Kelly Reynolds  

Hello, and welcome to the Get your act together podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Reynolds. And today, we have another episode of the agency series.

 

Laura Kelly  

I would love to introduce you to Laura Kelly. Hello, Laura. Hello. I'm still on this phone thing. I'm so excited.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I am so excited. I'm Laura here today. We have been chatting back and forth about this episode. More tell the good people all about you and your business. Okay,

 

Laura Kelly  

well, I'm Laura Kelly. I am the owner and CEO of Tula books. So we are a bookkeeping agency, which might be a little, you know, ah, well, not odd. But you know, you'd normally think of agencies, I feel like it's, you know, marketing or a VA agency or whatever. And it was funny, Kelly, because I actually DM you when you were like putting out your offer for like, Oh, I'm trying to interview agency folks. I'm like, I think I'm an agency. I don't know. Because I feel like in my industry, like people don't usually say bookkeeping agency, but when I was like, thinking about it more, and I've been around that term now more like I'm like, Yeah, I'm an agency. So I'm excited to be here. I'll be sharing more about that. But yeah, so I started toolbox. Well, actually, funny story. I've had this LLC for like, 13 years, I started Moonlighting, doing like QuickBooks help, like 13 years ago for one client, and I created the LLC, I created the name back then. And then fast forward to just a couple years ago, when I was actually in a spot to really start a business and be an entrepreneur. The name still made sense. And I can talk about what where the name came from, but the name still made sense. And I was, so I just rolled it forward. And so I've been excited now to actually make total books that thing is not to love books is my full time gig. No longer working full time. Thank God for other people. So yeah, so I've been building this small business bookkeeping agency, if you will. So I do have a team. So we'll be talking about that in this episode. But I love what I do. I love who we serve, it just lights me up so much more than in my full time career that I came from. So anyway, it's not sure if that was a great bio. We'll be talking more as we go forward.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

So I love it. I love it. And yeah, I love the fact that it's a book you begin to see like it's a different kind of agency. Right? So how, why isn't it? Why are you an agency? Like why are you not just a bookkeeper?

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah. Okay, so I guess. So let's start with when I really started taking toolbook seriously as an entrepreneur. So I had just left my full time job. And same as you Kelly, I had just gone through a due diligence period, I had helped the company that was I was working for full time to get acquired, and I was managing. So I was their VP of Finance. So I was the point person, I was the paperwork out, I did all the numbers, all the due diligence, pulling all the documentation. And also I was eight months pregnant. At the end, it was crazy. It was like I end with my firstborn. And so I had my baby shower. And literally the next day was the closing. So you can imagine just how crazy and hairy that all was. It was.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I don't know how you did that. Like looking back at the last this summer. I can't imagine being eight months pregnant going through.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, it was a thing. But you know what, it was kind of interesting, because like, everyone knew, I was like busting my ass. You know, and obviously everybody knows pregnant. So I was like, You know what, they're just thinking, just give me a free pass, like one evening or something. Like, I was like, Oh, they feel bad for me. Like, this is a really good spot to do it, you know, because normally they don't feel bad for you. They're just like, oh, just suck it up. Just hustle, you know. But I was like, No, I'm pregnant. I got it all done. And any ends, I actually up until the closing, I still didn't even know if I was going to get full time childcare for my daughter and then go back to work. Like, I didn't even know. But once I found out the really nice bonus check that I got from all of that, like once the calculations were done, and it was good because I was part of the leadership team, right. So I had like stock options off the wazoo and whatever. When I knew like the bonus check, I was gonna get I was like peace, you know, like, a year Hey, can this work? Yeah, we looked at our personal finances in between savings and that nice bonus check. Like we could have carried my like, without my salary for a year. So I was like, you know, what, what the heck, I've never taken time off. Let's do this. And I wanted to, you know, do the stay at home mom thing. And so yeah, that felt so. So I did do that. I did that for a couple months. And then I started getting requests from, you know, some of my old corporate contacts, mainly the company that I had just come from, but they were like, Laura, you're, you're not doing anything like, why don't you do some hourly work for us? It's like, well, actually, I'm trying to raise a child here. Uh, but no, of course, like, I was excited to kind of just do something a little different through my like, use your brain again.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, right? Like a smart person, right? Instead of just someone who cleans up like, Puke everywhere.

 

Laura Kelly  

All the things babies do. Exactly, yeah. So like three months in, I kind of had my bearings. So I was like, yeah, maybe I could get a sitter like, a couple hours here and there and like, help them out. So it started there. And so toolbook started as a really like an hourly virtual CFO situation. And then I started getting more requests, like they put more on my plate, I got in touch with some other contacts, they had other gigs for me. So within, I think, a period of probably about a year to a year and a half, I had, we actually decided to put my daughter into daycare, and I was doing full time hourly CFO, and I was killing it. I wasn't making bank, you know, I was making more than my full time salary. Because you know, like a consultant rate, like I was able to hourly, like so Anyways, that was really sweet. But like, pretty quickly into that I realized, first of all, that's not scalable, right? Because there's only so many hours and like, did I want to have to constantly worry about, well, what if one of these big retainer clients cycles off? And I have to find another one? And what's that new project going to be? And I don't know, I just want that worry and stress and like, everything had to be on me. And like, if I got sick for a week, I would I do, you know, and I'm sure a lot of the folks you've been talking to, like have that kind of situation. And that's why they moved to more of this agency style model. So when I was thinking about the business, so also during this time, I was getting some requests for like small business, bookkeeping. And I was like, Well, I can't charge my hourly CFO rate to do bookkeeping. So I got this idea. I had a friend of mine that I worked with that that last company, she was Her time was kind of about to wrap up there, like she was going to be cycling off. And she was a part time person there. And I thought, gosh, what if I brought her on to the tool box umbrella? She could do the work because she was kind of like an accounting clerk kind of person. You know, what if she could serve as the small business clients also keep the CFO stuff? You know, we'll see how that goes. Like maybe like half time I can do that. And then the other half, I can try and build this bookkeeping thing. So I you can guess the rest was history, like I ended up cycling out a lot more of that CFO stuff and just move towards bringing on a team of bookkeepers, which I have three now. And we serve as about 15 monthly clients. And so now, this is now the full time thing. And I, I really don't have much a CFO stuff going on, it's really just kind of like add on packages to my monthly clients that I have. And of course, that pivot didn't happen overnight. I mean, that's been really that's been over the last year and a half, probably. But that's kind of all transitioned. And

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I think that's really important to mention, too, because a lot of people think, Oh, I have a new offer, and I'm just gonna fill my books with it, or I'm gonna change everything today. And I think like, Yeah, that's great that you said that, because things have to change, and you still have to pay for things and you know, feed your kids and that, yeah, it's not overnight people.

 

Laura Kelly  

No, no. And of course, like, at the time, when I got like, sick of doing the CFO stuff, I wanted to burn it to the ground and make it so that it was the right change. But I really had to sit on my hands and say, Okay, this is going to be a slow transition, we will get there. And I, I love the way it ended up happening. So it was awesome. And I love it, it is a lot less profitable, right? So I'm sure we're gonna have kind of get into that like outer the ticky tacky numbers and stuff. Because of course, before I was charging hourly, and everything was going to me and now I have all these software and you know, I have team and like, so it's it's different. But now it can be infinitely scalable, truly. So that's where the excitement for me comes in is like, Okay, I'm at a certain revenue and profit level now, but I can really take it somewhere, I just need to, again, sit on my hands, and kind of wait and just let let the clients come and just allow it to scale over time.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Alright, so let's go into those numbers. Because I'm always fascinated by numbers, your numbers, girls. And I love the talk of it. Because I think so many people get into agencies, they do not charge what they're supposed to, or they don't charge enough to cover all the things and then they make $0 Or they make $1 for everything that's going on. And they're managing and they're working on these hours. So how do you kind of structure this, like, how do you? I mean, you can tell the numbers, if you don't have to tell your real numbers if you don't want to? How do you structure the pay for the people? How do you structure what clients are doing? Like how does the money of it all work? And how do you figure out how to make a profit on it off? Oh, I have a lot of one question.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, it's a big question. And it like we've been saying it's really evolved over time. I did not have an answer for that. When I started out. I kind of had an idea like I knew what I was going to be paying my bookkeepers a certain hourly rate. So then I kind of just came up with it. An equivalent hourly rate that I would want to charge the client that I thought, okay, if which I do monthly packages, so I don't charge hourly. But I bake into the package, like an assumed amount of hours that we're going to put into that. And, you know, we have written into our contracts that we can, you know, review scope every, you know, three, six months or whatever. So if it turned out that it was over scope of what I kind of anticipated, we can go back and reprice. 

 

Kelly Reynolds  

That's a great thing, because people think they get locked into something for the rest of their lives. And they're working 40 hours when they thought 20. And yeah, that's great.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, totally. And also, we we've been working with some proposal software that we use, that really kind of breaks down very in detail, like, you get x number of transactions, this is supporting you up to x amount of annual revenue. So like when any of those levers really materially change for the client, we can go back and reprice because we can say, well, your revenue has doubled. Of course, our bookkeeping is going to increase, because that just brings more complexity, you know, brings more transactions, it brings more, you know, maybe we need to do journal entries now, and we didn't have to before whatever it is like the work grows as the business Yeah. So. So that, but But it took us a while to get there, too. But yeah, so I kind of just came up with again, like, what would those profit margins look like, if I pay my bookkeepers x and I charge the client y approximately per hour. So that's usually kind of what I shoot for. And now I'm trying to kind of grow that hourly rate a little bit with clients as I go for it, because we're actually we're adding more layers, which means the clients are getting more value like now we actually have usually two bookkeepers on their account. And originally, it was just one person servicing them. And now we've got like, you know, our core bookkeeper that's doing the main transaction entry stuff, and now we've got someone who's really doing that oversight piece, and then they still have access to me too. So like, they're getting nuts a lot. Yeah, they're getting more so. So the way I kind of gut check it now, because it's really hard to get into the nitty gritty to see like, what everybody's profit margin is per hour and whatnot. But what I like to do is just look at, okay, what was my top line revenue, and then what am I paying my team, and I try to keep that into, I try to keep the team costs between like, 30 to 35% of my top line revenue, and then I kind of know, I'm in a good spot, like, that's a good metric for us to kind of keep track of, and some clients, you know, the team costs are gonna be more than 30%. But then other ones, they might be lower, because maybe we've just gotten really efficient with it, or whatever it is. So like, they do kind of balance each other out with their not every client is just 30%, you know, gap. So, but I think

 

Kelly Reynolds  

like having that notion in your head, because you have to pay your team, you've got to pay for all the software, right? All that doing books, makes it need software, and you know, you have to do all the things to make money as the manager of the team and the owner of the business and taking the risk and all that stuff. So I think those are, that's something I think I say in every podcast listeners, is that you have to get paid for these things. This is not the it's not charity. If it was it was just be called a hobby. But like, that's a big thing to me, I want to make sure people know that they have to pay things, and then get money to pay their families or their bills and things like that. Do you have How do you pay your people? Is that a retainer as well? Do they get? Like if you're if they you're on a package with a client? Do you pay them like a flat kind of package rate as well? Are you paying them hourly? Are you paying them?

 

Laura Kelly  

So they're all employees?

 

Kelly Reynolds  

So totally?

 

Laura Kelly  

I know I know. There's lots of ways to skin a cat. Yeah. But you know, when I was starting this out something about the contractor saying just, I just didn't like it. I like when I brought on Janine, my lead bookkeeper, she's the gal that worked with me in my last full time job. So she's been with me the longest, I've known her the longest. Yeah, we've gotten to know each other for like six years. When I brought her on it, it never made sense to be a contractor. Like she was always just going to be a part time employee, you know. So she, she tracks her hours, and then we pay her hourly. And she kind of has a target of like, the number of hours per week she wants to get out and she normally lands right around that. So then I can kind of budget for that. So then it's like, well, how many you know, I then I just need to make sure that I'm filling her with the right amount of clients on her plate to make those numbers make sense. You know what I mean? Yeah. So but you know, I do understand it might be simpler. If I had a flat retainer and then a flat payment, then you always are guaranteed that your profit margins are there.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

But I think it depends on the work though. Like if you're doing a monthly thing where you're, it's like a monthly maintenance, you're doing things every month, you kind of can see the scope of it. It's not like you're coming in and saying oh, I don't know what I'm gonna do like right you need either a limit of hours or you need scope in some way. So if you have that scope, I think like you, that seems pretty reasonable to me.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, yeah. What you're doing? Yeah. So I guess there is some risk there. And that's where we have gotten into some issue with clients where we have almost been underwater because I just way underestimated the scope, you know. And that was actually before I had that proposal software that really helped us price like line item by line. And if I had quoted that client, you know, a year ago with that software, they would have been paying triple.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Oh, my goodness, what software is

 

Laura Kelly  

that? It was it was so early. So we use a program called Go proposal, and it's specifically for our industry is for bookkeepers. And that's really cool. Yeah. So like, it has a price point for like, transaction limits, number of bank accounts the client has, what's their annual revenues, like those types of like big markers and stuff. And that's great for us, too, because we also, like every package has to be so custom. Because, yeah, based bookkeeping, that includes the same types of things. But then like some folks, they want us to manage their accounts payable, they want us to manage their payroll. There's lots of other add ons. So for our industry, you know, I did try using dubsado. And like some of those types of tools, but it just, I was having to customize it so much. And we'd go proposal, I just say yep, they want payroll, they want AP, they want you know, 1099, management, whatever, and we just tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then it generates a price best thing ever.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

So it sounds amazing. I can't make it work. You know, like, I love systems, and I love learning new tech, but for some reason it's such a block in my head that I just refused. Like, I can't make it work. So that yeah, this this thing sounds awesome. Especially like you're ticking all those boxes. And like, Yes, I do all the things. I've done 1099. So yeah. And I love that you are pricing it for what they are getting, not just oh, well, I'm doing bookkeeping, like, No, these are the services you're going to get this is the price for those services. This is the scope. And I think that is so important, especially, it's important for any business. But I think it's so important for agencies, because you need to know what's going on, you need to be able to schedule that work out for the team. And I think it's way less chaos than, hey, we just have to do some work today. Right? Like, who's going to do all this stuff? I don't know what's going to happen. Like, you know, raise your hand, if you can do something today. Like, that becomes a lot of chaos. And I think that's a lot more management. So if you can be, you know, kind of having these, these packages where you know, what's going to happen? And you can schedule that out a little bit better. I mean, how are you dealing with capacity? Are you at the point now, where you kind of you can figure out what the packages are to know how many people should be on that thing? Or how many clients, one of your bookkeepers can handle like, how do you figure out who gets the capacity? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I think

 

Laura Kelly  

that's we're kind of at that inflection point now where we're really going to need to get a handle on that. Like, I've had these three team members now. Well, the newest one, I think she just joined BNI this year, so she's going on almost like eight, nine months with us now. But the other two have been with me like over a year like since I've really pivoted into this like bookkeeping world. So it's just it's just kind of worked out that like new clients come in. It's like, oh, Janine, do you have the capacity for another one? Okay, great. So it's just been like, Yeah, can we can we add to your plate, but I think we're finally getting to that point where it's like, especially now that I've put that structure in place where we've got our core bookkeeper, and our lead bookkeeper, like, that's a new that was new for us in the last couple months. And that's been working out really, really great. So now the tricky part is gonna be like, Okay, well, the lead bookkeeper could probably handle more accounts than the core because the core person is doing like, really, most of the giving away things like work transaction stuff, that kind of thing. So now I'm gonna have to figure out like, well, how many can the lead have versus the core? So I might need to have like two cores for every one lead. So now it's like a whole new world. So I will say, I don't have all that figured out right now. But I probably will need to hire maybe a, a core person. Maybe in q4, if we onboard a couple of new clients. Now. We might be in that spot. So but yeah, it's gonna be interesting.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Because I'm always interested in that, because we have, I have a long term team, right? Like everyone, the newest person was March two people in March, because I like to interview them. But other than that, everyone's been here for a long time. And they kind of know what they got to do. Like, we can figure it out. They have their own clients that so I don't have any master plan of like, checking how many hours everyone has each week and like, I'm always kind of curious as to how other people do that because I haven't had to do that yet. To any grand plan. So it's more everyone kind of handles stuff.

 

Laura Kelly  

Like that is exactly where we are right now. Like yes, we all know everything that's going on. Yeah, like I said, with the switch to do the core and the lead, like that kind of shifted things, and now we're kind of letting the dust settle on that. And we implemented another software. So I guess our because we'll probably get to this in our conversation anyway. So I'll just bring it up our project management tool that we're, we've shifted to, because we were using Asana, like we had projects in Asana that had, you know, templated, like recurring tasks, like, you know, download the bank transactions and download statements, and blah, blah, blah. But we have since moved to a, again, another specific tool in our industry, it's called keeper. And it is amazing. We are obsessed with it. We just started doing this over the last month. And it's, it's meant for our industry. So all of the recurring tasks like are already in there. And it pulls in reports from QuickBooks, we can make changes to transactions innkeeper and integrates it back to QuickBooks. I mean, it's just like, Heck with Asana. Like, as long as outta here, I

 

Kelly Reynolds  

get that. I'm like, this is like, nerd level. And I love it.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah. I'm like, This is so awesome. I know. The efficiency is like, Oh, it is just it's so great. And it gives all of us the visibility to see. Okay, like, where's everybody out with their July close? Like, who have we close out? Who are we still working on like, and then oh, and we it also has like a client portal. So we can actually take transactions from their books that we need clarity on? I'm sure you're familiar with this, like, I need a receipt, who's this vendor? Like, you know, what is this for? It's a new, what

 

Kelly Reynolds  

did you buy?

 

Laura Kelly  

Exactly. So then we post those up into their client portal, and they can log into it either on their desktop or their phone. And then they provide comments, and then it goes back to us. And then we can update the transaction in innkeeper in it. Oh, it's

 

Kelly Reynolds  

just it's already in the cell right now. I don't I mean, I don't know that I need it, really. But I want it because it seems cool. This is what happens. This is like nerd level, because it's like 11 o'clock, and I'm like, I'm gonna go look that sucker up. Go to bed, go to bed. But now I'm like, that sounds really cool. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Like those random transactions that you're like, I don't know what you bought. And they're like, Oh, it's on Amazon. I'm like, I know, you buy a lot of things. You gotta tell me what's going on over here.

 

Laura Kelly  

That target and Amazon. Those are the biggest culprits are there.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

And it was like 75 transactions. And he's like, I don't know. I'm like, well, that's great. Yeah. I'm having this conversation. My head. It's a frequent one was one of my clients. So

 

Laura Kelly  

Oh, that's cool. Oh, and so you do bookkeeping with your clients too. That's awesome.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Well, I personally don't anymore. I started out doing I used to, I started out with a couple of my clients doing accounts receivable, so invoicing, tracking, payments, that kind of stuff. And then we went on Kristin, on my team is a bookkeeper, she's fantastic. And she comes in and does like the real bookkeeping, like, I was finance. So I don't know how to like do journals very well. It takes me a lot of thought to like figure out where all the things are gonna go. Which one's a debit and a credit? Yeah, like, how does this what counts as accounts receivable? Like, where am I putting this? So I leave all that to her now. She makes all the books pretty. She's one of those bookkeepers that you she can go in and like, fix the big mess, like yes, so I have a look at my books in a year. She comes in and like fix it all. So that's, I've left that to her. So yes, we do it, but I do not do it. Because that is so cool.

 

Laura Kelly  

Well, yeah, she needs to start using keeper then. Because she's managing multiple clients. Like that's where it's at. That's really all So Kristen,

 

Kelly Reynolds  

if you're listening to this podcast, here you go. Yes. That's amazing. That's very cool. Awesome. So tell me about how I guess you're structured. You have three employees, right? part time employees. And then what are you doing now that you're getting out of the seat of the CFO stuff? Are you just managing the agency? Are you in client work still?

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, good question. Um, I almost feel like I need to pull up my calendar. Like what do I do? Well, yeah, so I, I do work on you know, marketing and visibility, like having podcast episodes like this, like that kind of stuff. I take sales calls, of course. So it's marketing sales. 100% on me. Oh, I didn't mention I do have a VA actually through Sadie Prestwich is

 

Kelly Reynolds  

a former podcast guest.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yes, exactly. So yeah, my VA is totally amazing. And Sadie is just like everything she touches turns to gold. So I have a strong support system there. So she helps me with so all like every week we kind of go through and we've been kind of in like SOP mode recently like trying to get things updated and trying to get things really like off my plate. But that means I need to have a really solid SOP so that my VA can actually go and execute on the things Yeah, so I've been like I've been really focused on that recently like with moving to keeper and doing the change with the team members. I like I've just really been in the mindset of like, trying to be that removable CEO kind of situation. So yeah, so thinking about SOP stuff, trying to think what what else do I do?

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Are you out of the the CFO business altogether, basically.

 

Laura Kelly  

Wow. Okay, yeah. So, in turn I just want the day to day client work, pretty much not not in any of that really like our 15 clients that we're managing. I'm not doing those really like, like I'm sitting on top. I'm doing like, of course, like I do the the month in reviews, like I review everybody's financials and stuff. But I'm not keying in transactions about categorizing anything, I'm not doing bank recs. So that's all on the team. So really, I just kind of I review their financials at the end of the month. And then for some clients we've been doing, you know, like 60 minutes, debrief calls, but actually, we're starting to roll out. So this was kind of exciting. We used to have it as an add on that they could do meetings with me either monthly or quarterly. But I've just been realizing that because I talk about this all day long. Like, I feel like our value is bookkeepers. It's not just oh, we do your transactions, we submit your financials and then that's it. We want to be your numbers translator's like there's so much data in your numbers that's hiding there that you just don't even know it's there, like, like, how profitable is XYZ income stream? Or are you spending too much on you know, your software packages, or like whatever it is. So I want to be that numbers translator. So we're actually rolling out for our clients 30 minute monthly debrief calls, anytime they want them, we're going to submit their financials, and then we're going to say, Here's Laura's Calendly, go ahead and schedule 30 minutes with her because I just want to get more touch points with them and just really get them comfortable. And provide that value month after month instead of just maybe meeting once a quarter which by the time the quarter is over like it's it's not enough, it's not enough touch points to really influence how the business owner can make better decisions going forward. If they're looking back three months, you know, well, that's

 

Kelly Reynolds  

good, because you're so far removed from those things by then. Right? Like that's like people who look at things only at the end of the year, like it's already over. You can't change it, you can't adjust it. You can't say, oh, we're really behind the thing, or we got to cut costs here. Like having that like knowing your numbers and being engaged with that. I think that's fantastic. Like that monthly check in. Because I'm an I'm a numbers nerd, in a way, but I'm not. I'm not a bookkeeper. I'm not a CFO. And some of these numbers don't, I don't know, I would love to have someone sit there and be like, Hi. So this is you. You did this, you did that. That means this. And that translator that's a great idea. Yeah, I love it.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, so I'm really excited about that. So we're starting to roll that out here. In q3. Are we in q3? Yeah, we're in q3.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I think I don't even know.

 

Laura Kelly  

I know, this year has just been insane. But yeah, so we're starting to roll that out. We have the new client portal and keeper. So like lots of fun changes are coming to our clients now in inside of toolbook. So we're really jazzed about that. So yeah, so I will have those meetings on my calendar. But you know, probably not everybody's gonna take me up on it every single month. And some folks might still just get around to it once a quarter, maybe when they have time. And if they opt out of that, you know, monthly 30 minute debrief, what we'll do then is we'll just send them a quick little video like, Okay, here's your financials, we'll just call out a couple things for them to kind of like keep an eye out on. But really, the value is in that that chat, you know, because just I can just ask them, how's your business going? Because yeah, I can look at your numbers and kind of see where you're at. But like, I need sometimes more context to really be able to, like advise you. Yeah, those kinds of things. So I'd like

 

Kelly Reynolds  

as a person who has questions, but doesn't want to bother my accountant with them or something like that, you know, I'm like, do I do this? Should I be looking at that, like trying to plan for things in my business and thinking like, what is the best way to do this year? Should I buy this or not buy this right now? Or that? I mean, it's so valuable to have that knowledge? Because even I mean, I have more experience with it than most, I think, but I still need help. So I can only imagine people who don't like numbers at all, and never want to talk about them. And then they have questions. And they're like, I don't know what to do. Right? They don't know what, right. Most people that I've met, try to avoid all numbers possible.

 

Laura Kelly  

Exactly. So at least like they've been getting the peace of mind from us knowing like their books are all handled, but I really want to start adding just that extra value, because because I talk about that all the time. And I'm like, well, these quarterly meetings just aren't cutting it, you know, and actually, not everybody has even opted in, it was kind of it was an add on package. So we've kind of rejiggered that a little bit, now we're going to be including a 30 minute debrief every month. And now what I'm going to be doing is adding on even more value, add CFO services, if they want to opt into those like, like creating an annual budget and updating that, you know, monthly or quarterly or whatever that is. So that'll be the extra kind of CFO stuff, but we're just going to be including those 30 Minute Calls because that's where it's at. And that's where my mission and values like that's it's the numbers translator and I can't I can't really provide that if I if I don't use clients every month, you know?

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah. And like, that's going to be the thing that sets you apart. Right? Exactly. be able to offer those things and to be like, no, no, we're gonna take care of you.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah. So yeah, they can get because because they're their VA or you know, an intern or something can do the bookkeeping. Like, that's a dime a dozen. So yeah, that's, that's really where the value add is gonna be.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I love it. So how are you? Picking your people? How are you choosing your people when you hire them? And how are you getting them ready to be given client work? That's a big thing with agency owners is being scared to let their people touch their stuff, or their clients stuff like giving that kind of control away? How are you bringing on people so that you can prepare them for that?

 

Laura Kelly  

Oh, I this is also something worth figuring out.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I think it's always a process. Yeah,

 

Laura Kelly  

well, so I mentioned my first hire Janine. She was a known entity because I had already worked with her at my last full time job. So that was, that was easy. Like it. We were using at that old job, though we weren't using, I don't think we were using QuickBooks Online. And now like pretty much our whole our entire business is QuickBooks Online toolbox. So there was a little bit of training there, but I knew she was gonna be able to pick that up, like, you know, super quick. So training her and bringing her into the fold was relatively easy. And unfortunately, also, I didn't have a ton of SOPs or stuff documented back then either, but it was like her and I just working together, like, you know, all the time, you know, so hers was kind of like through osmosis, right? From the beginning, and then the subsequent hires that I made. One was somebody that I found her by doing a like a search, right. So I used like, I don't know if you're familiar with jazz HR for recruiting. I know. They were actually so I'm based in Pittsburgh, they started here in Pittsburgh now I think they're based out of Boston. They got you know, VC money and all the all the things they blew up, which was awesome. But anyway, so I use them. It's like an applicant tracking tool. And they they post your job out to like, indeed, and LinkedIn. Like all the things I basically got, like 100 bookkeeping candidates in the span of a week, literally. Oh, wow. So then it was like filtering through all of them. And yes, stuff. And but yeah, so I found her through a traditional search process. And then I was bringing her on specifically for two large clients. So we just worked her and I just worked really closely together for a while. That was, that was a bigger training lift for me, because we just had to like it. She was taking on clients that had much higher needs than everybody else. We had worked with it. They weren't the typical, just a monthly bookkeeping client, they were like, they're a VIP. So we had to really be cautious and like, really, I bid. So basically, I kind of worked on building out the SOPs for her. And I would do tons of loom videos and write ups and all of that. And then she would take it, she would read them, she would watch them. And then she'd go and do them. And then she'd come back with questions. So that was kind of the iterative process that I went through with her to bring her on board. So now she's just kind of off and running with those larger clients. And so she's doing great. So she doesn't really have a ton of questions because we've we've nailed down that process. Now with my third gal, she was kind of a friend of mine. She's actually all my girls are local to me here in Pittsburgh, it just actually turned out that way, even the gal that I hired from the like recruiting process and national, it was a national search. But it turns out, she lives like 40 minutes away from me, which is really cool. But yeah, my other guy was kind of a friend that I had known for a long time. And it just, it was kismet, it just like made sense. She was kind of looking to get back into the accounting field, and I needed some extra help so so she kind of came on board and then with her so all of my trainings have been very different. But when she came on, Janine, my lead, she really kind of trained her a lot. And I had already had so you know, a library of some videos. So it was like God sharing stuff with her here and there. So it was a combo of like the videos I had done. And then Janine did some of the training. So who knows with my fourth person when that I was like, I don't know. But I think like the ideal is that I'm going to be continuing to work on the all the SOP stuff, getting an SOP library that's searchable and accessible by everybody. We're definitely still working on that. So. Right?

 

Kelly Reynolds  

It's always a process because there's going to be a new thing you're going to want to write an SOP about in a year like, it's just yeah, every day practically. Yeah, I mean, so many people are like, well, I need to have this all finished. I'm like, you'll never have this finished. It's like it's an ongoing process. You, you have to make sure they're updated as things change, or, yeah, it kind of is I think that the the best way to kind of get that going is the way you're doing it, which is trying to get the knowledge out of your head, documenting it for that person. And then the next person comes in and they have all these videos and all these SOPs that are already made, and it's kind of an iterative process where you just kind of keep doing that. It gets easier. Yeah, like it's yeah, it's not like you're No one as a solopreneur says, I'm gonna sit down and write everything down. Right now, like, you don't have time for that. Right?

 

Laura Kelly  

I'm very time consuming.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

It's very, I mean, that's why it's a whole service with us, like, we will come in and do that for you. Because there's not a lot of time, especially when you're hustling in the beginning, you're trying to figure all the things out and you had a kid and another kid and a husband. And like, all these things, you are not going to sit down write 100 SOPs. So like, that's why we ended up having that as a service, separate service for that same reason, because it's a lot. Yeah. But it's so handy. When you have the next person to come in. You're like, oh, I have all these videos. Here you go, go watch them. Yeah, that's a lot less training after that. Yeah, so

 

Laura Kelly  

when I on boarded with Sadie and her agency, we did like a whole system setup with her. And she helped me build out a lot of my core SOPs. Now a lot of them have changed drastically since Sadie and I work on them together. But but that's fine, I have the structure. Now I understand what needs to be included in SOP, you know, all of that. So then I can kind of take it and run with it. But so she helped us a lot of those core things. And then now it's more of the client specific stuff, and just figuring out what's the best way to like storing them and organize them. And like at first we had like a master Google Doc for every client. I don't really like that anymore. Like so I think we're gonna be getting away from that. And I think eventually, we're going to be leveraging some kind of software, maybe like, like notion or something that can be a library that's like, again, highly searchable tags, to, you know, with clients, and you know, all of that. So it's like, easily, like findable and that kind of thing. So. So we're that is like another that's probably a big project for me in the second half of this year. It's just kind of focusing on that now that we have keeper in place like that, that was huge. I think that I'm gonna be focusing on SOPs, and probably hiring somebody the second half of the year too. So starting to think about the onboarding for a team member again, because I've only done it. I mean, I really only consider having done it twice, because like, when Janine came on again, it was just like osmosis. Like I know you. Yeah, it wasn't a true onboarding. But with my other two cows, it really was. So I do have somewhat of a process. And Sadie really helped me with that, like, you know, she did, because we as you know, Slack and other tools. So she did. I don't, they're not really SOPs, but they're kind of like, our best practices when we use Slack. So she helped me with a template for that. So that was really helpful to be like, Hey, new team member, read this best practice document. And here's a couple of training videos on Slack. If you've never used that kind of thing, we have

 

Kelly Reynolds  

the same thing for teamwork, like, this is how you get in. And this is how you use it. Because teamwork is more it's more of an agency software, but a lot of people haven't used it. So you know, here's how to use these things. Instead of me sitting there going, okay, click on the list, and you know, like, whatever it is, it's so much easier, they can do it in their own time meaning, exactly. And then they also if they forget, they can just look it up, and they don't have to come bother me. And they don't feel like oh, God, I'm gonna bother them again. Yes, right. Yeah, exactly. It's for like those basic things when you're in the beginning, and you're like, I have so much information coming in at me right now. And remember where everything

 

Laura Kelly  

is? Yeah, again, like having it be like a searchable kind of database, you know,

 

Kelly Reynolds  

we we have a big dashboard. It's why build it and drive just because I don't want to have to pay user fees for every person, like we had had stuff in teamwork and that but I was like, I have to pay user fees for every person that comes in to see this. So we have these dashboards built out in Drive, and it makes it searchable. And it's under categories and all that kind of stuff. Oh, that's cool. Which makes it? Yeah, we both drive and then like, you can always share it with any contractor that comes in if you had to, like someone needed to come in and help you what you could share it without having to pay for the user fee for the teamwork or the whatever, every month. Which was helpful to me, like if I had someone come in for a project, or someone who only works once in a while on something, they could still have access, and it has links to everything and the SOP so everything like I try to build these things. So that if I get hit by a bus, you know, when my right hand could go there and be like, Okay, I can figure out from here where everything is. And there's everything's linked from there. Yeah, because you need people to be able to find things like having SOPs is great, but if no one can find them when they need them, then it's not helpful.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, yeah, like right now they're kind of in a bunch of different places. So yeah, that's gonna be

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, the centralizing of it. Yeah, cuz yeah, I'm always worried that I'm gonna get like sick like COVID and all that kind of stuff. Like what if I get COVID and I I'm sick. And so my clients needs something like each of my clients now have the dashboards that we've built out as well so that we can you know, the team can go in and the same thing like when someone has come in to that they're just new to the team or new to that client. They go to there and they can find everything in one place. Yeah, so highly recommend centralized whatever you want to call it a hub a dashboard or whatever. Yeah, for Sandy. And so you can go on vacation and they can find things. Yeah,

 

Laura Kelly  

again, to be that removable CEO if Yeah, sickness because that's the real thing we do. Just we got over COVID, probably about a month ago. I mean, it was fine, but it still took the whole family out, you know, and and then we're like, Nope, no childcare for 10 days. So like, it impacts things like that, or choosing to actually take a vacation to actually do that at some point.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, yeah, I still have I still fight myself on that I still bring my computer places that I probably shouldn't. But I that's yeah, I'm working on it. Alright, so what makes your agency different than any of the other agencies? Any of the bookkeeping agencies? What's different about you guys?

 

Laura Kelly  

Well, I was gonna say, Well, we do bookkeeping, which is like, not a typical, like, agency, I guess. But. But I can't say that because of course, there are other bookkeeping businesses that are operating the same way as me Who have they have team you know, it's not just like a solopreneur bookkeeper kind of situation? Oh, no. Um, I know, a lot of folks do leverage more independent contractors versus employees. And I think it was kind of, I think an employee relationship was more in line with my values. That sounds weird. I hope that doesn't sound like uppity or something. No, I, I kind of wanted more of that long term relationship.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah. You know,

 

Laura Kelly  

I just want I wanted them to really feel like part of the team, you know, and not like just dispose not that all contractors were disposable. But you know, it just it felt more like a permanent kind of relationship. So I don't know if that might be a little different.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Yeah, I mean, I don't think that like saying that. Because we we were talking you are one of the few that I have interviewed so far that have employees. And I think that there's definitely a mentality that if you are not entrepreneurial, you want to be an employee. So, being a contractor is like a bad thing. You don't I mean, like there are certain people that they don't want to be a contractor, they want to be an employee. So I don't think that either one is wrong. I think it's the situation you have and the people that you have, like, I have people that want to build their businesses, they don't want to be my employee. Because they have other things going. So I think it's just, you know, I don't think it's wrong, either way.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah. And I guess that kind of made me a little nervous, a little bit, like, like, it could be a flight risk for that person. But also, I think the way that we service our clients, I wanted that bookkeeper not to say that we'll never have turnover, but I really wanted to have like, this is their stable person. And they can go to them with a question. They don't have to worry about, oh, well, Susie Smith's contractor only works from like 9pm to 12am, Tuesday, Thursdays, you know what I mean? Like I wanted them to also, I wanted to be able to dictate their hours to a certain extent, because I wanted them to be able to be available during business hours, because I knew we were going to have meetings with the client and stuff like that. So yeah, I think that that's what kind of drove all of those things really drove my decision. And I just feel really comfortable with it. Because again, we're just we're in this together. And I feel like I'm building this company with employees. I don't know it feels

 

Kelly Reynolds  

cool. Totally. I totally get it. What do you

 

Laura Kelly  

feel more like a CEO to you?

 

Kelly Reynolds  

What do you think is the reason your team stays like why do you have such low turnover? Yeah. Well, I

 

Laura Kelly  

think to your point earlier, like, they just they want to be bookkeepers, they don't want to be too client facing I mean, they do like client meetings with me. But like, they don't want to leave those client calls. They don't want to find clients, like they're not. So part of that is like they, they want to do the grunt work bookkeeping, they love that they want to be behind the scenes. So like, so they're, like you said, they're never gonna want to go out and like, steal my clients and go start their own business. But, you know, I feel like I don't know, I feel I highly value them. And I tell them that all the time, you know, and I just and I provide them lots of training opportunities to like, we just, I just sent to them through like the the QuickBooks certification training, like on my nice kind of thing, you know, so they like clocked their hours and they built, they built me for that time. So they know they've got lots of like, training opportunities. And I'm always like, teaching them new things. Like, a lot of what Janine knows about accounting was from what I've taught her over the last, you know, six, seven years or whatever. So I think they we just had we have a really good relationship and I don't know, I think they enjoy working with me. Yeah, I try to make it fun.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

So that kind of culture just like you're, you're valued. You want to come to work, you got to do the work you want. Like, that's it? Yeah, you know, I love it. Okay, so what, what is what do you love about running an agency?

 

Laura Kelly  

Well, I love that more and more I am becoming more removable, right? I mean, my team is really kind of running the show. So if I need to step away because of COVID Or like a week long vacation or something, I don't have to worry about checking in on client XYZ, because my team has it handled, like the combination of my bookkeeping team plus my VA and all of that, like, it's it's built this life for me that, like, Yeah, I do work four solid days a week. But if I needed to not work those days, like it's possible, it's very feasible. You know, and if I wanted to scale back tomorrow, and just not take any more sales calls, and not onboard any new clients, like, I could just post, we could just do this thing. Now I want to grow it. So like I'm putting in time for marketing and sales and all that kind of stuff. But what I love about the structure is that I'm empowering team, they're doing the work. So I can be removable. If and when I need to be in it just it takes a little bit of that pressure off like this, compared to the hourly CFO stuff. Like that was stressful. So much pressure on me, I had to be there to deliver. And if I didn't book those hours, I didn't get paid.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

Right. And if you personally didn't book those hours, like that's the thing, right? And that's what I mean, when it was just me. Yep. Yep, you had to show up. It didn't matter. If you were sick, you had to show up because you had to get paid. And if you were sick, and you wanted to stay in bed, you lost money. Yeah, right. Exactly. So what do you think is the hardest part of running an agency?

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, the hardest part is that my tendency is to sometimes feel like, I'm the best one to do certain things. Not so much with the client work, like I've gotten like the client works off my plate. But I think I have had trouble systematizing the other processes like Client Onboarding, and how I do sales, and proposals like, that is all stuff that I could totally make clockwork and hand off to my VA, for example. And I think I've had some resistance against that. Because because I have that syndrome of thinking, I'm the only one that can do it, which is completely and utterly false. Like, you know, my, my VA is amazing. And if only I could just empower her and just spend the time to get that crap out of my head and onto paper. And I think the other thing, too, is like really committing to the flow. Because I feel like sometimes I do things differently, like every time and I don't know why, like, it's just,

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I think one way.

 

Laura Kelly  

I don't know, I think maybe it's because like, you know, maybe I'm on a sales call, and someone maybe throws a just a small wrench into things that kind of changes the process. And then I'm like, well shoot, do I force them into my process? Or do I make a new thing and allow them to go through it their way? You know what I mean? Like, so I think I have a little bit of that people pleasing me as well. So that makes it hard to make some of these like, crosses totally, you know, just smooth them off. You know,

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I do know, I was sitting here making o'clock last night. Because I wanted it a certain way. It wasn't fine. Sure. But like, I have to like there are still certain things that like yes, I could give client work away much easier now. And I've gotten over that hump that took me a long time that like trust people touching my client where now I'm like, Yep, cool. You guys got it. But like now it's this the sales and marketing, what would I say? Right? My husband, my poor husband, who edits this podcast, wants to write a blurb about something. I'm like, that's not the way I'd say it. But he's like, I know I'm not you like that is the hard part that like so I feel like what is it new level? Same level different level, I can never get a saying, right. I don't know what it is. I don't know,

 

Laura Kelly  

I don't know what you level up you.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

You have like the things that you devil. I don't know what it is gonna, someone's gonna laugh at me for this. But I can never get things out ever. But like you get to a place and you're like, Oh, I already I figured out how to get there. Like, I figured out how to get over that. Like, I didn't get my client work away. And then you get to the next level. And you're like, Okay, I don't want to give my stuff away. That has been the hardest thing that I've had. And then hiring someone to help me with my stuff. And I'm like, but I don't want you to touch my stuff now. So it happens over and over again. You keep hitting that kind of block over and over again. Like as you grow. So yeah,

 

Laura Kelly  

that I've I feel like that just like struck a chord with me with my clients because I feel like their finances it that is one of those ticky tacky things for that are sticky things I should say. That's like, they're they are afraid to let that person in to see how Yeah, managing their finances, you know. So that is a hard thing, I think for people to outsource. But once I let go of that, though, I think they'll see like, there's so much freedom on the other side of that just again like peace of mind knowing that it's all being taken care of. And the fact that even if they have messiness, that's okay, because we're gonna come in and be able to help advise you to get out of the messiness. Yes, saying, you know, they just have to let go. Like the

 

Kelly Reynolds  

guilt I think a lot of people come with, they're like, oh, it's such a mess. I don't wanna Sure, you know, I'm like, well, it's not gonna get me better unless you show me. Right? Like, yeah, you're not doing this great. That's okay. We're not judging you. Like we're not all sitting behind. Like, there's no like Slack channel where we all make fun of you. Right? Like, works. We just want to help. Yeah, yeah. So Laura, thank you so much for being here today on the podcast I have had I love talking numbers all day and talk to new tech. This has been so fun for me. Tell everyone tell everyone where they can find you.

 

Laura Kelly  

Yeah, so I'm most active on the social platforms on Instagram. So you can find me at Tilburg SOCO. So we usually have like, two to three posts going up every week with like, little QuickBooks tidbits or just, you know, things to look out for in your bookkeeping and things like that. And occasionally, if I have the energy, I'll go on stories. I won't get I won't guarantee that. But otherwise, you know, definitely check out my website, www.toolbox.co CEO. And, you know, I'm all about one-to-one connection. So my call to action is book a call, get on that call with me. Because I feel like, especially in my industry with numbers and things that are scary, like, just talking to me, I think you'll get that feeling of like, Oh, she can do this. i This is okay, we can figure this out. So I'm all about let's get on a call. Let's get on a coffee chat. You know, no, no pressure, no pitch, none of that. But I just want to hear like what's keeping you up at night in terms of your finances, and maybe we can help or maybe we're not the best fit. Maybe you actually need more of a tax accountant at this this time, which is not us. So I can make a referral. But I just I love connecting with people and helping them feel like, again, it's all figured out edible and it's all gonna be okay.

 

Kelly Reynolds  

I love it. Well, on that note, thank you so much for coming today. And we will see everyone next week. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you have an agency or want to create one, come join my facebook community. Get your agency together, where we talk all the things growing and scaling your agency for show notes and more info on all the things head over to Reynolds obm.com Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Reynolds OBM. And finally, if you enjoy this podcast, I would love for you to give us a review on iTunes.