small business

Pros and Cons of Doing My Own Business Taxes

March 21, 2019 By Kat

Hallelujah! I’ve finished my 2018 taxes. It was no easy task. This year, my second year in business, I decided to do my own taxes with TurboTax. (Last year I had a CPA do them for me because I had zero clue about what was involved.) Since doing my own taxes this year was quite the harrowing experience, I wanted to summarize the pros and cons.

Pros

Save money instead of paying a CPA to do it for you
Understand the finances of your business better
Get more organized with documentation
More in control of when it goes done instead of relying on someone else’s schedule

Cons

You could be doing it wrong lol
Takes a lot of time and research
Can get stuck on questions that you don’t know how to answer
Could be missing out on some deductions

It is quite a tricky balance. Doing my own taxes was a huge time commitment. When it comes down to it, the hours that I spent on it probably could have been spent on my business earning enough to cover the cost of a CPA. However, despite all those cons, I feel like the educational value I got from the experience far outweighed everything else. And the long-term effects of this newfound knowledge will serve me well beyond the tax season.

Yes, taxes are a necessary evil to keep your business running. But at the same time, the process is so detailed that you must pour over the details of every dollar that went in and out of your business. I was in Google spreadsheets forever filtering, categorizing, sorting, and summing up all sorts of columns and things. I had to login to all my accounts and figure out when things happened and make sure I didn’t miss anything.

In a way, it was re-living my entire past year and all the financial decisions I made and results I received. It made me extremely reflective on what were some not-so-great choices about how I spent my money and what activities were very effective in getting an ROI.

It made me very aware that even though a new business owner gets BOMBARDED with ads for classes, tools, events, resources, etc.., in the early days, you really don’t need all of those things. You need to get your way to a good business model and try to operate as leanly as possible.

I know that going into this coming year, I’m going to try to keep impeccable records and do proper bookkeeping as I go. Because I don’t want to deal with the frustration of going through a whole year of records at the end of this year, like I had to do for last year. Once you know the documentation and format of numbers you’ll need for tax time, it makes it easier to know what to keep and to use some sort of organizational system. Mine is still a bit ad-hoc at the moment. 🙂

Highlights on What I Learned

Track every source of business income
Count inventory at the end of each year (books in my case)
Download all business bank account and credit card statements for record keeping
Track car mileage for business purposes
Track all home expenses, figure out size of home office, and you can get a deduction as a % of your home expenses
Some expenses like phones or internet bills can also be deducted at a percentage based on how much you use them for work vs. personal use
Track business expenses. Here are some examples for me last year: advertising/promotional costs (like online ads, book launch party, business cards, supplies for events), business travel (went on a trip to NY for a workshop with my business coach), legal and professional fees (coach, lawyer, professional association membership dues), meals with clients or when traveling, educational expenses (classes, magazine subscriptions, events), shipping supplies (for my book), software subscriptions, license and fees (city business license fee), equipment (vlogging camera and payment reader), and other miscellaneous expenses.

It’s pretty great how many deductions you can get as a business owner! It’s just that you need to keep good records to back up everything you want to deduct, in case you get audited (hopefully not!).

Screenshot from TurboTax Home & Business edition
Part of the business deductions list

I also must include that I could not have finished my taxes without the amazing help of my CPA friend Wendy (@thetaxmuse). She specializes in working with creatives and small business owners and has free tax tips + resources on her Instagram page (go follow her!).

Wendy and I (inadvertently twinning at the chamber expo event!)

I attended 3 of her group tax workshops, where she thoroughly answered so many of my newbie tax questions. Her first workshop was actually last year back in October, when she first advised us entrepreneurs to start getting our papers in order and reviewing the year’s numbers. (Even though I started back in last Fall, it still took me a long time! I wasn’t very organized…) Anyhow, without her help, I can’t imagine being able to do it on my own otherwise.

Hence, if you decide to do your own taxes in a future year (it’s probably too late to do that this year), try to find someone you can ask for help. Turbo Tax is great, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to put numbers or how to answer their multiple choice questions.

Okay best of luck! Hope you can get lots of tax savings $$! And more importantly, I hope you can become more empowered with tracking the numbers in your business!

If you enjoyed this article, you can check out more business articles on my blog or sign up for my mailing list here.

Photo by 3Lopez

New Favorite Sandwich Place in Palo Alto – Driftwood Deli

February 18, 2019 By Kat

Apparently this place has been around for a long time, but this was our first time trying it! Their sandwiches are really good! It’s a bit hard to notice, but it’s next to the Creekside Inn on El Camino Real in Palo Alto, CA. Read on for a peek inside and to see what we ordered.

This is what you see when you walk in.

The staff is very friendly! And very patient while you try to choose among the many, many sandwich options lol. How to choose?!?

They said their most popular sandwiches are: #16 California Club, #29 Heaven on Earth, #23 Kevin’s, and #18 Turkey Pesto. They also do half sandwiches if you want to try different kinds.

Your meal’s not complete without a satisfying bag of chips! And boy, do they have chip options. Again, a very difficult decision lol.

Or if you have multiple people, you can opt for the bigger bags of chips and split it, which is what we decided to do.

If you need a drink or candy bar, they’ve got you covered.

After you’ve got all your food, you can sit at their cute little tables inside or outside. This guy had to get 2 sandwiches…

Ok here are the close up Instagram shots of the sandwiches you’ve been waiting for:

All of them were really good!!! My favorite was “The Customer’s Favorite!” That’s literally the name of it. They used to have it as the daily special, for a really long time (several months), and then they took it away, and customers kept asking for it, so they brought it back! It’s so good!!! *drool*

Other people in the community also agree that these sandwiches are the bomb.

We were SO stuffed from 3 sandwiches. I recommend going with 1 sandwich for each person, haha. Before I forget, they also have a cute coffee bar if you want that type of drink!

By the way, that’s Roberto in the picture. He’s a nice guy. Say hi to him if you see him there. He’s worked at the deli for 19 years! The owner of the shop is Steve, and he’s also around and friendly to talk to as well. Steve is in the video on the Yelp business page, which I watched before we walked in, so I recognized him, haha.

Anyways, back to the coffee bar. Here’s the menu of drinks available. And yes, they have ice cream too! From Dreyer’s.

Not done yet! They have breakfast sandwiches and salads too. I believe they have gluten-free options for bread as well. So there you go, they have everything!

This place has got a homey small-town feel to it, where they recognize the frequent customers by name. I like those types of places in the community. Sadly, they’re becoming rarer and rarer. So if you’re in the Palo Alto area near El Camino, stop by this place to support a small business!

Before we even finished our food, Vince said, “Let’s come back 38 more times!” Because we have 38 more specials on their board to try. LOL wow.

Grow Your Instagram Following

October 19, 2018 By Kat

This is intended to be tips for people and small businesses who want to grow their Instagram account.

I know number of followers are a superficial metric, and there’s all sorts of biases like fake followers and people who just temporarily follow and unfollow you later. And I also know that there are many more people with a ton more followers.

Regardless, to build a solid following on Instagram, you have to be able to show up consistently, create quality content, engage authentically – all of which doesn’t just happen “on accident.”

In any case, it’s been about a year of intentionally working on growing my Instagram account @kat.kuan to develop my brand and presence online. I even booked a session with a social media consultant to get feedback and advice on my profile. So these are 5 takeaways I wanted to share with you. First off, I want to start with why this matters.

WHY INSTAGRAM IS IMPORTANT

Sometimes I think Instagram is the fastest way to reach people. Once I post something, folks can “like” my post WITHIN SECONDS!!! I don’t think people check or respond to their email nearly as fast!

For anyone creating a business or having a job in a creative industry (such as art or cooking or fashion – something where you create something), I think it is vital to have an Instagram account to show your portfolio of work. The economy is rapidly changing and I like to think of an Instagram account as a quick-glance resume of what your work is like.

For example, my friend is a hairstylist and captures all the haircuts and hair coloring she’s done for clients on her Instagram @hairstyle_by_natalie. That way, future clients can also check out her Instagram and see her work on past clients within a quick glance.

For my profession of personal styling, my Instagram showcases outfits I’ve created so that people can decide if they like my aesthetic and want to work with me.

1. POST CONSISTENTLY

Content creation is hard. Some creators swear by posting multiple times a day. I tried that, and it’s a little too much for me. I feel like it floods the audience with too much of me, and it’s hard to come up with so much content.

So settle on something that feels right to you. For me, about 5 days a week (basically 1x per weekday) is a good target to aim for.

Your account will grow with time. Here’s the analytics for my account from the InsTrack app. You can see sometimes it goes up faster than others, and there are dips as well. Also, for the time periods where it grew the fastest, I was spending way too much time on there that I was in a bad state of mind. So growth at all costs is not worth it.

And go easy on yourself if you didn’t reach your target. I went through a rollercoaster of emotions trying to be consistent. I would get really motivated and post multiple times a day, and then get busy in my life, and not post for weeks. So I would be super active, then not active, and then super active, etc.. Now I try to be a more moderate amount of active and try to keep that steady.

Because our schedule can vary widely from day to day, the best way to make sure you have consistent content is to plan it out ahead of time. I’ve tried various tools but now I just use a Google Sheets spreadsheet that I call my “Content Calendar” and keep track of the date I want to post it, the name of the post, what format of content it is (social media post, YouTube video, blog, etc..), and any notes.

2. DON’T WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT PERFECTION

Especially when you’re first starting off, I think there’s a desire to make everything look “Instagram worthy” and beautiful and editorial like the mega influencers, but sometimes it’s just better to get it out there and do it consistently. Then you can work on slowly raising the bar for the quality of content – better photography, better graphics, better photo editing, etc.. Just don’t try to aim for all those things at once in the beginning.

It took a while to develop the look-and-feel of my content. I really like clear and concise images. Clarity is super important, and I use Canva for any graphics that involve text. I wrote a tutorial for using Canva earlier, which can be found here.

Let your style and subject matter content naturally evolve over time.

For example, back in September 2017 (over a year ago), I posted random things – quotes, food, personal pictures, drawings, stuff about my children’s book.

Then I started to post more pictures of myself and book stuff – some lifestyle / food stuff sprinkled in here and there. Posting pictures of yourself (while it feels weird and self-centered in the beginning), it’s important because it helps people see and recognize you.

In the summer of 2018, I moved more boldly into posting fashion photos for my personal styling business and developing an aesthetic with the bold text, and using that consistently.

And these are my most recent posts – fall of 2018. It’s includes photos of me, fashion (photos taken by photographer friends), and a consistent font style.

3. SHOW THE PROCESS

Instagram is great for telling a story with visuals. A great image tells a story without any words, without even reading the caption. And over time, the all the images you post will tell another story – a broader story about yourself or your business.

To keep it interesting, I think it’s important to show how you evolve and show timely events and show a growing / transformation process. So if you’re working on creating a product that takes a long time, show the process.

That provides values to your followers and allows them to “follow” your journey.

Example: This is how I documented the journey of writing my children’s book Use Your Voice.

Sharing your story is SO important because it differentiates you from the other people/businesses out there. If you have a clothing line, it can be hard to differentiate from the many other clothing brands on Instagram. Glam shots with beautiful people modeling the clothes can only go far. BUT sharing how you designed / manufactured / and tested out the items can make people more invested in your business and want to be a part of your journey too.

4. BE AUTHENTIC, USE INSTAGRAM STORIES

People come on Instagram to be inspired and to connect as well – to relate to others. I know that the advice of “being authentic” is overused and vague. My tangible tip for that is to use Instagram stories.

This is where you can record short video clips or post images and use their creation tools to add text / emojis on top. The stories only last 24 hours. The stories content DOES NOT need to look perfect. In fact, the more rough-around-the-edges, the more real it feels.

On another topic of authenticity, create genuine connections with people by writing thoughtful comments on their posts and responding to comments on your posts. I think this is an area of improvement for me, sometimes I get carried away on the content part, that it’s easy to forget that the whole point of this platform is to bring people together. So connect and grow your community by encouraging others and cheering them on too!

5. HAVE BOUNDARIES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

You could get addicted to social media and start scrolling / liking / commenting on stuff all day long, but that is incredible draining and I start to hate Instagram after a day like that.

The reason I stick to weekdays is because social media can be a sinkhole of your time. And too much social media can be unhealthy for mental health because you’re seeing all these other things and can feel FOMO (fear of missing out) or feel like you’re comparing yourself to others, or sometimes people get negative comments, etc.. So I think having limits with social media is good for having balance in life and also having time to focus on just living life, being present, and not worrying about having to capture it for the ‘gram.

To check out my profile, visit @kat.kuan.

Create Social Media Graphics with Canva

September 19, 2018 By Kat

The best tool I’ve discovered for creating social media graphics is Canva.

There’s no need to use Photoshop or other complicated tools.

It’s also FREE!

Canva has tons of templates and layouts that look fantastic and professional.

You just drag/drop your own photos, enter in your own text, and suddenly you have a magical and beautiful social media graphic – without any graphic design experience!

Major props to those who have graphic design experience, I don’t know how you make such beautiful things. The rest of us have to resort to finding tools like this to help us get by!

HOW TO USE CANVA

When you open Canva, you can create a new design.

Depending on what your use case is, you can pick if you’re creating an Instagram post, a Facebook ad, a LinkedIn cover photo, blog header image, infographic, flyer, or a multitude of other options.

It’ll lay out a canvas for you at the appropriate dimensions – so helpful because the variation of image dimensions for each social media platform drives me nuts.

CREATE A NEW DESIGN

I clicked on “Instagram post” so here’s a blank square canvas for me to work with. I can choose from various Canva layouts. There’s a lot of great options for free, while some options cost money.

Once you select a layout, it gets added to your canvas. Then you can start editing the text, photos, and drag/drop to move elements around – change the color / font / etc…

You can upload your own images and drag them onto the canvas. Below is a history of images I’ve uploaded for my past graphics.

You can also search for photos or illustrations that Canva provides. Some are free and some are paid.

Once you finish your design, you can download it in the format you want and use it wherever you need.

ALL YOUR DESIGNS

Canva also keeps a collection of all your past designs. That’s handy when I want to use a similar format / font from something I created before. Make a copy of a design and then edit from there.

EXAMPLE

This is a recent graphic I created for a YouTube video thumbnail.

Side note: I like how preparing my own graphic for the thumbnail makes the video look a lot better (top two video thumbnails), as compared to a random still frame taken from the YouTube video (rest of thumbnails).

To promote the video on my Instagram page, I couldn’t use the above thumbnail because some of the text would get cut off. Hence I copied all the elements over and created a new square Instagram graphic. Download the image and then post it!

By now, you’re probably getting the idea that there’s many use cases for these graphics. If you’re building your own brand, it’s important to have strong visuals. I’m still working on making a cohesive visual brand for myself, but Canva is allowing me to experiment with different styles in an easy way.

For more examples of what I’ve created with Canva, check out my Instagram @kat.kuan.

PREMIUM VERSION

There’s also a paid premium version, which I haven’t tried yet. If you work on a team, then multiple users can collaborate together. You can setup a brand color scheme, logos, fonts, etc.. so that these preset defaults are easily accessible when you’re creating your graphics.

Overall, I highly recommend this tool for beginners. It makes you feel powerful *arm flex* and capable of doing graphic design!

Now go make your social media accounts pretty with Canva!