The Wedding Pro CEO Podcast: Episode 187 With Brandee Gaar and Christy Bowie

Hey, they’re CEOs. Welcome to the Wedding Pro CEO podcast. I’m your host, Brandee Gaar, and my mission every single week with this podcast is to help you, the wedding industry entrepreneur, to build a profitable wedding business that you actually love.

In this episode, join Christy Bowie and I to talk all things finances. Christy is a fractional CFO, and she tells us about what it means to be a fractional CFO and how a small business owner can work with one as well as things to look for in your business, such as cash flow, how to manage down season, how to know how to project, how much money that you’re gonna have at the end of the year, and how to understand what to do with that money!

I absolutely LOVE talking about money so this episode is so fun! Let’s dive in!

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What is a CFO?

Being a CFO means Chief Financial Officer. So, that means being really knowledgeable about the money, the tax, all of that fun stuff. But really where the role as a fractional CFO is taking those financials that you might get from your bookkeeper, that tax return that you might get from your CPA, who you talk to maybe once a year, and translate those numbers into actionable steps.

We want to take all the numbers and instead of just asking yourselves “what did we do this month?” you want to ask yourself “how are these numbers teaching us about what we can do in the future? Where can we identify ways to do better in the future? What can we identify that went well and what went wrong? You want to take it a step further and make sure to use those numbers to build your wealth!

Now, you may be asking yourself what is a fractional CFO? A fractional CFO is a chief financial officer who work with companies who don’t really need like a full-time CFO. A lot of small business aren’t in the position to employ a full-time CFO salary and benefits and all those things that go into it, right?

So the benefit of a fractional CFO is they come in and work with multiple clients which gives you the option to get access to the knowledge and skills that that a CFO has and it makes it much more accessible.

Theres so much we don’t know as business owners about numbers and financials for our business because you HAVE to understand how much goes in and how much goes out! On this podcast, we always talk about how in order to grow we have to understand our numbers in order to grow a profitable business!

“As a fractional CFO, I translate financials into actionable steps, leveraging numbers to build wealth.”

Christy Bowie

How can a CFO help you?

The great thing about hiring a fractional CFO is that they come in and they are already experts in their field right? There’s no assigning tasks or tell them what to do! A CFO starts by looking at your business and going through numbers with you and seeing if you understand where you are in your business currently.

On a quarterly basis, you sit down and look at your numbers and look at forecasts for the next quarter. On a monthly basis you are still meeting with your CFO to track how and what you are doing!

“I focus on breaking down complex financial topics into everyday terms, ensuring accessibility for business owners who want to make their business more successful.”

Christy Bowie

What is the relationship between a CFO, bookkeeper, CPA, and financial planner?

All of the financial roles have to go hand in hand to make everything run smoothly! The bookkeeper is always going to be the one to close the books in the first half of the month.

Then, the CFO gets the reports from the bookkeepers and the CFO then talks to the bookkeeper and asks them to track anything that needs to be tracked more thoroughly and then the CFO preps for the quarterly or check in meeting!

Then the CPA comes in and completes the tax return!

The financial planner is the one that is in charge of worrying about your retirement and your wealth planning. They all in a way relate to each other.

Visit Christy’s workshop!!

Listen Now to Episode 187 of the Wedding Pro CEO Podcast, Tips from a Fractional CFO for Mastering Finances in the Wedding Industry

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Bye for now!!! 😊

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