[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome back to happy time happy money podcast and today we have Morgan de Klerk. Morgan is not an accountant and finance guru passionate about helping small business owners and digital nomads manage their money and lead them to the financial freedom that brings with two BBA degrees in the accounting and international business, summa coma, Lauda.

[00:00:35] She has experience in bookkeeping, accounting, scaling businesses around the world from four to six figures a month. administrating and preparing a $4.5 billion budget and helping multiple small businesses, freelancers and NPOs get off the ground. Hi and welcome Morgan.

[00:01:00] Morgan de Klerk: Hi Viktoriia, thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:03] Viktoriia Miracle: I'm so glad to have you. I would always love to hear first, your more about you, more about your story, how, I mean, you have such amazing things like Summa cum laude, where you finished the, the so amazing, like, your feels like you were passionate about tell us more about how you see.

[00:01:21] Morgan de Klerk: Yeah. So that's a really fancy bio basically, just to say that I really enjoy numbers and accounting and all things organization.

[00:01:29] But you can hear from my accent that I'm originally from the United States, but I actually moved to South Africa when I was six years old. So I did all of my primary school, high school education here, and then went back to the states for university. But while in high school and my husband and not, well now husband started dating when we were just 15 years old.

[00:01:50] So after university came back to South Africa and we got married right away to end the four-year long distance that we were doing, which was really long. So after university, we did a little bit of traveling mainly around Southeast Asia area and yeah, then I got a corporate accounting job and really dove into the fast paced accounting life and just realized quickly that I was not made to sit behind a desk for 60 hours a week and through that started to realize that a lot of small business owners didn't actually know how to do their book keeping themselves. And that led to master your finances. My business today that teaches small business owners, how to manage their money and prepare for taxes and audit proof their business so that they can make sure that their books are squeaky clean and that they know all of their numbers for their businesses.

[00:02:43] Viktoriia Miracle: Mm, love that. Oh, I think a lots of entrepreneurs that we need, we need like somebody like you, that loves numbers or either though somebody like you to teach us how to not to do. So what is the biggest, like top three biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs do in their businesses when they're starting or their scaling?

[00:03:04] Morgan de Klerk: Yes. When it comes to bookkeeping, the top three mistakes I would see business owners make is first of all, I'm not separating their personal and their business transactions. So right away, we want to separate those. We want to open up a business, a bank account and a personal bank account, and then keep those things.

[00:03:21] And so that's, you can't swipe your business card for personal things. We want to keep those two separate. The second thing is not registering their business either at all or correctly and we won't dive into that now, but if you'd like to schedule, calls me more than happy to talk through your unique situation together.

[00:03:38] And I think the third mistake that I see business owners make is just kind of digging their head away and not wanting to deal with their numbers. They, the biggest mistake I see business owners make is not tracking their income and expenses. That is the most important thing to do. so that's really what I'm passionate about, helping them with learn how to track those numbers, but then also learn how to use those numbers to growth their business because I really believe that you can't grow your business. If you don't know the numbers of your business.

[00:04:08] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah, absolutely. When I started my business, I definitely made this one. I did not track any expenses or anything. Income debt was coming. I felt like, okay, I'll make this money here. I spend a little here.

[00:04:21] It's fine. I'm like I go by. Okay, and absolutely it changed like a world for me to create a just a start tracking everything. What would you recommend? Like what would you use to recommend to do?

[00:04:37] Morgan de Klerk: Yeah, I think it all depends on how large your business is and where you kind of find yourself at. Viktoriia and I were talking about before the call, you know, she's a spreadsheet girl.

[00:04:46] She loves to use spreadsheets to tracker stuff. Whereas other people enjoy

[00:04:50] Viktoriia Miracle: through them. They'll only do that. I actually noticed, but I only love spreadsheet when it comes to me for your book.

[00:05:00] Morgan de Klerk: And then other people like to get on an online accounting software. My favorite online accounting software is QuickBooks.

[00:05:07] I find it the easiest to use, but I know it's difficult if you, I know Viktoriia is shaking her head. It's difficult to use if you don't have someone teaching you, but it's so simple to use. If you have someone holding your hand like we do and walking you through step-by-step. So I recommend a spreadsheet.

[00:05:25] If you're on a really tight budget, you can't afford $15 monthly subscription or anything like that, or your business is just really small or just really simple. You don't have a lot of transactions going through like my personal business. I'm still on Excel because I don't really have that many expenses.

[00:05:41] So spreadsheet works great for me and we have a spreadsheet template on our website and then otherwise our full course goes through QuickBooks and that's where we truly teach you how to what we call automate your books and that's where your books run for you in the background. So the reason I'm an advocate for QuickBooks is because you can set up rules that really do your book keeping for you in the background, without you touching anything and that's really where your numbers are working for you. And you can just continue to make more money while everything's being recorded for you in the background.

[00:06:12] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah. Well, I definitely agree. Like some, some I've tried QuickBooks and a couple others and it's, it helps when there's somebody helping. I wish I had, I tried QuickBooks at the moment.

[00:06:26] What would you recommend? Like number one thing you want to tell the advice that you want to give to everybody? It is starting figuring out their finances in the business?

[00:06:39] Morgan de Klerk: My biggest piece of advice would be to just start, like, even those three mistakes I made. If one of those made you cringe, you're like, oh, I'm not recording or, oh, I'm not a registered business or I'm not ready for tax season or whatever the case may be just to stop avoiding it. Our slogan is free your mind, master your finances. And we're really passionate about just taking away the anxiety that money makes you feel. That only happens by just getting started.

[00:07:05] So whatever it is for you, whether it's registering for your tax number online, or downloading our spreadsheet, or trying out QuickBooks or meeting with a, you know, booking a one-on-one call with a money coach just starts because that's really where the process starts and it's not that bad once you get started.

[00:07:25] Viktoriia Miracle: Love it. And the last question that I asked everybody on this podcast sound like this, I want you to fill in the blank. If you really knew me, you will know that I am blank.

[00:07:40] Morgan de Klerk: Oh, gosh, that I am not as put together as it may seem. I am extremely clumsy and kind of did see actually, I'm definitely, my husband makes me look way better, but I think a lot of people don't know that because I come across as, you know, a very smart professional accountant, but on the inside I'm still a little kid.

[00:08:04] Viktoriia Miracle: I love it. You let your soul have fun.

[00:08:08] Morgan de Klerk: Yeah, too much sometimes.

[00:08:10] Viktoriia Miracle: There's sometimes too much numbers, you know? And then you, like, you gotta just go for it.

[00:08:14] Morgan de Klerk: I know.

[00:08:16] Viktoriia Miracle: I love, I love that. So I would love for you to share. I know you have an amazing free gift of what it is and why they people should grab it?

[00:08:25] Morgan de Klerk: Yeah, we have a free masterclass on our website, also in the show notes. And that's, if you are ready to get started, you're listening to this. And I'm like, okay, then I would make our free class, your first thing it's 90 minutes jam packed full of six things that every business owner needs to know when they're getting started.

[00:08:42] And we'll actually get, you started with your book, keeping through that masterclass. So if you're looking to get started, then I recommend starting there.

[00:08:51] Viktoriia Miracle: Awesome. So if you're watching or listening to this episode, you will just scroll down and there's going to be a link to our webpage, where it can find video, audio and anything, and all the links that I've mentioned here in the interview.

[00:09:07] Thank you so much for coming Morgan and thank you so much for listening and watching and subscribe. Write a comment review that will warm our heart and that's why we keep going. Thank you so much now. See tomorrow. Bye.

[00:09:22] Morgan de Klerk: Thank you. Bye.