Breakaway Bookkeeping and Advising with Michelle Löpez
Breakaway Bookkeeping and Advising with Michelle Löpez
At The Financial Gym, our clients come in all different financial shapes and sizes, with a variety of careers ranging from teachers to investment bankers to government workers to doctors and nurses. But, the number one job type of clients of The Financial Gym is self-employed, and this means anything from freelancer or Instagram influencer to a small business owner.
As a small business owner myself, I can’t tell you how important it is to manage your business finances properly, and while I understand the need for conserving cash, it sometimes makes a great deal of sense to invest in experts who can save you time and money in the end.
Joining me today is Michelle Löpez, co-founder of Breakaway Bookkeeping and Advising, to talk about the importance of bookkeeping for small businesses and the best strategies to lay a great foundation for your business now matter what size it is.
What are we drinking?
Michelle - Amaretto Sour
Shannon - Gin and Tonic
Podcast Notes
Michelle was raised in a very entrepreneurial household. Entrepreneurship was encouraged.
Numbers always spoke to Michelle and she worked her way up to being a CFO at an amazing company. The company was a lot of fun to work for. They built aerial obstacle courses and zip lines all over the US.
There are so many career options with accounting. Wherever Michelle goes with her career, she will always fall back on that knowledge base.
Michelle didn’t do well in accounting when she was in college, and she graduated with a degree in marketing. After graduation, she got a job with a global environmental construction company. Shortly thereafter, the recession hit.
As the company continued to lay people off, they pushed her to accounting, because she was new and a lower paid employee. Eventually, she found herself second in command to the CFO, reporting directly to the Board, because they understood what she was saying. She was like a translator and she could communicate with the leaders.
Michelle was a C-level executive and every year the company doubled their revenue. She leaned into finding what motivated the owners and she built key performance indicators, metrics, around those levels of success that could be measured and tracked. Key performance indicators are different for every company.
Accountants aren’t well known for their ability to listen, but if you don’t understand what motivates the owner to wake up every day, you are missing the whole point.
Michelle wanted to start a business where she could listen to what business owners, or leadership teams, had in mind for the success of their companies. When you can map it out, you can determine what goal you should be hitting and celebrate successes along the way.
One side of the business is where Michelle does accounting architecture. This is where she puts the books together for companies so it make sense, and they can get the data out of it that can help them with operational decision making. She gets to work for a lot of companies and help them grow.
The other side of the business is where she and five others built “The Hive”. It is a hive of advisors, called Breakaway Bookkeeping and Advising. It is an umbrella of accounting professionals and they can all lean into each other. It’s like they each own a franchise, but they are working together. The group helps each other grow and there is no spirit of competitiveness. Work for yourself, not by yourself.
Having accounting support at an early stage of your business is game changing.
Every CEO needs a CFO. That sounds very expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. Invest in the services that are going to be the foundation of your business. If you don’t have the support, it can bog you down.
There is a big difference between a tax accounting and operational accounting. Your tax numbers are different than your operational numbers. Keeping tabs on the day-to-day numbers is not the same as doing your taxes.
When you are building your business, you need an accountant from the beginning. It is never too soon to start with an accountant, but it comes down to what you can afford.
Michelle has some clients that pay $195 a month and others that pay $5,000 a month. It just depends where they are with their business, how many touch points they want, and how much handholding they want.
A basic bookkeeper is like a screenplay, where it is just words on paper. At Breakaway, they turn those words into a musical. You will see all of the information that you have in your company come to life and tell you something.
A bookkeeper helps you get your revenue and expenses categorized correctly and maps out what is making you money for the amount of time you are are putting into it.
Your chart of accounts is a menu of your revenue and expenses. Cloud-based accounting systems have different levels of classification and accountants can dive deep into the numbers and analyze what they are saying.
Because of the pandemic, people are doing more with less and there has been a rise in consulting. Think about what you really need for a pain point. Come up with five different ways to solve it.
Michelle had an office space and it was very Zoom friendly. She never got to go to it, because her kids were in online school. She canceled the leased space and used the rent money to purchase a travel trailer to park next to her house. At home, she uses it as an office space, but she can also use it with her family to travel.
A tax CPA expects you to provide documentation and only takes what you say. If you only have a tax CPA, you run the risk of missing a lot of deductions. Now more than ever, people are leaning into bookkeepers, because they categorize the numbers. This has allowed companies in 2020 to get federal loans and get those loans forgiven.
If numbers aren’t your strong suit, it is important to invest in it. Making the right business decisions, because the financials make sense, is everything. The revenue may be growing, but how much is it costing you? Having someone analyze your numbers to help you make good decisions is so important.
Usually the cost of a bookkeeper is a write off for your business.
Michelle has set up some businesses for acquisitions or partnerships. She worked with a brewery client to set up a partnership with local vendor so they could make it through the pandemic. Having a mentor or someone else helping you alongside your business makes a big difference.
As a company, you need to start somewhere. Make a budget. Think about what you are not good at and hire someone to help you. Be honest about where you need help.
Takeaway: My biggest takeaway is that spending money on support areas of your business may seem like a waste, but, speaking from experience, investing in something like this will not only take a headache off your plate, it will give you the time and energy to lean into the parts of your business you love and can bring you more money in the end.
Random Three Questions
What have you been bingeing?
What do you do to relax?
If you won a million dollars, what would you do with it?
Connect with Michelle Löpez
LinkedIn: Michelle Löpez
Website: breakawayba.com
If you have any topics you would like me to cover on this podcast, or if you’d like to get in the financially naked hot seat, I encourage you to email me to Shannon@fingyms.com, or join the private Martinis and Your Money Facebook group, and let me know what you want to hear.
2020 was a challenging year and if money was one of those challenges for you, please don’t let 2021 be more of the same. Despite a global pandemic, we witnessed Financial Gym clients achieve amazing goals all year long. We’ve worked with over 6,000 clients at this point and we’ve literally seen it all and would love to help you achieve your financial dreams in 2021. So, if you’re ready to get started, head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com to get set up today.