Service Based Business Society Podcast

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Both are bright.

Brian Basinger:
Thanks, Tiffan. It's rough me.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
You know, it's such an important topic that applies to every single business owner. And I love these topics that we can bring on the podcast. We can talk about them. We can dive in and business owners who maybe haven't put enough thought into some of these key pieces to their business. It will just open, open the mind to the opportunity of, you know, an area that they should further investigate.

Brian Basinger:
Yeah, for sure. I think this is something that for a lot of new business owners that don't think about really getting proactive about taxes and putting strategy into place until they have that year when they get burned. And

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
if we can shift that mindset a little bit and get a little more proactive in thinking about this stuff, then we can help, I think a lot of business owners avoid that pain.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Absolutely. I think many business owners come from a place where they were previously an employee. And so they were receiving a paycheck, their taxes were taken off of their paycheck each and every time. And you know, I remember when you, if you go back to like when you first start working and you're making, you know, peanuts, your first few checks and the government is taking their share. And at that point you really grasp, hey, Who, like what am I paying for here? You know, like your tax is taken off, but almost through the process of just getting older and you know, you make your money, but you really think about like the check that you get. You don't think about how much money the government is taking. That's the employee mindset. But then as a business owner, you're making all this money, you're not necessarily paying into taxes. And so then at the end of the year, that's that year that you mentioned that get burned. you realize hey I had this super amazing year it felt really good until you realized hey the government didn't take their part yet.

Brian Basinger:
Yeah, that's well said. It, it, we get this more immediate gratification, but there's this looming problem down the road. And I think way too often we would rather not think about anything financial related. We just want to kind of sort of check how much money's in the bank account and not spend any time on that and focus all on getting new clients, new customers, and sort of think about that stuff later. But Especially when it comes to taxes, there is the time to actually do something about it is now.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
It's during the year before the year. If we wait until after, then the window has mostly closed and it becomes very difficult to actually change how much tax we're going to pay. It's just at that point a question of reporting what happened and then paying whatever's due.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Absolutely. You know, you miss out when it's all retroactive on all of the opportunities that you have to make adjustments, to plan. And so, you know, I have a management accounting background and so we help with data reporting, analytics, metrics, and all of these things. But I 100%, and I knew right from like third year undergrad, I was like, I'm not gonna be a tax cam. But I 1000% see the value in tax account. And so every business owner should have an amazing tax accountant because that person can truly make a difference in not just this year's taxes, but long-term wealth, long-term wealth creation comes down to appropriate planning because the people out there who are making millions and billions and all of these, those people all have amazing. you know, people

Brian Basinger:
Yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
telling them what to do and when to do it and how to use each and every rule to their best advantage. And so many business owners are just not even looking into it. It's all, you know, this is what I did last year, please fix it, or not even please fix it, but just please report it and tell me what I owe. And so many missed opportunities.

Brian Basinger:
Well, I think there are different levels. And I've heard you talk about this a little bit when it comes to like the bookkeeping and financial side. A new entrepreneur doesn't need the same thing as an entrepreneur who's crossed the seven figure mark and is in a different spot. There are different levels of involvement that are needed. There are different levels of sophistication that are needed. So it's not the same for everybody, but the principle of proactive tax strategy is the same principle that's there. on the financial side, I'm sure, which is you have to be looking at things proactively. If all you ever do is look at retroactive financial statements and don't then take that information and say, okay, well, what does this tell me about my business and how can I use this to project going forward and create a forecast and a budget and know maybe where my cash is going to be a month from now, six months from now. That's where the real value is.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
You have these historical numbers so that you can look into the future. And the principle is the same for new business owners as it is for business owners who are further along. The same thing is true for taxes. There's different levels of sophistication, there's different levels of need and different levels of how much involvement the... entrepreneur is going to need to take. But the concept is the same for everyone, which is that if you are concerned about taxes, or even if you're not concerned about taxes, but you have this feeling that you should be, and that there's something coming, the time to do something about it is now, and you have to find someone to help you through that process, but you also have to understand that nobody's gonna care about this as much as you. You have to take the ownership of it. and then find resources to put around you that can help you get the results that you're after.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right, right. Yes, I often say, you know, your business is really a journey and it's not so different than parenting in that, you know, when you have a new baby, first you just wanna sleep through the night, like you're just really trying to get, you know, it's like, oh my goodness, if I could just sleep through the night. And that it's, you know, oh, if they could just use the potty on their own, we would be laughing. And then it's, you know, you go through these different steps and before you know it, they're driving and you just, now you're up at night because you're worried about them getting home. And so, you know, your business is really the same, is there's always a new challenge. We don't get away from challenges. As your business grows and goes to different pieces, it comes new challenges. You know, at the beginning, it's I want people to know my business exists, you know, that you are your first client, that it's, you know, how do we retain clients? How do we do more clients? How do we build scalable processes? You know, it's the same thing. It's just a new challenge. And so, but in these different phases of the business, there are also new opportunities with each of those phases. And just like you were speaking about there, it's really, you know, knowing who needs to be in your court for these different phases and what involvement they need to have. But, you know, the most amazing tax accountant can do very little when someone comes at the 11th hour and says, here's everything, I need it filed by next week. There's really very little, you know, that person can't bring their true value with them.

Brian Basinger:
Yeah, that's absolutely right. I'm thinking about the business is like raising kids thing and wondering which part of the business world is like having the kids that don't stop arguing with each other. That

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Ah!

Brian Basinger:
was that was my weekend that I'm just coming off of. But I

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Brian Basinger:
yeah, ultimately. I think that one of the biggest challenges that business owners face is we just have so much to do and we really would rather not

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
have to think about taxes or have to really be educated about taxes in the same way that I would really rather not have to think about sales and marketing and would rather just focus on the stuff that I already know and focus on doing the things that I'm comfortable with. I have learned through hard experience that I'm not going to get the results that I want in marketing if I don't take the time to understand the concepts and really take an ownership of it. If I'm just relying on someone hoping that they're going to save me and do everything for me top to bottom, it doesn't usually work that way. At least it hasn't in my experience. I have to first understand the principles. I have to educate myself. I have to. really take an ownership of that aspect of my business. And then I can find people who can carry out that vision and who can help me actually make the soup. But that, it just doesn't happen. The soup isn't good. The soup ends up watered down if I don't really take ownership for the vision of it. And that is one of the biggest points that I'm always trying to drive home for business owners. is that you just can't ignore it completely. You can't just hope that the accountant is doing their thing. By the time you get to that point in your business where you're paying an accountant enough to do that, that's, I mean, that's a different, that

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
certainly exists, right? But it's not the case for most small business owners. The biggest reason why we have tax problems is because there's a disconnect between what business owners are paying their CPAs and thinking they're paying for

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
and what they're actually paying for and the expectation on the side of the tax advisor. And if we can only do that and just help educate everybody and help everyone understand that when you're paying your accountant for a tax return, that's what you're getting. You're not getting tax strategy. They're not the same thing. They're two totally different services. And you have to take that initial. step of responsibility and say, tax strategy falls on me, I need to understand some basic principles, then I can go and get someone to help me implement it and dot the I's and cross the T's and do everything correctly.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah, I think it's really challenging because, you know, if we kind of come back to that, you know, there's people out there that are obviously very good at making money in the world. They've had, you know, multiple businesses. They're that serial entrepreneur that has, you know, and it appears from the outside, like everything that they come up with turns into some kind of profitable business. Well, first of all, they're not sharing all the ones that didn't turn into profitable businesses,

Brian Basinger:
Right.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
first of all. And second of all, the one piece that they have that a newer business owner may not is that those people have their trusted advisors already. And they may have gone through multiple CPAs, they may have gone through multiple bookkeepers, if they're obviously have a different corporate structure at that point in time, but they have gone through. But they know that when Bob Smith down the hall tells them, hey, this is the rule that applies, this is the strategy we need to go with, they know that for the last 10 businesses, what Bob has said. has worked and they trust what Bob says and they move forward. And the problem with a new business owner is they may not know if the person that they're working with, that you know, Auntie Sally recommended at Christmas, oh yeah, I've worked with the CPA for 15 years and she's amazing. You know, you don't know if that recommendation is great. You don't know if that person's gonna get the best. And so you're really relying on your intuition and a little bit of trial and error to see if it's a good fit for you, if it's a good fit for your business. But so many people get committed in these things where they know it's not a fit. It hasn't felt good, the person's non-responsive, they haven't given them what they're looking for. And they just keep, maybe it'll get better, or I don't really even know where to start to do a better job. And they end up in these situations. I actually had a bookkeeping consult recently. Someone had been with the same bookkeeper for 15 years. 15 years, that's

Brian Basinger:
Yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
a long time. And their bookkeeper is yelling at their team. for doing things wrong, yelling. They dread this woman coming into their office. And I was like, all things aside, you know, I haven't seen the books, but that interaction should never feel like that for you. If you are paying for a service, whether it's SEO, bookkeeping, accounting, all of these pieces, if you are paying a professional in your business, it should feel good for you, and you should be getting the results you desire. You're a paying customer.

Brian Basinger:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the biggest litmus tests for whether you have a good relationship with any advisor, whether it's on the finance side, or on the tax side or on the marketing side, you know, whatever is they should be helping to support and lift and educate you in your business. that should feel like they are your advocate. They are helping you not deriding you not making you feel dumb and not also just doing things behind some kind of a curtain where it's like,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
I'm, I know everything about taxes. So don't worry about this. I'm not going to try and explain it to you. It's all too complex for you. And I'll just I'll just handle it. And don't worry about it.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
that's not a functional relationship either. So you've got the sort of antagonistic one that you described and then really often, especially with us accountants, because we like to feel high and mighty and sophisticated, we'll tend to just do things on our own and not keep people informed. But at the same time, what we should be looking for in our advisors is people who can help us as like the CEOs of our organizations, we have imperfections. imperfect just like everyone else and we need people around us who can fill in those gaps where we are maybe short on skills or knowledge or even interest

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
in some

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes.

Brian Basinger:
areas but they can not just handle those things but can help reinforce us and make us into stronger leaders and that includes both supporting and not like deriding us but also educating us and helping us actually understand the key points.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right, right. You know, I had two interactions recently, love your feedback on them. So I was actually sitting, we're social gathering and of course, you know, people know that we do different, you know, books and numbers things. So immediately people think I do taxes. I know I said I don't do taxes. Oh, well, that's okay because my tax accountant, she is amazing. You know, I thought I was going to owe all this money. I actually, you know, did my taxes on one of those online things. and it said that I owed like, you know, a couple thousand bucks. And then she did it and I got a $60 refund. And so she just, you know, did some of that shady stuff. And I was like, oh, okay, okay. Yeah, she's amazing. She, I would never get rid of her. Every year she does that shady stuff and I always get money back. And I was like... Okay,

Brian Basinger:
Yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
that was my reaction to it. I was like, okay. My husband, my husband actually was like, well, maybe my wife can help you. And I was like, oh no, I don't do that shady stuff. Ha ha.

Brian Basinger:
That's I mean it highlights two different things. The first is need to like, there should never be a surprise as to what your tax bill is going to be. That should be something

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes.

Brian Basinger:
that you know and can see coming six months down the road. You should know in October what it's gonna be. You know, when you file. And honestly, even sooner than that, you know,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah.

Brian Basinger:
you can come up with a reasonable forecast so far in advance and there should be no surprises. And then The biggest reason why people do shady stuff is because it's a surprise. And then there's nothing really that you can do for taxes. So you end up doing shady stuff to try and

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
to try and get away with something at the last minute. And the other thing that reminds me of is, uh, I guess it's just a story about someone who I ended up talking to who is a referral and thought she had. like she had paid a CPA and was happy with what they were doing. She thought, but she really didn't know what they were doing. And it was a very similar situation where she had a big tax bill. She kind of said, guys, what are we doing? I can't pay this. And they went back and kind of did something to it. And then they filed it. Everything's fine. Okay, great. Two years later, she gets audited

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
and she's still at that point where she's just kind of trying to. She's just still getting going in her business. She's doing okay, she's making some money now. That's why she had that big surprise tax bill. But now she's two years later and she gets this like $50,000 tax bill from this audit. And it absolutely derailed her business for a good year to 18 months. Took

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
so much of her time and energy was this big looming money concern for. again, a year and a half. And if you think about the business owners that really succeed, this is something that I talk about all the time, you know, you mentioned wealth and some tax strategies really can have a big impact on wealth and on taking money that you would pay in taxes and instead turning it into investments that can grow. But the more subtle element that really has to do with wealth is this avoiding. these kind of obstacles that can derail people in their business. And it's the difference between the person who gets audited and has to spend a year and a half pouring time and energy and resources into trying to deal with this mess and clean it up versus the one who doesn't and can continue to, you know, to grow and expand their business during that same timeframe. And I, you talked earlier about the, the person who kind of always seems like everything they do is successful. But so much of it has to do with these early trajectories and where if we can just get a little bit ahead, a little bit faster at the beginning and not have to spend a year dealing with something like this that pops up out of nowhere, then it puts us years ahead down the road because of the compounding effect of that time and energy over the next few years.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Absolutely. Because it comes down to risk management and taking on calculated risk. And I think the part that a lot of people don't realize is when we file the taxes that they all go in and whatnot, there's a bit of an honor system where what we file is accepted as true unless we're audited and then they're going to double check. And so, you know, and the audit is a bit of the lotto,

Brian Basinger:
Huh.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
the lotto you don't want to win. And

Brian Basinger:
Yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
so a lot of times people will say, oh, I've been doing this for eight years and it worked for me. Everything's great. And that person may have been doing it completely incorrectly for the last eight years. And they may get audited next year and it might disrupt their entire life business, everything. Meanwhile, they've been spouting off this advice to every single person they know. And so it's this piece where, you know, and I'm sure I think the doctors probably were affected first with the whole doctor Google. Everyone went to the doctor and they already had been self-diagnosed by Google, right? You know, I've decided I have this ailment, please fix me. And so, but you also now online with, especially with the rise in video content creation and whatnot, you get so many people who are discussing tax strategies online, and some of it is very valuable. But we must remember that people are all over the world and they're giving advice based on where they are located. And so, you know, if you're in between states and provinces and countries and all these things, it's different. And so what applies to one person doesn't apply to someone else. And what applies to one person's tax situation is very different than someone else's tax situation. And I think we have to take some of what we find online and we have to then go back to our trusted advisor and say, hey, I saw this or I read about this, right? You know, it's good to collect information, but does this apply to me and is this something we should be looking at

Brian Basinger:
Yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
versus just taking it as fact and just running with it?

Brian Basinger:
I actually think it's great that people will go and do their own research. That goes back to the idea of taking ownership and like, you should be doing that. You should be understanding at least at a high level, what strategies are available and out there, but it's a lot. And it can be, as you said, confusing. And does that strategy really apply to you in your circumstance? And how do you put all these things together in a way that actually is coherent and to where one strategy isn't really redundant with another one that you're already doing.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Brian Basinger:
That's where you can use some guidance. But I think it's I think that we can actually the idea of Dr. Google is it's kind of a funny one because we ignore years and years of training and say, no, I've got it. I know what I have. But a lot of times we also know our bodies, right? And so I know exactly what I'm feeling and I can probably do at least some value in spending some time understanding what are the different options and what am I feeling and then if I take that informed opinion to my doctor and then respectfully get their advice with. having already done some of my own research, I can probably get a better result than if I just show up blind, having taken no initiative and just say, hey doc, this is going on with my knee, fix it for me, I don't wanna think about it or have anything to do with it. And I think the same thing is true on the accounting and the tax side that it's good to have experts and we should have experts on our team in all these different areas. but also it's a good thing to, I suppose, have those checks and balances. You don't wanna just blindly trust that your expert

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
is doing everything, they've got it, I don't need to think about it at all. You need to take that little bit of ownership and then balance that with having someone who has some expertise, but then is also willing to explain things to you so that you can understand it. And between those two balanced together, you can get the best outcome.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah, I often talk about, you know, and people say, well, you're like, you know, the numbers nerd and data and metrics. And I said, but there's also a very intuitive piece to business and knowing if these professionals that you're trusting, you know, if something tells you something's not right, even if you don't necessarily know what it is, you know, you're like, hey, like this, these two numbers keep showing up differently, or we keep having to do these huge inventory adjustments every month. It's out like something's wrong. Those are the kinds of things that it's like, okay, well, let's dive into what's causing those big adjustments. What's causing, you know, is that a process piece? Is there someone, you know, skimming off the top of the inventory pile? Are we recording it incorrectly? Like, those are the kinds of things that when you get that feeling as a business owner of like, hey, someone's just not quite right here. that we need to listen to that. And people will, you know, often when I talk about that, people get surprised. They're like, oh, I'm surprised that you talk about, like intuitive. And I said, because we still have, you know, as humans, we have this piece and don't ignore it. Don't ignore it.

Brian Basinger:
Yeah, we. One of the smartest things I've heard anyone say to me was a couple of years ago and this coach that I had who said how things start is usually how they end and I took that. To be so true, or maybe I have seen that found that to be so true in that if we have a relationship that started off on the wrong foot and has stayed on the wrong foot, holding out hope that it's going to change, that something is going to get fixed along the way, it never really happens.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
We should be looking and evaluating these relationships that we have pretty critically right from the outset so that we can, if we need to, pull that cord quickly and not invest a bunch of time and energy and money into the wrong advisor or the wrong relationship. and instead move on and find the person who can actually help us out.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Absolutely, absolutely. That is wonderful advice. And so true, I think, for most parts of life. When people show you their true colors, believe them, is something similar

Brian Basinger:
Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
that someone said to me. And so going back to whether you have these advisors or you're looking for these advisors and taking that more strategic planning role, what should someone look for? What? When they're in the market for a new CPA, they've decided, hey, I do want to do a little better planning for next year. They open Google, huge long list comes up. What should people look for in that right person?

Brian Basinger:
Well, it's a little different depending on which stage you're at in business, but in general, you're going to want to find someone who we've already talked about who will explain things to you. So you always find a couple of different options. That's one thing. You have at least three different options. The second thing is find the person with whom you connect. the best and can have natural conversations and can feel kind of a natural trust in. And part of that trust comes to do they actually explain things to you, which we've already talked about. I won't spend a lot of time on that again, but they need to be willing to bring complicated subjects down to a comprehensible level and make sure that you are in charge. they are helping you make informed decisions, not coming down from on high with, you know, the 10 commandments or the five strategies and saying, this is what we must do. I'm the advisor, you just have to trust me and don't ask questions. And then the last thing, which seems like the most obvious, but it isn't. This goes back to something I said earlier, but I can't emphasize it strongly enough. Most CPAs, well. maybe put it this way, there are two types of tax advisors. There's the really expensive tax advisor who does a phenomenal job and works very closely with their clients and generally has fewer clients because they charge more money and it's a great relationship, everybody's really happy, but they're really expensive and most small business owners don't go for this person because of the price tag there. So. then they go into the pool of other accountants or advisors out there. And generally speaking, that pool of advisors that's less expensive is going to have lots of clients and really they're only doing tax returns. That's what's normal is they're just preparing a tax return. And it can be really tricky for business owners because they don't tell you that upfront. Nobody's gonna say. Yeah, I'm a tax advisor, but I don't really advise. I just prepare a tax return and that's it. So you really need to ask them questions about what their process looks like. The process should be tax planning is right now. This is the time for tax planning. It's throughout the year. It's understanding, checking in with you, at least quarterly to understand what's happening in your business, what's happening in your life, what's coming. And... putting into place tax strategies right now so that by the time you get to where you're actually filing your tax returns, it's just the period at the end of the sentence. It's just

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
formalization of all this planning that's been happening all year. And if that's not the case, then you are really just getting tax return because there really isn't much of any strategy that can be done. By the time it gets to preparing the tax return, if that's when the relationship really kicks off and that's when you're having all the communication years over, send in your numbers and then we'll figure it out from there. That's not tax strategy. And those are the main things I would look for is one, someone who jives with you and will actually understand and explain things in a way that you can understand. And two, someone who really focuses on tax strategy and you see that in the way that they handle their workflow.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes, absolutely. It's that pre-planning that goes into and it really ties into a discussion that we often have because business owners will say, do I need to keep my books up to date through the year or can I just, you know, because you know a lot of people start they get to the very end of the year say, oh my goodness it's tax time. Out

Brian Basinger:
Yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
comes the shoe box full of receipts. Now we're going to try and figure it out

Brian Basinger:
Yep.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
and then we're going to send it all off to the accountant. And you know I often say when we do it through the year we can make... minor adjustments, minor course corrections versus, you know, ending up basically, when you're, when you're reviewing it so long after the fact, you're basically just saying, this is where I am, this is, this is where we're at. There's no, you know, decisions or strategy on any of it. And so, you know, in order to actually do any of that strategy tax plan through the year, well, that person's going to, you know, need numbers to work with. They need to know what is your revenue. What are your expenses? How about is your compensation? How are we compensating the business owner? All of these types of things. And so, you know, we need the bookkeeping and the records to be up to date. And so if there's a shoe box full of receipts out there, you know, I'm anti shoe box or however,

Brian Basinger:
Yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
you know, at one point I was a part of this business. It was actually during my time in corporate and it was our next door neighbor. So we shared a wall, we were in a like commercial complex and... It was a partnership next door and the one business partner who did the more officey things passed away suddenly out of

Brian Basinger:
Oh

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
the

Brian Basinger:
no.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
blue. And so now you have the guy, the business owner who knows very little about business knows about their product. He was a part of developing the product. He's down in the shop. He's developing this thing. Doesn't know much about the business, knows about what he's selling. And he said, I don't know where to start. And he, I remember coming into the office and said, okay, like, you know, Now me and my old business partner were next door. We're like, hey, we're gonna help you get through this hurdle. He's grieving, he's just, and he rolls his chair back and he says, this is where all the receipts are. And he had literally just been taking the receipts and just shoved them under the desk. And literally they were just like, it was like a cove, a foot cove, if you will, under the desk of receipts. And it was

Brian Basinger:
Oh,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
like

Brian Basinger:
wow.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
nothing I'd ever seen. And so ever since then, every time a business owner's like, oh, I need to get my receipt to organize. Oh, it's really bad. In my mind, I always think it's nothing. I've seen worse, I

Brian Basinger:
Yeah,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
assure

Brian Basinger:
right,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
you.

Brian Basinger:
yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
But it was just, and in those moments, because of course they never foreshadowed that something was gonna happen to this business partner. This was never like this. But they were so inadequately prepared for anything, whether that be audit, tax planning, some unfortunate, terrible mishap, all of these things. And so it's like your business just has to be, you have to be creating a process. You have to be organized enough that it's not just utter chaos. No matter what, no matter what happens, no matter what, the world blows your direction.

Brian Basinger:
Yep. I think. I'm reading this book, Traction,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mmm. Yeah.

Brian Basinger:
and the author, Gina Wickman, talks about the three different areas of a business that need to be in place. And it's essentially sales, operations, and then finance, which includes other things like HR and things like that. And the point. He makes and he's not an accountant. This is a general

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah.

Brian Basinger:
business management book. And the point he makes is that we tend to just focus on sales, and think that that's going to get us to our financial goals. But what we really create if we don't pay attention to the other two and the really the red head of step to the three of those is the finance piece. And by ignoring those what we end up with is a bucket that has a bunch of holes in it. And so it doesn't matter how much water goes in the top, we are inefficient because we don't understand our numbers. We don't have good systems in place. And then we're losing taxes out the bottom, we're losing money out the bottom because we don't have control over expenses. And it's so critical for us to not just focus on sales and bringing in more clients and more customers, but to focus on. Obviously the operations that's not the subject of this, but to make sure that we have really good service to keep customers happy, get referrals. Life is so much easier when we do that. But then on the finance side, again, understanding everything historically and as you said, getting numbers quickly so that we can actually use them,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
but use them ultimately to see what's coming and to help us forecast and, and create. successful plans based on actual data. And

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes.

Brian Basinger:
you can't do that with receipts under a desk and you can't

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
No.

Brian Basinger:
do that if you're just getting to the end of the year with a tax return that is based on that type of shoebox mentality. All of this stuff has to be forward looking. And that's where I think most business owners have been trained to think that way. We've been trained to think, well, I'll just get my numbers done and review last year if I do that at all. well, I just get my tax return done now that the year's over. We've been trained wrong, frankly, and most of us accountants don't do a great job at understanding how that should flow either. But

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Great.

Brian Basinger:
everything that we're doing financially should be looking forward, whether that's on the financial accounting side or on the tax side, all of it. The historical data only really serves us if we're then taking it and looking into the future.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Absolutely, absolutely. So one tangible tip a business owner can implement in their business next week and really see value, what would that be? What would that one recommendation be for you?

Brian Basinger:
It's a little redundant because we spend so much time talking about it. But the base of all this really, when we do tax strategy, we break it down into four different areas. Uh, you have entity structures, you have deductions and you have wealth strategies. And those are going to be a little bit different depending on where you are in your business, where you are geographically, you're in Canada, I'm in the U S the tax laws are mostly similar. between those two countries and mostly similar between different states, but there are different nuances. But those three pillars all sit on a foundation of situational awareness. So if you don't know where you stand right now, if you don't know where your profit is year-to-date and have a reasonable ability to say where do I think I'll be at between now and the end of the year? That and then taking that and putting it into a tax pro forma to say, hey, forget strategy, just if I don't do anything else, strategy wise, between now and the end of the year, where am I gonna end up? What's my tax return gonna look like? What am I gonna owe next year? Just that, just do that in the next week. You will find enormous benefit in that. One, because again, if nothing else, you'll at least be able to plan for the cash need. now well in advance of when you actually need it. And then more than likely, you'll see some things when you actually go through that process where you say, I don't like that. I don't wanna pay that much tax. How do I do something about it now where

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Basinger:
I can actually still change my circumstance and do it legally so I don't get to that point and then make a shady move out of desperation.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right, because those shady moves, although in that moment they might feel like they work, you have this skeleton in your closet and you may know he's there or you may not. And they tend to always pop out at the least opportune moment, those skeletons.

Brian Basinger:
100%.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Well, thank you so much for being here, Brian. Such a valuable discussion and, you know, so key for business owners at all different stages of their business. So if people wanna connect with you, where's the best place for them to do that?

Brian Basinger:
The best place is just our website. We have, that points to everything else. We're on YouTube a lot and Instagram, but the website contigoadvisors.com and every single week on that website where we do a live event where I will talk about a specific topic that relates to tax or business management and it's free and you can register for that and join it or you can see any of the past ones and everything is based right on that hub. on the website contigoadvisors.com.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Thank you so much for being here. I will make sure to drop those links as well as traction The link to traction the book you reference. I will drop that as well in the show notes

Brian Basinger:
Thanks, Tiffany Anne, it was really nice to talk to you.