Unstoppable Real Estate Agents

Master Your Money: Organizing Your Real Estate Finances with Katy Martinez

• Kim Hughes • Episode 161

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Are you a real estate agent who feels like your finances are getting away from you? In this episode of The Unstoppable Real Estate Agents Podcast, we sat down with Katy Martinez, an MBA, former accounting professor, and the brilliant mind behind KeepingMyDollars.com. Katy shares her 30 years of business expertise and discusses how real estate professionals can break free from financial chaos, master their commission cycles, and build lasting confidence in their numbers before handing everything over to a bookkeeper or CPA.

We also dive into Katy’s game-changing new app, designed to instantly organize and categorize messy PDF bank and credit card statements using AI—saving you hours of stress and keeping you completely prepared for tax season.

Key Takeaways

  • The Commission Rollercoaster: Real estate commissions arrive in large chunks, making it easy to fall behind on planning for standard monthly overhead and estimated quarterly taxes.
  • Shine a Light on the Numbers: "Money does weird things in the dark." Taking just 10 minutes every Monday morning to review bank statements and credit card charges prevents fraud, catches unwanted subscriptions, and builds immense business confidence.
  • The Monday Morning Strategy: Map out your projected business and personal expenses at the start of the month, and check in every Monday morning to compare expectations against reality.
  • Stop Commingling Funds: Even if you don't open a formal business account right away, dedicate one specific credit card exclusively to business expenses to keep your personal life and business entirely separate.
  • The Truth About QuickBooks: QuickBooks automates data, but it doesn't clean up a mess. You have to understand your numbers and establish clean organization habits first (garbage in, garbage out).

Resources & Links:

Katy's Quiz: Who's In the Cockpit? https://go.keepingmydollars.com/cockpit-kimhughes

Katy's Website: https://keepingmydollars.com/

Read the Blog:  https://www.kimhughes.com/master-your-money-organizing-your-real-estate-finances-with-katy-martinez/

Watch the Video: https://youtu.be/0fOT4oZGmfA

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Join Real Estate OS Accelerator | Building the Operating System Behind Your Success.  The hands-on coaching program that gives you the structure, systems, and accountability to finally run your business like a pro.

Real Estate OS Accelerator - Kim Hughes

Additional Resources:

📩 FREE RESOURCE: Download my Complete Checklist – 72 To-Do’s to Dominate Success in Real Estate to supercharge your strategy! https://www.kimhughes.com/72-to-dos/

Visit my website for FREE Templates: https://www.kimhughes.com/resources/free-downloads/

Power Strategy Call – Best 30 minutes you will ever spend discussing the struggles in your business as we create solutions that will set you up for unbelievable success! Go to http://www.TalkwithKimHughes.com

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SPEAKER_00

Well, hi everybody. It's Kim Hughes, and today we have a very special guest with us. Her name is Katie Martinez, and she is with keepingmydollars.com. So, right there tells you go to her website, learn what she has to offer because she's going to help you with your taxes, your monthly expenses, and your quarterly, paying your taxes. She's going to get you all organized in the finance world of real estate. Welcome to the Unstoppable Real Estate Agents Podcast. I'm your host and real estate productivity expert, Kim Hughes. Join me as we focus on real strategies and implement real solutions designed for you to achieve major success in your business and life while getting you organized. So, with that said, let me give you a little background on Katie so you'll know that she comes with a ton of experience. So she has been um, she has 30 years of experience helping business owners grow. She also earned her MBA and with an accounting emphasis, and she taught accounting at the college level. She also built, ran, and sold her own business, which was a brick and mortar. That was what, nine years ago, Katie? That nine years ago?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, uh actually well, I I sold it. I ran it for uh uh nine years, and it was a I sold it in 24. Good for you.

SPEAKER_00

I love it when I hear women that built something and then they profited off of it.

SPEAKER_01

I just think that it's such a good feeling when you get the profit.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Okay, so Katie, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today and to talk to the agents about how they don't need to get behind in their finances. But I met Katie at our mastermind with our we use the same uh coaches for our business growth. And so we were all in Austin about two months ago at our mastermind, which is a very small group of people. I think there's about 10 of us in this group, and it was phenomenal. And I just love Katie. She just puts off this great energy. So, Katie, I'm gonna just kind of turn it over. I will ask some questions, but I just want to kind of talk to you about how did you come to where you are? You know, so what did you go through? Like when you sold your business, the brick and mortar, how did you build this business? And then what is your goal with this business? And give us some tips on how agents can get better with their finances.

SPEAKER_01

Well, first of all, Kim, thank you so much for this opportunity. I have been so enjoying getting to know you, and it's one of the uh fun parts of our small community where we're working together and understanding um what each other is doing. One of the things I really appreciate about what you do is you work hard to help real estate people agents, real estate agents have more effectiveness in their business and be able to focus on the things that are important and not worry about the things that aren't important. Get systems in place. And I I I'm in the same place. I uh first of all, I have a deep respect for real estate agents because I am a tough client. I uh it nothing comes easy to me when it comes to real estate. I uh took me a year to sell a house, and then it took me a year to find that building that I built that business in. And both times it was because I had real estate agents that really cared about what they were doing and cared about me. And that is the I I try to bring that same energy to helping real estate agents understand that there are all these things that go in our head about money. Uh, I'm not good with numbers, I don't have time for this. And I want to be able to help them be able to realize that that's a lie. You are good with numbers. In fact, probably real estate agents are far a lot far better in numbers than I am in a lot of ways because you're dealing with large numbers, complicated numbers. The the um state is it a HUD statement or something that I got on the building when I I sold it, the the numbers that go on both sides of the equation, and and you're looking at all of these things. So a real estate looking at their own money seems like oh, it'll take care of itself. Because back in the day when we had just regular paychecks, it kind of took care of itself. You knew what was coming in and then it would go out. But a real estate agent, it's a little bit harder because you have commissions and they usually come in big hunks of money, and then it might be a while before another check comes in. So it's it's really important to uh to me, I want real estate agents to be successful in what they do because I depend on you whenever I'm trying to make a move on my own personal side. I need good real estate agents that know how to run their business. So I want you to be successful too. And I want to take away the mystery that surrounds numbers because what happens, we start a business, and then we actually have to have some sales before we can do anything with our numbers. There's nothing to track, there's no real history to until you actually are successful. Here's the problem: once you start being successful, the numbers get away from you because you don't have systems in place, and all of a sudden you have a mess. And that's where I come in. Before a bookkeeper, before you have to hand over the your money information to your tax person, it's let's get things organized. And it's not big overhauls, it's putting in little habits and and little ways of being able to monitor what's happening. And over time you start getting more confident about, oh, I do understand my numbers. And and that's the world I live in. That's what I want to do is help people be able to feel more confident about how their money is working.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, you know, the my experience with real estate agents is that they get a commission check, they haven't had one in a couple of months, huge check, and then they're just they're trying to play catch up, you know, because they haven't planned, you know, so when I don't have a closing for two months, my emergency fund will kick in, or my, you know, because I've organized my finances so that if I do not close something that I was hoping I would, the money is there to carry me through, you know. And that's where I think agents, you know, a lot of agents are really good with their finances, but then the majority are not. And it's not because they don't know how to do it, it's just not on their radar. They don't feel that it's the most important thing. The most important thing to an agent is working with their current clients and looking for the new clients. And that's basically what they do. And anything that goes into the back end of the office gets put on the back burner. So when I talk to agents, one of the things that we always ask when they come on board as, well, even in the inquiry call, I will ask them, when was the last time you filed your tax return? You know, because that's a legitimate question. I was, I have been amazed at how many people, not just in real estate, but have not filed a tax return for a couple of years because they just, it's too big of a mess for them to clean up. And so we offer that as a service to help them. But then you come in, and that's where I got excited because I was like, oh my gosh, she could tell these agents how to organize their finances so they are not constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and I I have been in uh commissioned positions before. I was in a sales position that was commission based for five years. And and the the second one of those positions I was in, everything was on larger commission. My my final commission check was like $50,000. At least that was gross. It wasn't what I saw, of course, because the income taxes came out of it. But you get this big hunk of money, and it's like relief and uh and okay, I'm gonna party, and and there's all these things I have been saying no to for so long. You want to just open the gates and be able to do that and be able to spend the way you want to spend. And what I had to learn how to do is I still had to make sure the mortgage was going to be paid, the utilities were going to be paid, and my estimated taxes were going to be paid. So I got to the place that I would take those checks and immediately move the bulk of the money into a savings account that I wouldn't touch and plan out how those monies would take care of my essential expenses over the next couple of months. But I always held back a little bit of money as celebration money because when you get something of that magnitude, it is worth celebrating. So it it doesn't have to be uh a lavish, it can be a modest celebration, it could be a nice night out at a at a restaurant you wouldn't eat at normally, uh, with a very special friend or spouse or partner.

SPEAKER_00

But something should be set aside so reward yourself.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, a bit of it.

SPEAKER_00

I always say go get a massage. You know, that's a good one. That's what they need.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean you're carrying stress for so long and the stress starts immediately. You get that check, but the stress is gonna start building in. Like, when's the next one gonna come around? And that's why we get caught up in I gotta focus on sales, because without the sales and without those checks come in, none of this works. No, but money does weird things in the dark, and if you don't shine a light on them and keep an eye on that, then you can have stuff go wonky on you really fast when you're not paying attention to it. I um I had this weird situation that and I just opened my credit card statement yesterday and I went, wait a minute, what's the hat? I uh when we were coming back from our mastermind, I was uh at the um airport, and this gentleman came up and said, Hey, would you like to be able to go to the front of the line for the security? Now, this is when all of this government shutdown stuff was going on. Oh, yeah. Who wouldn't want to do that? What it was was this company called Clear. And so there was a two-week free trial, is what I ended up signing up for. But you're doing this on the fly in the airport, and I just want to get on my plane.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so I lost track of the fact that in a couple weeks they were gonna charge my credit card. A couple hundred bucks, as a matter of fact. Oh my god. And I just saw that when I opened my credit card, and I'm like, oh yeah, I need to do something about that because that that that I I don't need that.

SPEAKER_00

So let me ask you this. If you had if they charged your credit card, couldn't you just call the bank and challenge the charge? Okay, because that's something that I I do. If there is something on my credit card or something that's been taken out of my bank account that I can't figure out where it came from, the first thing I'm doing is I'm stopping that payment. And then I'm investigating. And, you know, like my husband came up to me last week and he said, Why did you spend $189 on whatever? And I said, I didn't. He goes, Well, it's in somebody who spent that money. And I ran into the bank account to look and it was a pending. So immediately I said, fraud. And of course they called me and told me that. So agents need to be a very aware of their credit card statements and their bank statements because they are always whipping out their credit card to pay this, to buy that, to help that seller get that house sell buyer, help them get that house bond. So money, you know, that got in and I was always taught, and I'm sure you'll confirm this, that I was very blessed when I started my business. My the CPA that I hired was just brilliant. And he kind of took me under his wing because he knew I didn't really understand how money worked in business. And so he taught me, you know, it and it was just phenomenal what I learned from him. But not everybody is like that, you know. So that's why I always say every month when you get that credit card statement and that bank statement to sit down and go through it. Anything that looks questionable, call your bank, find out who they are. What did they charge? Because you could forget, but with the way that the world is right now with spamming and fraud and everything else, I would definitely put that as a priority. Know when your statement cutoff is, and then print it out the next day. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_01

And that's a fine way to do it. I um uh now that we're in this online world and everything is available online the same way you saw that pending. Yeah. I I like to even set up, I have a Monday morning check-in that I like to do because I'm terrible on Friday afternoons, my brain shuts down. It's three o'clock, I don't want to do anything and I don't want to think about anything. Yeah. Monday morning, I'm just getting started and I get my McDonald's Diet Coke. I sit down and I keep a little uh spreadsheet each month where I it's this is what I expect is gonna happen. These are the charges that I'm expecting. And then I take a few minutes and I go into my bank account and I go into my credit card statements and say, does everything look like what it should be? Is everything is there anything unexpected? And if not, that's great. And it knows that I then I know I'm on track. And if I'm expecting something, it doesn't show up, I can get in front of it, start working on uh the income or whatever it is that I commissions or whatever it was I was looking for. By starting out Monday and knowing that I've checked for the last week that nothing is uh going nuts. Now when I start making my business decisions for the week, I have more confidence.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because I know where I stand, I know I've taken a moment to look at it. I it's it's no more than about 10 minutes every Monday. It's this is you can drink a cup of coffee. Like that.

SPEAKER_00

I like that idea. So let's back up a minute. Because you said that every Monday you sit down and project what you're spending for that week. Actually, you're going, you're looking at your money ahead to look at, okay, well, I have I have a closing on Thursday, I need to buy a closing gift. Oh, I have my MLS fees coming out on Wednesday. Oh, I need to buy gas. Oh, I gotta buy. So are you saying just for the business? But you could also do that for your personal too. But for the business, I think that's a I'm gonna try that. I like that idea to see what you're going to spend and then at the end of the week sit down and look at what you actually spent, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'll actually do that. We're at the beginning of the month. So I I created my spreadsheet for the month so I can see what they're coming. I know what my credit card payments are going to be, and and and and I do have it for both my personal and my business just so that I can keep track. Um, because as I get into these um the golden years, the money is even more restricted than it used to be. Yeah. So I try to be really careful about okay, is everything going the way I expected to go? And then I've got that spreadsheet for the month. Yeah. It doesn't mean I don't update it or something new comes along, but I have a place to put things so I'm not trying to remember it all the time.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I love that. I'm gonna do that's such a simple tip, but one that could change your life, you know. So I love that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it it did in my business because when I was running the brick and mortar, particularly the cut the first couple of years, I had the thinnest of margins. And so if if somebody didn't pay me on time or something didn't come in the way I expected, I was in trouble because I was um, I bought this million-dollar building when I wasn't the one that had the pockets. But the bank said, hey, this is a good investment, we'll back you up.

SPEAKER_00

And you got a good credit score, so we're gonna give you that money.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. You must know how to manage money, and and my resume backed that all up. And so there I was, and I've got a a ten thousand dollar mortgage payment every month that I'm gonna have to make sure I hit. And then I had the um I was renting out offices, I was renting out meeting space, and I had mailboxes, and but there was a period of time in my first year when I had half of my offices go empty. One company had five of them, and they shut down overnight. In fact, they tried to sneak out on a Sunday night, and I just happened to be in the building and and saw what was going on. So I at least knew what was happening, didn't change anything, they still shut down. And but that that was the office rental, is how I was gonna pay the mortgage. So, how was I gonna figure all this out? And of course, I'm pulling on savings and figuring out how to get through all of that. So it I realized that if I didn't stay in front of the money, that those weird situations when that happened, I didn't have a plan. I was always reacting instead of responding and anticipating. Well, that uses up more energy and stress when you're trying to figure things out on the fly. And I needed to focus on sales. I had to figure out how to grow the business. I couldn't let that noise get in the way. And by getting in front of it, by actually spending time on my money, I got control of it.

SPEAKER_00

I like that. I love that. If if nobody else walks away with anything, that little nugget right there, just know what you're going to be spending going forward for the month. I mean, I'm gonna do that. So when you do that, let me just make sure because I'm sure people will ask me this question. Are you saying that you're including your monthly bills that you already know are gonna come out, or are these expenses separate? Oh, so you're taking everything. So if I say I have $500 worth of expenses every month, I incorporate that into that monthly sheet. And then I say, okay, I have a closing, I need to buy gas, I need to, you know, help this client do pop buys, I've got it, you know, and that's where they're projecting the extra money is coming from, you know, where they're spending that extra. Because it could be another $500 per month that they're spending on their business just miscellaneous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. And I am um, I'm a big proponent of credit card over debit card.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Debit cards um are getting to be really uh risky when it comes to fraud. And the banks are starting to pull away from debit cards because the money is gone and recovering it takes a lot of effort. Yeah. So I don't use debit cards at all, and I I use credit cards. Well, particularly when I was behind the eight ball, and I I just I was building the up the credit uh payments, but I knew how much I was going to pay on that credit card each month. So I could forecast that for the month. So if I was buying gas and I put it on the credit card, it was in my early days, I it was a tomorrow problem because I had to pay down that that credit. But so from that standpoint, Dave Ramsey would hate me. But but that was my reality. It was the only way I could get in front of things. But then it made things more regular about okay, I know that I have to pay this credit card, I have to pay this loan, and and these are the expenses. It's like your MLS is gonna come out and knowing that the money's gonna be in the bank, because you gotta have it there. Yeah. There are certain things you gotta take care of because they're essential to the business. And and taxes are the same way, and that's the hardest one, particularly when I I I I imagine um real estate agents have to pay estimated taxes on their own.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean they're 1099s. And so, you know, one of the things that you and I talked about the other day was that they don't realize that if they don't pay their quarterly taxes, you know, and and somebody asked me this. They said, well, how much do you know how to pay? How much do you know to spent to send them? And now correct me if I'm in if I'm not right, but I go based off of what I paid last year. And so if I paid $20,000 in taxes, I'm dividing that by four for this year, and I'm staying right at that number. And I've done that for years. And it's, you know, I'm still gonna owe at the end of the year, but I'm not gonna owe as much. And so it's not gonna be such a big hit on me. And, you know, because I'm gonna be the one that's gonna pay more, so I don't have to pay the balance at the at on the 15th of April, you know. And if you can get into the habit of doing that quarterly, you're gonna save the penalties. Because even if you say, well, I'm not gonna do that. And I have had agents tell me I don't pay quarterly, I pay at the end at the end of the year. I'm like, do you realize how much you're being penalized? And and I think if you're penalized for not paying that quarterly, they're charging you interest on top of that penalty because now you're being double charged. So it's even if you send them $1,000, you know, or $500, send them something so you don't get penalized. You know, now do they have to send a certain amount before they're penalized, or is it just if they don't pay, they get penalized?

SPEAKER_01

What you said was so smart. I and I'm not a tax expert. So neither am I. But I uh what I have uh as my uh starting point is I think that it's as long as you pay this the in as much as you paid the year before, and that's why your system works, yeah, is that as long as you have done that, even if you all of a sudden doubled what you're gonna owe them this year, and you only paid them what you put in, you don't get penalized on that. Oh, yeah, yeah. The penalty is no, I haven't paid you anything. And the government says, Oh, we're fine with that, but you're going, we're going to take it out of your hide and you're gonna get it anyway. We would have made interest on that money, so we're gonna take it out of your pocket and you don't want to mess with the IRS of all the places. And the IRS has been in a mess the last few years, and I have uh been seeing that they are not sending out notices of, hey, you haven't done this, you haven't done that. So it's not like you get little love letter reminders like you do from the credit card company saying, wait a minute, you haven't paid us. The government says, Ah, we'll catch up to you, and and we're gonna hold you, we're gonna put you all the way in the fire. We don't care. It'll all be your fault, even though we didn't help you along the way. So it really means that we've got to be diligent about staying in front of that and saying, look, I did what I could, and that was I paid what I expected to pay. I made more, so I'll pay that to you at the end of the year. But you're but your approach is a really good one. Take whatever you paid last year, divide it, pay it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and just make it a monthly or quarterly.

SPEAKER_01

You just however you want to get your money out, yeah, make sure you pay the IRS. Don't mess. And and then people who sell products and they have sales tax, you never ever want to mess with state sales tax people.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So I've never had a problem with the IRS, but because I do it the way my CPA taught me how to do it, and I'm terrified of the IRS. So, you know, as a business owner, you have to be like, oh my gosh, I have to have all my P's and Q's in a row at all times. And um so I'm and also I am very blessed that I have a husband who is very good at what he does, and that is accounting. So he kind of goes, so the way that he and I do this is he runs the finance side of my business. And I'm that way I'm opened up to do the things that I enjoy because I don't enjoy being in numbers. I can do it, I just don't enjoy it. And so my husband, he enjoys it. So he does that, and we have a meeting every Monday morning, and it's our CEO meeting, and where he sits down and he says, Okay, well, this is how much you spent last week, and here's what we have coming up. We've got, you know, like right now we we talk about per business, but we also talk about the personal side because we're married, and so we do have that little meeting, and because when I talk to women, and I'm gonna talk to the women for just a minute that are listening, that if you do not know where your money sits and you rely on somebody else to do it, stop it. Just stop, stop doing that. Don't depend on others to manage your finances. You need to get control of them, you need to know what you're spending it on, you need to know exactly where you sit at all times with your money. Um, I have heard so many horror stories over women, you know, trusting their significant other to take care of it, and then they find out, well, he took it all, you know, and he left me, or you know, he blew it or whatever. And women just need to not follow in their mother's footsteps, they need to take control of their finances, and if you don't, there's nobody gonna be there to save you. So if nothing else, what Katie is explaining and sharing with us today is very good information for anybody, but I really hope the women take note of what what's going on with their finances. So, okay, so I have a couple of questions for you. Is that okay? Oh, let's try it. Okay. So I wrote it down. So I I wrote down that you teach people to understand their numbers before they ever delegate bookkeeping. So a lot of agents will skip straight to to hiring someone and buying QuickBooks. So they think, so here's a tip, here's the normal agent. My finances are in a mess. I don't know where I stand, I've got to get my taxes done, am I a year behind? Can you help me? And I because we have a bookkeeper on our team, I always say yes, we can. And then I try to talk to them about how far are you behind and you know, things like that to see what is going to be the investment on our end. And, you know, it's shocking at times, but at the same time, you know, they are just again, they are just running out doing what everybody tells them to do without thinking about what do I need, you know. Just because Joe Realtor over here, he's, you know, doing great, he's busting everybody's numbers, he's, you know, got all these programs. That's why he's successful. And then they run out by all these programs, but then they don't know how to use them. And so then they're frustrated because now they're being charged or whatever. So, you know, I am a simple person because I'm old school in what I do, but with numbers, I would do what you have recommended, do a spreadsheet and then just gather everything together, put it in order. And that way when whoever is cleaning up your finances and your accounting for your tax return, they can get it and get it done, and then they can deliver it to the uh CPA. So this is where I want you to talk about your app. Um, kind of tell us a little bit about what you have going on that real estate agents are gonna be really excited to hear about.

SPEAKER_01

I I'm gonna just step back for a moment. You said so many important things right there, and and it's not just real estate agents that uh are hearing this, but there are uh small business people. If somebody says, I need to do something about my uh bookkeeping or my accounting, first thing somebody says, Oh, go get QuickBooks. But QuickBooks doesn't uh clean up the messy, all it does is automate it. So it takes chaos and it automates it. So it you don't, it's garbage in, garbage out. Right. And that's why that doesn't work. If a real estate agent came to me uh, excuse me, and and wanted to help me be able to get my next property, I need to know what I'm looking for, right? I've got to tell them, well, I you need um uh I I I'm looking for a house. Uh am I looking for a place just for myself? Am I looking for a family? What are the needs? Are what kind of things are you looking for? There's a whole bunch of things a real estate agent starts quizzing me about, and I have to have an idea what it is I want before they can help me. Right. The same thing happens with our numbers. Before we can go to a bookkeeper, before we can go to a tax pro to get things done, we have to have things organized enough. And you you were saying you don't like to be in your numbers. You can do them, but you don't like to be on them. Most of us really, unless we're nerdy like me, don't enjoy spending time in the numbers. But if and and so the the the part of our brain says, well, I'll just delegate that. The problem is, it goes back to what you were saying before. If you delegate everything, you don't have control over your money. And the whole reason you are working so hard to make those commissions is to put money in your pocket. Yes. So it is counterintuitive to not care about the money, but we do it all the time. So I saw this as a problem. The the people, it's like, how do I get started? I'm in my in-between stage of I've got messy books and I've got to do annual reporting for my tax return. And the reason that some people probably aren't filing those tax returns is because they don't even know where to start. There's no order to them. So earlier this year, I had come out with a product where people could organize their tax information for a year by using my app. And my app would go through and you you feed it a bank statement or a credit card statement in a PDF form, and it goes through and it pulls out all the transactions off of the statement, and and then the AI comes in and categorizes them so that you have a starting point on a Schedule C basis, what those categories are. Well, this turned out to be so powerful. I have one lady who was like, oh my gosh, how come you as a small company can get this figured out? I have been spending months trying to get PDF statements read, and and these companies uh have mistakes all over the place. Why does yours work? This is all the app does. I don't try to do any kind of bookkeeping or anything else. It's just making it so that you can tell what are my expenses and how do I categorize them and to make that simple.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So we've turned around, and because this has been such a valuable thing, and I have really good programmers, we're going to re putting this out in a way where you can use it all year long just to be able to understand how your money works. And it's going to be the 60-minute business snapshot. The first thing I want to do is to have somebody be able to sit down and in 60 minutes know what happened last month. Just to prove to themselves, oh, I can understand my numbers. Oh, I can do this. And then if they want to be able to do more, each statement, all it takes is a credit. And I had it on a credit basis so that uh it uses AI. So of course that there's this ongoing need to process the transaction. So that's how you do it. You just buy what you need, and you take a bank statement or a credit card statement, upload it into the app, you say, categorize that for me, please. Give it a few minutes to do its work, and then you get a fine list of all the transactions that took place on that statement. And now you're looking at your history. You're looking at things that you recognize. It's like, oh yeah, I recognize Golden Corral. Was that business or personal? And if it's marked as business and it was personal, you just you can either delete the transaction or say, oh, that was a business expense.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, now that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01

I like that. It helps you to get it while you're still remembering what it was. One of the problems we have is, and and and I have been held hostage by my books for a few years, particularly after COVID, and I was busy having to cover so many bases. My books were the last thing I worked on because I knew I could do it, I can do it, I can do it. Well, I waited too long and a couple of years, and my tax account was like, okay, it is uh uh two weeks from tax deadline. I have to have your numbers to file. And I had to stop everything I was doing and then go back through the previous year's transactions. And the problem is, is I have a really hard time remembering in June of this year what I did in February of last year. I can't remember what I did last year. I didn't have a hard enough time remembering what I did last month. Last year is so foreign. So there's an Amazon charge. Was that business? Was it personal? What did I buy on that? So I have to go do all the digging, and of course it's all online, but I'm taking the moment to go searching at Amazon, find the transaction, find the details. Where if there was an easier way to keep up with it every month so that you had it all ready to go, then getting ready for taxes, now all of a sudden we're not putting off all that time at the end, and we can hand everything off to our tax pro either April 15th or June 15th. We don't have to wait till September 15th and October 15th.

SPEAKER_00

So let me ask you this. So let's say I feed my credit card statement. It organizes it, categorizes it, and everything. So how would do I print it? Do I have a printing ability to set or do I save it to my laptop and then I send it? How do I get that information to give it to the book feeder?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, such a good question. We we produce it in two ways. One is whatever statements you have categorized. So let's say we're just looking at one month right now. The app, in addition to categorizing, once everything is categorized the way you want, you can download a file. It's called a.csv file, comma delimited. If and people who are used to working with Excel might recognize that. This is a file that you can import right into Excel and it shows you all the transactions for the month. Oh, wow. Or if you have done six months or 12 months of transactions, it's all there in one spreadsheet. Now, the the nice thing about that is particularly when you do a year's worth, you hand that to your tax person. Tax person go through and they know how to work with Excel. So if they see something that's not categorized the way they think it ought to be categorized, they fix it. They are noting or changing a lot of stuff. They just automatically say, oh no, these are advertising costs, they aren't an office expense or whatever. Okay. So that is one way it comes out, is you can get it all in a way that goes into Excel or Google Sheets. You don't even have to have Excel. The other thing you get is a summary report, and it's a PDF that says by category, this is how much you spent in each category, and it adds it all up. So you can say, This is how much I spent in advertising, this is how much I spent as office expenses, this is how much my rent was.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And it's free report, and then you have all the detail, whatever you need. So then, because I have your app, and I let's say, what are we in? June. So I can upload, let's say I want to go, okay, I'm gonna start my 2026 now. So I'm gonna go backwards, I'm gonna get my credit card statements, I'm gonna get my bank statements and whatever else, and then I'm gonna upload it into that app and it's going to do its magic. And then because I've got it to date now, so then at the end of the month, we'll just say at the end of the month, when I get my new tax, my new statements, I upload those and I can store them as well. So I can store them there and access them again and again.

SPEAKER_01

So now, yes, that's what the new release is going to do. So you can just go through as the year progresses, you can just keep doing your month, keep up with it every month, and at the end of the year, you have a year's worth of transactions already, ready to go to hand to your tax pro.

SPEAKER_00

That is so cool because they don't have to do but maybe a five-minute thing where they just go get the statement, upload it, look at it, and then categorize it and save it. Boom.

SPEAKER_01

Make sure that yeah, you uh we all know AI makes mistakes. Oh, sure. It doesn't no. So you might have to to fix the categories, but then once you're done, you're done. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And your and your CPA's gonna love you. You know, because you want the CPA to love you. Like you always want your attorneys and your CPAs lacking you. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And it also sets you up that if you are gonna go to a bookkeeper to, okay, help me take over, now you actually are organized because your data is in categories, they're Schedule C categories, and that's not the best kind of categories for a business to run on a day-to-day basis. But they have something that they can build from and they can ask you about. They aren't taking a shoebox full of paper and receipts and trying to make sense of it.

SPEAKER_00

Girl, people in my years, I have received literally, literally a shoebox or a plastic container or a big envelope, and they just shoved everything in there and sent it to us. And I'm like, oh Lord, I'm so glad that our uh little bookkeeper Megan really enjoys this because that would just give me anxiety, you know. But I will say this that it gives the agent peace of mind knowing that their finances are organized, you know, because the one thing that I always preach about is what are you gonna do if you get audited? You know, make sure, you know, my CPA told me, and you can correct me if you think he's incorrect, but he told me years ago, um, he said, Kim, he goes, You've kind of taken over on your bookkeeping. And he said, You're kind of obsessed with being organized. You don't need to be that organized. And I said, Well, what if I'm audited? I just, you know, da da da da. And he was like, it's their job to find the mistake, not your job to show them. And he said, So if you if you get audited, you give them what you've got, tell them to figure it out. You don't you don't give them, you know, the organization, they're not expecting that, you know. And he said, and then if they find something, then you can show your proof or oh, I made a mistake, whatever. And he said, but Kim, he said, you need to be organized for yourself, but don't be organized for an audit. And I was like, Well, now that made sense. That they have to earn, they have to prove that I've made a mistake. I don't prove to them that I didn't make a mistake. Does that did I say that right?

SPEAKER_01

I yes, and and I think that that's a a wonderful point to make is that we can get obsessed. That's the other side, and that's and and we can be obsessed with the numbers and stay in there and not take care of the rest of the business. Yeah. Because we can get so caught up in all of that. And there gets to be a point where you're not adding percentage better. You know, when you're starting out and things aren't all in one place, right? I mean, a shoebox sometimes is a victory.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It is really hard to accumulate and have everything in one place. You have to actually have some habits because now that everything's electronic, it might be in your email, it might be on your bank statement, it might be over on the credit card statement. And it might be in a hard copy form that you got that uh a receipt that didn't show up anywhere else because you paid cash. It might be in your personal account.

SPEAKER_00

Or it might have gone to that special email account that you use for personal stuff, you know. So you've got multiple emails now that you gotta go find it, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, there's a good point.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

And so being organized, getting it all into one place, that's somebody might say, Oh, that's a victory. At least I had it all in one place. And and they're right. That that is one of the first things you gotta do is get it all in one place. But getting it so moving it from that shoebox into organized categories, you're making percentage leaps, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100% better. Yes. But when we start working on things and saying, well, that's a per set percent better than it was before, now you're not getting a return on your time. Right.

SPEAKER_00

And that's important.

SPEAKER_01

Be better spent, and well, particularly for real estate agents, because time is truly money. Everything is about can I get how do I find that next prospect? And whose hand do I need to hold? And what things do I have to make sure that that closing's gonna happen the way it's supposed to happen. That seems to be one of the biggest challenges for real estate agents these days, is you you've got us you've got two parties agreeing to to um on a property to sell and buy, but getting them to the table where the money actually transfers hands seems to be another whole process in itself these days.

SPEAKER_00

And it is, and it's it's the most important transaction of most people's lives. And so it it there's no room for error. And an agent, a good agent, will make sure that there's no room for error, but be prepared for a catastrophe, you know, and they happen, and that's just the way it is. So here's a couple of tidbits that I wanted to talk to you about. So I you had you when you and I were talking about, you know, the accounting and all of that. One of the things that I read in my notes that you said is you said, I know I am, I think you're talking to me. You said, I know that I am a big believer in keeping things separated and a good business person. And I'm I'm gonna say this, even if you're not good with your finances or if you're not good or with running your own business, you need to pay attention to your numbers and you have to pay attention to your bank account and everything because that's why you work. I mean, we all we all enjoy what we do for a living, or we wouldn't be doing it. But we also do it to get a paycheck because we have to have a paycheck to pay the bills, and we have to have that paycheck to go on that vacation and the, you know, and enjoy the life that we have tried to build for ourselves. So one of the things that, you know, and I'll go back to my own experience is that when I started my business, everything was commingled, you know. Um, you know, I I was a mother of three little toddlers while I was building a business, taking care of a mother-in-law. So I really didn't have a whole lot of time to think about the organization of my finances. To me, that was just not that important. You know, my my my goal was is to build a business, you know. And so once I started learning about money, you know, because I'm 65. Well, now I'm 66. But one thing my generation did not get, or women of my generation, is our parents did not teach us how to manage money because they our the the mindset back then was the husband takes care of the money. The husband will take care of it. And then of course, as women of my age have grown, you know, we're like, yeah, not so much. You know, the men don't necessarily have to be in charge of the money, you know. Um, I know several women that run the books of their homes because the husband works outside of the home, or he's I have friends like they're not, he's not good with money, but she is. So she runs it, you know. So there's always that. But the biggest thing that I've at nothing else to walk away with is to have separate accounts. And what I mean by that is I have my own bank account with my business, and then I have my personal. On my business, I have a credit card and I have a debit card. On my personal, I do too. I have the same things, but I don't carry my debit card. I only have that in case of an emergency. And then my credit card is what I use every day for my business. And I never write a check. I mean, even to my the people in my company, they all get paid through the bank, you know? And so to keep your your separate accounts, and then when you like yesterday, I went to get lunch because I was doing a working lunch. And so I pulled out my credit card for the business. And a lot of people would have thought to pull out the personal or pay cash. So I'm like, no, everything goes on the on the credit card. Everything goes on your credit card. And then at the end of the month, you look at what's on the credit card and then you pay off the credit card. So it's kind of like we taught our children that you need credit, you should have credit, you've got to have credit, but you've got to be smart with it. So what we told them is you get a credit card. So each one of our kids got credit cards when they were graduating high school. And, you know, we monitored those credit cards while they were in college. We made sure that they were, you know, not going crazy. And my kids were very thr, you know, very respectful of that. And so we never really had a huge problem. But at the same time, it was like you have to keep things separate because if I'm audited, then they just need my business stuff. They don't, they don't care about my personal, they just want to see the business, you know. And in a world that we live in a fraud these days, I wouldn't be surprised if those audits are not coming sooner and sooner. But the thing that I told my kids is if you put it on you, you put it on the credit card, only if you can pay off that balance, you know. So if you're putting gas in your car once a week and it's $50 a week, okay, that's $200 a month. That's great, but you better have $200 at the when that credit card statement comes to pay off the credit card to avoid the interest, you know. And that's where a lot of people get caught up is they put it on the credit card, then they didn't have a closing. So now they let the credit card roll to the next month and now they're paying interest. And, you know, I want everybody to be able to pay their credit card at the end of the month, you know. So what kind of advice can you give to an agent when that maybe is commingling their funds and don't know any better? You know, they just may not know to not do that, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Well, again, when you're getting started, there's so many things you have to think about. And getting a separate business uh checking account, particularly in these days, isn't the easiest thing to do anymore because they they need to see all sorts of documentation about who you are because the government is trying to monitor people through banks. So it's simpler just to say, well, I'm just gonna use my personal account and I'll get to it later. And then later doesn't come. Right. And so now I've got a year's worth of transactions that are in with my personal. You're going to still have to sort through all of those to be able to do the tax return because the business transactions have to be separated from the personal transactions.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And if you do it every month, you don't forget.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and and and and it's all in one place. So that means there's so much more work that has to be done because you're trying to say, that's personal, that's business, and what was that? Yeah. So for peace of mind, the the if you go and you say, All right, let me set up a business checking account that only the business transactions will go through and I'll pay the credit card through that one. Uh, I didn't even apply for a um uh business credit card per se. I just took one of my personal cards that I had and I said, the only thing I'm gonna put on this credit card is uh our business transactions. Oh, so then I know that that's where everything will be. So I separated out myself because I didn't want to go through all that approval process to try and justify for a special business account. The idea is, is what you're saying, have separate accounts. You've already improved your bookkeeping, accounting, everything. And all of your business transactions take place, at least 95% of them take place in one set of checking account and credit card account. Right. It doesn't mean that you are in a situation where uh I go to the grocery store and there are times when I was buying something for the business at the same time I was buying my personal. If it was mostly personal, I would put it on my personal credit card. But the odds of me remembering to get that business back over to the business was the hard part. Yeah. And and that's why I like to avoid putting business things into my personal account. I do it, but now I I force myself to document it now while you still remember. Right. Because uh two months from now you're not going to. Now you could say, well, it's not that big of a deal. You know, the person will say, Well, it means that the business could have reimbursed you and it would have been a reduction on your income and you would have paid less taxes. So those are the same.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh, say that again for the people in the back. Repeat that. Repeat that.

SPEAKER_01

So if you have something impersonal and you forget to put it over on the business side, you've lost two things. You could have reimbursed yourself, so personally could have had more income, and the business could have had more expenses to reduce your income so you're not paying as much tax.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's that is a good nugget right there. I hope people are understanding what we're what you just told them. So okay. So then um, you know, this has been great. So is there anything that we because I really, you know, I'm gonna be real honest. The reason why I was so excited about having you today is to talk about your app, because I feel like this app is going to be a game changer with real estate agents. You know, I mean, to me, I look at it this way: if I have this app and I can upload my bank statements and it categorize and do all of this stuff for me because of the the greatness of AI, is if I'm sitting at an inspection and I'm twiddling my thumbs, this is something that I could that would be so easy to do, you know. So they could do this in idle time that doesn't take another 10, 15 minutes a day. It's while they're in the middle, they're they're multitasking, is what they're doing, is what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_01

I will say it is a desktop app. It doesn't work on the phone, it is desktop. But you're right, not like it has to take this. Is one of those things that I do put on a Friday afternoon because it doesn't take a lot of brain power. I'm just going through the motions. I'm taking my statement, uploading it, letting the computer do the work, and then I'm saying, does this is that business? Is that the right category? And then done.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, I am very excited about that. Coming out, it it uh uh by the time the this podcast comes out, it's probably within a week or two of actually being available. Right so what I have is a quiz for people to take, it's a 60-second quiz. Okay. Who's in the cockpit? Is it your monies flying the plane or is it you flying the plane? And it's just four simple questions. Okay. But I've got to set up, Kim, just for your listeners. So it's a special quiz that goes down, and if they will put in their email address in inside the quiz, not only will they uh get first notice when the app becomes available so that they can look at it, but I'm also gonna give them five bonus credits. So they come with five credits, meaning you can process five bank or credit card statements. I'm gonna add another five in if they get it before July 18th. I'll add another five credits. That means they can do 10 statements. Wow, that's great. Uh that quiz is called the link for that. I think it'll put it in your show notes, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. We will um put the link to the quiz in our show notes. It'll be so if you're listening to this, just go to the show notes. You can also click in the YouTube description. It the link will be there. If you want to go to the website, to the podcast page, which is unstoppable real estateagents.com. If you go there, you'll see the podcast and you can go there and get the link as well. So we're gonna make sure every and then I'll put it in the email to um to my subscribers and they can receive it that way as well. So, but if you don't get it and you want it, then you just need to email me or email Katie and we'll make sure that you get that link because this is this is something that can really, really make a huge difference in your business if you'll take it seriously. You know, she's give she's giving you the tools to use to make your business better. And being in finance, a lot of people don't like to work in that. So, like I said, I mean, I'm just I was sitting here thinking, you could be sitting at an inspection with your laptop, open up your app, upload your what however many statements you want to do, and then you can jump over to your spreadsheet and do your projections for next week. How how cool is that? You know? So I love that. I love that. Yeah. Okay. So let's kind of wrap this up and tell us, you know, if you had two things you could give to the agent right now that they could walk away with and implement, what would be two things that they could do with their finances?

SPEAKER_01

The one thing, uh, the very first thing is just look. Just take the time each week and look at your bank statements and look at your credit card statements. No judging, nothing. Just look. Yeah. Like I said earlier, I by doing that yesterday, I found this charge that I was not expecting for a couple hundred dollars. And I can do something about it before they have time to contest it.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, and you know, that's another thing that's really important is that um if somebody charged your credit card without your permission, you only have so many days to um to report it. And after that, the longer it, the longer you wait, the harder it's going to get to get your money back. So if you could do it weekly, like you know, what Katie is saying, I think that's a win-win right there. Just look at everything every week. And if anything comes up that you're not sure of, call your bank. I would rather you call the bank and stop payment and then be like, oh yeah, I forgot I did that, and then release the funds, then then then for them to get the funds and you can't get them back.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I would tie into the other thing that you said earlier, Kim, and that is if you are co-mingling your funds into your personal account, go today and get a business account immediately. Start the process. Don't go Pasco, go straight to the bank and get them to set that up for you.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and you know, it's really interesting because real estate agents, you know, they are a breed of their own. And, you know, we talk a different language, we think a different way. Um, but at the end of the day, we're business owners, you know, but agents sometimes forget that they are a business owner because they work under a franchise name or under a certain broker name. And so they feel like their identity is not self-employed, but you are self-employed. So you've got to look at it that way and think that way because nobody's gonna do it for you. You know, if you screw up, who's gonna tell you? You're the owner. You you need to tell yourself. So that's why I think it's so important that agents that they need to know how to do this. They don't necessarily have to do it. They can hire people to help them, they can get your app and it would help them, but they have to understand what that area of the business does for them, which is right now finances. You know, this is why you work. So why not take that seriously, you know, instead of just, oh, I'll get to it later. And then later never comes, you know, and then they're mad at themselves because they lost that money that they were so busy chasing something that they forgot to take care of some, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Or they missed an opportunity to be able to go, you are in a unique situation where you know if an investment property is coming on the market before other people do. And if you see a good deal and you're not ready for it and you aren't organized enough to be able to take advantage of that opportunity, that just makes you heart sick.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes. And I've seen that happen multiple times. So, I mean, I have seen things happen to agents on their finances that blows my mind. And some of them, I'm like, should have been paying attention, you know. And then some of them, it was just, you know, a horror story. Um, if this doesn't rattle you, that several years ago when when really when the internet was really growing and everybody was trying to figure that out, you know, there was a company that built real estate websites. And I think they're still around. And how they're still around, I don't know. But they charged huge amounts of money to build a website for you because it was pretty much a custom template website, and it was around $10,000, you know. And so this agent paid that, never heard, never got the website. After six months, she's calling me. I don't know who this woman is, but she's calling me crying. And she was like, somebody, you know, so-and-so agent told me to call you because you could probably help me. And so she told me this. I mean, she's blubbering. I mean, like, I mean, she's crying. I mean, this isn't this is an ugly cry. And she, oh my gosh. And so I went to the company and, you know, advocated, you know, tried to advocate for her. And, you know, they were overseas. So right there, you have no recourse, you know, there's nothing you can do. And um, she did lose the 10,000 and it was heartbreaking. But it's like I told her, I said, you would have, if you could have caught on to that 30 days ago, you could have called your bank and denied the charge. Now, let me say this. We did go ahead and file the charge, you know, filed a complaint and all of that. She got a portion of it back, but because she waited too long, the bank was just like, I'm sorry. But um we pulled some strings and we got her taken care of. But that's what I'm talking about, is I've seen those type of horror stories and it's just heartbreaking, you know, because there's nothing I can do but try to help them. But at the end of the day, it may be too late, you know. So I want everybody to get your app. So I want everybody to click in the show notes and um click on that link. I'm gonna make it a big, I'll make it big and bold for everybody to see it. And then go take the quiz and then make sure you put in your email so that Katie can let you know when her uh app is ready to launch, and y'all could be the first ones in on it. And I think that's pretty darn exciting. So all right.

SPEAKER_01

I'm excited because again, I uh a good real estate agent, we need you desperately. And and the only way that you're gonna be there to help people like me who desperately need a real estate agent is for you to be healthy. Yes, and business health is based on financial health. 100%. Individually, we have to take care of our bodies and our health. But for a business, this is all about your finances.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, 100%. And it should be the most important thing an agent looks at in their business before the listings, before the buyers, before the closings, because none of that will happen if you don't have a good healthy finance system. So let's get fired up for Katie. I'm so excited for you about this app. When I was hearing you talk about it at the mastermind, I'm like, she needs to be on the podcast. This is something we're gonna need. I need her to get this out there for agents. And so here we are, you know, um what, a two months later, I think. But we're doing it. And um, so do you have a projection date of when it might be available? Are y'all still working out all the things?

SPEAKER_01

I uh if uh it's all on the programmers, but hopefully by uh the midpoint midpoint of uh June, it should be out. Correct.

SPEAKER_00

So I will make sure that your listeners will get the first email. Well, that's super sweet. And then they get the five additional credits too. On top of it. Yeah. So that's a pretty much yeah, I like that. Okay, well, Miss Katie, thank you so much for joining us today. I think this is a great podcast for the real estate agents to really sit down and listen to, and if nothing else, listen to the nuggets that we have been dropping. And Katie, you dropped some pretty good ones. So I would again thank you so much. I hope to have you back, and I wish you the best of luck on your app because I know it's going to be a huge success for you, as well as anybody that downloads it because it's gonna help them save peace of mind. So thank you again, and we will see y'all next time on the Unstoppable Real Estate Agents podcast. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for tuning in. And if you know someone, and I bet you do, who would appreciate this podcast, please share it with them. As a reminder, this podcast can be delivered directly to your favorite device by using the subscribe links you can find in the show notes below or over at Unstoppable RealestateAgents.com. Remember, it takes as much energy to wit as it does to play. Have a great day.