, but just being able to say that you have positive equity is really a good thing and shows that your business is, I would say, fairly stable.
Collin 29:25
Now, I know many of us in running a small business can think of it kind of as a drudgery, and sometimes things are hard. You work with small businesses and business owners every single day. From a financial side of things, what do you see some that are some superpowers that you think everybody should have or has access to.
Chante Dawston 29:48
Yep, so I think the biggest thing that can be a superpower for you in your business on the financial side is consistency. I think when people. People come to think about money, especially in their business. They want to do something that's super complicated, and let's not need it. Like, if you can spare 15 minutes a week to start looking at your numbers, like that in itself will start to move things forward, you'll start to get a better understanding of what's happening, be able to make better decisions, so it doesn't, it doesn't take a lot, and I think that's the thing that people go into it kind of with a fear mindset and kind of work themselves into overwhelm when it's just like just be consistent. Just say I'm going to set a money date with my business every week, and I'm going to spend 15 minutes, you know, looking at these numbers. Like, you don't even have to really do anything. Just pull up your bank statement and make sure that you know there's nothing that's going out of your account that you aren't aware of, make sure that the income that you're expecting to see is there, like something as simple as that can start moving you in the right direction. That is consistency, I think, is a big superpower.
Collin 31:17
Well, and you touched on fear around opening that bank statement or getting into some software, there. Where does that fear come from?
Chante Dawston 31:28
I think just accounting has gotten kind of a bad rep, and people just feel like, unless you are an expert in some kind of financial field that you can't do things around money that you're going to mess it up, and I don't know, I don't know if like it's a societal thing in the US or like what, but most people that I meet just have this like fear that they are income incompetent when it comes to doing those things, and I mean, obviously, there are things that you're not going to know if it's not like a field that you've studied and everything like that, but it's not one of those things that has to be overly complicated or overwhelming, especially when you're starting out, you can just do simple things to start to learn and to be able to have some grasp on what's going on.
Collin 32:31
My money date is Mondays, I get to have that on my schedule, where sit down, look at the previous week, and apply categories, make sure everything's up to date, because boy, howdy, right before tax time is not the time trying to categorize all of your expenses for the year, because that's fun. I learned that my first year, that's not going to be that bad. It was horrible. So now I'll just go through and click a couple buttons, and, and what's nice about that, at least, is you start to feel kind of the pulse of your business, and it's a much more real-time interaction, I think. Most of it, myself included, when I had my job, and I didn't run a business, the only time I thought about, like, the overarching finances thing was at tax time, where I begrudgingly pulled paperwork out from a shoe box and threw them into a folder, and then kind of fumbled my way through, and it was horrible and awful, and a terrible bad day. Now I'm a business owner, and I bring that same mindset into it, and only once a year, when I'm panicking and trying to hit a deadline, do I look at the numbers, fret, and freak out. Instead, you, it just makes the whole situation a lot more calm. If it's like, hey, I got it, I'm going to do it Monday, and it takes 10 minutes now to get done. Click, click, click, click, done. Run a P and L. Okay, good. Let's move on. And now come tax time, now come big decision time. Well, it's kind of like just being a little bit more up to date. Hey, can I afford that? Well, I looked at my numbers on Monday. Yeah, I can, or nope, I can't. I need to wait on that, and it increases that feedback loop just so much quicker.
Chante Dawston 34:06
Yeah, it definitely does. And I'm glad that you talked about, you know, being calmer, because I don't think people realize, like, they're putting a lot of stress on themselves by waiting, and if you do that 15 week, or even if you say no, I can't look at this every week, or I don't want to look at this every week. Then do monthly, give yourself an hour each month to look at, you know, the previous month, and make sure everything gets categorized correctly. Make sure there's nothing crazy that happened, because if you wait six months, or you wait a year, you can't really make any adjustments to correct what has happened, so the time just had it's moved too fast for you, and it's too far gone for you to do anything about it, especially when it comes to, you know, tax time, like there's very few things that you can do after. The year to help your tax situation. If you wait until like February to start looking at things, like,
Collin 35:07
yeah, yeah. Oh, I needed to do that six months ago, because I know we tried to do that one year. Was like, oh man, I actually need.. how do I bring down my tax bill? Well, it's too late now. We're in the new year. I can't spend 20, you know, the year before of money to bring down that I just have to eat that and now make that moving forward, or whatever. You know, that's a little bit of a different discussion, but it gives you some heads up, gives you some runway to work with, and you know, I know a lot of business owners have this feeling of I'm really busy, so I must be financially okay. How do you tease those two things apart?
Chante Dawston 35:44
So, yeah, being busy does not mean that you're in a good place financially. Being busy probably means that your revenue is pretty consistent, or you know that your revenue is a pretty high number, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're in a good financial place, because your expenses could be, you know, pretty consistent with your revenue, and so your margins are really thin, and you're not really making any money, you're just staying above order, so that's why it's really, you know, important to see the whole picture and know exactly what is happening, because you really want to make sure that you have that cushion that you figured out how to have, you know, higher revenue while keeping your expenses relatively low.
Collin 36:42
I mean, just a simple,
Chante Dawston 36:43
that's the sweet spot,
Collin 36:44
just a simple one. The more visits I have, the more driving I have to do, the more driving I have to do, the more gas and wear and tear I have on my car. Now I go, I know those are two separate things, expenses and how you track them, but like, if you track gas, hey, there you go, if you track mileage, the more you drive, the more mileage you're going to have, so that's an expense that increases with the busyness. If you have a team of employees, the more busy they are, the more visits they're doing. So too does your labor cost rise, and like we were saying, if you don't have that margin in the beginning, just growing, just increasing the number of visits doesn't mean anything for the bottom line, if costs are also going up with the revenue, and that's
Chante Dawston 37:25
right,
Collin 37:25
that really is a danger zone, where suddenly it's like, oh man, I got to grow because I got to pay all this stuff, but if I don't have my costs under control, wait, I'm double the business, why are I, why am I not making any more money? Well, your costs went up along with it too.
Chante Dawston 37:42
Yeah, it may be that you need to look at reducing your cost, but it also could just be that you need to adjust pricing. I think that's something that pulls people back. They're like, "Oh, I don't want to scare my customers away, and that kind of thing. And I get it, you know, that is something that you have to be kind of cognizant of, especially in pet care, because certain things are the first to go when you know things are tight for people, so they may say, "Hey, like I'm not going to get my dog walked every day, but every other day instead, so I get it, like you have to, you know, make sure that you're maintaining a good balance with pricing, but I think people are a little more afraid to squeeze that trigger and increase pricing than they need to be. Your customers will accept, you know, $1 here and the dollar there, and it's just something that you have to do, like inflation is real, you know. Today's dollar is not the dollar five years ago, you just can't afford to not adjust prices occasionally.
Collin 38:58
How do we stop losing clients before they even call your website isn't just a place to list your services, it's where potential clients decide if you're the one to solve their problem or not. If your website's hard to use, confusing, or just doesn't feel like you, you're probably losing bookings without even realizing it. That's where Pet Marketing Unleashed comes in, their website templates are built specifically for pet sitters and dog walkers, and they're strategic, they're modern, and they're easy to customize. They even come with an accompanying course to walk you through step by step through customizing your templates, writing your website copy, and optimizing your SEO settings. Visit Pet Marketing unleashed.com and use the code PSC 15 to get 15% off your website templates. That was a big hurdle mentally for Megan and I to get over in our business, because for years it was, well, I can raise more prices, I can raise my prices because I'm more. Valuable as a service, I'm more experienced, I bring more to the table, I've learned things, and they're kind of reached this point where now I'm raising prices. Yes, because I still believe that we're more valuable because of all those things, but I'm also increasing prices to account for rising business costs, labor costs, and I'm having to come over here and turn the dollar dial more than I was comfortable with, because I remember the first time we did an increase where I'm like, I don't think I'm walking the dogs any better, but my expenses went up, and I have to continue to pay my team well, and I have to pay for more expensive insurance, I have to, I've got to turn this dial, it was a weird that was weird for me, because I thought I'm not bringing any more value, so how can I possibly raise prices, but I've got to in order to sustain my company, which is just a different kind of, like, I felt like a complete outsider of my business in that moment, making that decision, it was, it was weird for me, Chante.
Chante Dawston 41:02
Yeah, no, I believe it. And I think a lot of people struggle with that, you know. People want to make sure that they're being fair, you know. You guys have pretty close relationships with a lot of your clients, you know. You're in an industry where people have to trust you, they're trusting you with, you know, their animals, which is super important to them, so you definitely want to make sure that you're maintaining that trust and that relationship, but sometimes you just, you just have to do it, and it doesn't have to be like, oh, like I go up $5 on every service right away like you can stagger things, you can, you know, say I'm going to do, you know, $2 for three months and see how it goes, and then you know go up again in six months, or you know, something like that, like it doesn't have to be an all-at-once type of thing, and then you can notify your customers ahead of time, like, you know, hey, this is where things are, you know, gas prices are going up, or, you know, the state has adjusted the minimum wage, you know, let them know what you're thinking about, what's driving that increases, and people are generally understanding, I mean, they're living in the same world that you're living in, so they know you know what's happening, and I think now more than ever, I would say, like, we are realizing the impact of inflation. I feel like more people outside of the financial space are starting to understand, like, what that actually means and how it impacts all of our everyday lives, and inflation is a real thing that you have to be like, even if no other factors changed in your business, inflation is still going to be there and going to be impacting the value of your dollar, so that kind of gives you a reason to adjust the price, you know, at least every other year. I
Collin 43:08
know we talked about raising prices just now, maybe from a tax perspective, and kind of planning it out there. Where do you see most pet care businesses leaving money on the table come tax time and planning time,
Chante Dawston 43:23
yeah, so I think the biggest thing that I see is people not doing any tax planning. I think, like, you leave money on the table just by like completely ignoring that opportunity, not realizing that like you need to like understand the things that you can do to like reduce costs, whether it be like tracking your mileage. I know a lot of people are like, "Oh yeah, I need to track it, but you know, I don't always like it's super simple. Now you can get apps that you put on your phone, click the button, and it does most of the work for you, so it's not being aware of what's actually available to you. I think is the biggest thing, and then I would say in pet space, some people have the opportunity to like actually reduce their costs using their pet in their business, so you can have it be what is called a working animal, and a lot of people don't do that, and that can actually be something that helps you reduce your cost, and it could be like taking them to photo shoots that you're doing for your company, or you know, like you mentioned earlier, having events, so if you're, you know, bringing your dog or cat, as you know, your mascot to these events, then they are a working animal, and you could write off those costs, so I think there's a lot of like little new. Consequences within the tax code that you could potentially use to your benefit that a lot of people don't know about, because one, they're not a tax expert, but also they aren't doing like any basic research to kind of figure out what potentially could benefit them.
Collin 45:18
Well, and the internet is a fantastic place for wonderful advice. Everybody has an opinion on things, so research.. I
Chante Dawston 45:26
mean, going to the IRS.
Collin 45:29
Oh, you mean going to the.. Oh, I heard it in a Facebook group, Chante. It's fine. I could.. it's..
Chante Dawston 45:37
I will say, like Chat GPT, like, if you know how to use it, it could actually provide you some decent information, but, like, you got to make sure you tell it, like, 'Hey, go to the IRS website and look for XYZ, and then share with me the source, like, you have to be very detailed and intentional if you're going to use Chat GPT, as though I don't knock AI. I think there's a lot of good stuff with AI, a lot of benefits, but we've got to know how to use the AI correctly for you to give us the information that we need.
Collin 46:20
Well, I was going to touch back on the mileage aspect, because that is a pretty daunting thing. Of, oh my gosh, you want me to commit to 365 days of pressing and unpressing a button. I think what's important to note there, and correct me if I'm wrong, Chante, of even if you don't do it 100% of the time, you can still take out an account for the parts that you did track, which is still better than zero, right? As long as we're not, as long as we're not some, you know, trying to deduct miles that I don't have verification for, that's where things get dicey. If, if, if I only have, if I only track 30% of my miles, why, why would I not go ahead and just, you know, deduct that as well, instead of going, "Well, I don't know, I didn't get 100% so it's not worth it, kind of thing.
Chante Dawston 47:03
Yeah, and if you, if you're like, I'm absolutely not going to track miles, then that's fine. But track your vehicle expenses, make sure you're keeping those records, so keep the, you know, gas receipts, keep your insurance receipts, all of that type of stuff, because you, that's one of the things where you can do either or, like you can track your mileage and get the bank for that, or you can just track your vehicle expenses and get that as a reduction. So, if you are, like, you know what, it's just going to be easier for me to just track my vehicle expenses, which a lot of people are using accounting software, and that kind of thing, that actually does make that pretty easy. Then just decide to go with vehicle expenses, but you need to make sure that you are accurate in one or the other, and I would say with vehicle expenses, you don't want to just track gas, like that's not the only thing that qualifies as a vehicle expense, which I have found a lot of people kind of just want to look at the gas as their vehicle expense and be done with it, which I mean, if that's really what you want, that's fine, but that's not all that's allowed from the IRS, so I would get some clarity about that and make sure that I'm tracking everything, because you want to save as much as you can. You want to legally deduct what is allowed, like I know a lot of people, myself included, complain about the IRS and having to pay taxes, but the fact is that it's not something that we can change, and there are a lot of ways for you to reduce your tax expense
Collin 48:50
and just get started somewhere, I think is a big thing, and as your company grows, I'm sure, how does that, how does it change our approach to this, you know, if I went from 250 or you know, if I doubled in size, how do I start? Do I need to do things differently as my business scales and grows?
Chante Dawston 49:09
Yep, so as you scale and grow, you definitely want to make sure that you have some kind of structure in place to, you know, manage your finances. I think it's much easier for, you know, a solo business to kind of wing it, so to speak, than it is for someone who's, you know, got five employees. You gotta make sure that you have structure when you know there's other people involved in your business, or if you are, you know, creeping up to where you are crossing certain, you know, thresholds from a tax perspective, you know, they do phase out a lot of deductions after certain amounts, so you may want. Consider, like, no longer being an LLC, and be taxed as an S corp. They're just, you just need the structure in place to know what your numbers are, and so you can kind of figure out from there exactly how you can manage things, and not just from a tax perspective, but just like your, your cost in general, you want to make sure that you know the numbers, so that you can figure things out, because, like, we've talked before, like, your revenue could be increasing, but if your costs are also increasing, it's not, you know, helping you as much as you may think it is, and you also just want to, you know, figure out what opportunities are out there, because, as you know, you know, there's opportunities to exit, you know, somebody likely would want to buy your business, and especially in the pet space now, like, there's a lot of those big private equity and all of those type of people that are really starting to attention to this industry, and you may say, "Hey, you know, I've been doing this for 1015 years, and I'm thinking that, you know, it's time to do something else, or it's time to go hang out on the beach. You know, if you don't know your numbers and you can't present that to someone else, then that's much more unlikely to happen for you, so as you scale, it's just really good to have a structure in place, like you can't wing it when you're making 500k or you're making a million dollars, like
Collin 51:40
no,
Chante Dawston 51:41
you got it. You got to have some kind of stroke.
Collin 51:43
Well, so it may
Chante Dawston 51:44
be that you just say, like, I don't want to deal with this, and you hire a professional, and you just, you know, talk to them every so often, and make sure that things are okay, and that they are keeping on top of things, and that you still have that understanding of what's going on, but you know it may just be time for you to be more hands off when you get to those larger places, but you just want to make sure there's some kind of structure and that someone is managing your finances
Collin 52:12
well. So, someone is listening to this now, and they're either behind, haven't started, where should they start? And I'd also like it, Chante, if you could maybe provide a couple softwares or tracking systems that you'd recommend people at least begin with,
Chante Dawston 52:30
so if you are behind, I would say start with figuring out when you can commit to reviewing, like you talked about Mondays being your day, like find a day where you know that you have the little bit of extra time and commit to doing something, like even if it's just opening your bank statement and reviewing it, like start building that muscle and that habit of looking at your finances, and once you build that habit, you can kind of move into doing more detailed reviews, and you know, making sure that you're updating everything, but I would just say start with building a habit to set aside, you know, the 15 minutes, the 30 minutes, whatever it is that you can commit and do something. Look at your bank statement. If you are using a tool like QuickBooks, and you're like, "Oh, I hate QuickBooks, go in for 30 minutes and you know categorize a few things, write down some questions that you have, and then the next time that you're sitting down, reach out to the support team and say, okay, like, I need xyz answered, so that I can move on, you know, just, you know, what, what is it like, bite the elephant one piece at a time, or kind of, whatever that saying is, but you want to make sure that you do small things, don't feel like you have to do everything all at once,
Collin 54:08
and maybe we are using QuickBooks. Are there any alternatives that you see, know, and like, or suggest people to start with?
Chante Dawston 54:15
Yep, so Wave is actually one. So this is probably bad for me to say, because I'm a QuickBooks, like, certified pro advisor, so that's the tool that, like, I'm most comfortable with. Sure, um, but I think Wave is a really good tool for starting out when you're in a service-based business, and especially if you don't have any employees, because it's the one that I found to be the most user-friendly, and that the one that was really built from a small business owner lens. Xero is another tool that's really good. It's a little more similar to. Through QuickBooks, and I think with Xero and QuickBooks, although they are, you know, great tools, there's a lot that you can do with both of those, but I think those are built for people who have a little bit more of a handle on finances, and you know, just have a little bit more better understanding of how to manage business finances. I think those are tools that, even though they say, like any small business owner can use it, it's actually better for, like, a bookkeeper or accountant or CPA. Like, it's built kind of with those people who have that basic understanding already in mind, and then honestly, like, if you're just starting out and you just have a box of receipts and things like go old school and use a spreadsheet, there's nothing wrong with, you know, using Excel or Google, or whatever it is, it's just tracking income on one sheet, expenses on the other, and doing it that way, just, you know, you have to figure out what works for you.
Collin 56:14
Yeah, and I think it's okay to play around with some of these tools and figure out, because it's not just because now, sure, there are some transition costs going from one to the other, but I think it's worth it to have a little bit of that pain in the beginning, as opposed to being afraid of never starting, and you sign up for all three, right, and kind of import all of your stuff, click a couple buttons, and then see, oh man, you know what, sometimes it may be as simple as this one's just way more intuitive for me to use, I should go with that one, and find where you don't, because you can limit that amount of friction that you have, like if you open something up, and every time you just go, or it's confusing, you'll just slowly not open it up month after month.
Chante Dawston 56:55
Yeah, yeah, you'll talk yourself right out of it, and most of these tools, Wave is generally free, unless you like want something like super complicated, and then Xero and QuickBooks offer like discounts for, you know, the first three months or something like that. So, there are, you know, ways to save, so that you have time to play around and figure out what really works for you,
Collin 57:24
Chante. I really want to thank you for coming on the show today, and encouraging us to just get started, start asking some questions, and really take control back of our business, so we know what's going on, so we can make those good decisions. I know that taxes and finances and business stuff is - it's a big topic, some people even dedicate their entire career to them, like you. So, if people want to get connected, pick your brain, or you know, just learn more. How best can they do that with you?
Chante Dawston 57:51
You can reach out to me on my website, it's C Squared accounting.com I'm also on LinkedIn, and I have an Instagram account for my business, which is C Squared Accounting. So, there are various ways that you can find me, and Collin has my information, so you can always reach out and connect with me through there. Yes,
Collin 58:20
and I will have those links to your website and Instagram and everything, so people can get connected right away, so they can pick your brain and follow along and see how giant your dog is, because that's always a fun and shocking thing. Chante, I want to thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you,
Chante Dawston 58:47
thank you for having me. I have enjoyed it, and I hope that this has helped someone.
Collin 58:52
My favorite part of my conversation with Chante was when she said that the biggest superpower in your business is consistency. You know, we talk about consistency when it comes to the kind of care that we provide, especially when we have a team. Be consistent. How do you consistently perform and be at the same level and be excellent? Consistency isn't flashy. It doesn't feel like a breakthrough strategy that we've just freshly discovered and can now take over the world, but when it comes to our finances, it really is the most powerful habit that we can make. We don't need to do hours of analysis or have a finance degree to start understanding our business. We just need to show up regularly, find a consistent time, even 15 minutes a week can completely change not just how you see your numbers, but how you understand the fundamentals of your business. It's about that, building awareness, so that we can build confidence, so that we can lead to better decisions. So, if you've been avoiding you. Your numbers, you don't have to overhaul everything today or tonight, just show up for a little bit tomorrow, and then the next day, and the next day. Let the habit do the heavy lifting. As a reminder, this episode is eligible for one CEU. So now that you've listened, click the link in the show notes and get that today. We want to thank our sponsors today, Critter and Pet Marketing Unleash, for making this show possible. And we really want to thank you, dear listener, for being here. We hope you have a fantastic rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon,
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