FINANCIAL REBELLION: Empowering Business Owners to: Understand their numbers, Grow their Profit, Save Tax & Build Financial Freedom

By Liz Jarvis

IT’S TIME TO ELIMINATE THE EVER PRESENT FINANCIAL ANXIETY FELT BY BUSINESS OWNERS TODAY!

Does the phrase “Know your Numbers” fill you with a sense of dread?

Do you avoid reading your Profit and Loss Statement and Balance Sheet?

Do you feel powerless around your Accountant or Bookkeeper?

Does the embarrassment about all of this leave you emotionally, mentally, and physically drained?

YOU are not alone – it’s not your fault – most business owners today are feeling this way.

AND that’s about to change forever. The truth is you’ve been robbed of your power. The expediency of modern accounting forgot about YOU! Nothing short of a rebellion against the status quo will enable business owners everywhere to claim their power back!

That rebellion shouldn’t be hard. That rebellion is yours to fight. And that rebellion can be created from the safety of your own space. This book will guide you to understand the Status Quo before engaging in
your battle. It’s going to be fun (probably more fun than you’re expecting!) Imagine Robin Hood taking power back from the “rich” and returning it to YOU where it rightly belongs!

Collect your bow and arrows and ride into power. You don’t have to do it alone!

A Chartered Accountant since 1991, Liz Jarvis has become increasingly disappointed by the siloing of her profession. Recognising that “Accounting is Broken” and watching that play out into the financial disengagement of business owners and entrepreneurs spurred her into a crusade to work out how to fix it! Her vigorous yet very human campaign to encourage business owners to engage with their numbers is what led to the approach in this book.

Her unique Financial Mentoring Practice has already changed hundreds of lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9781445790725

Book preview

Introduction:

From Powerless to

Flexing your Power

Accounting has lost its way. It’s so far off track it needs a rebellion to force it to realign it to its values. Today’s shocking status quo is one of financial anxiety and disempowered business owners.

I mean, who is accounting for anyway?

When I ask business owners about their accounting, they squirm with embarrassment, shame, and fear. They have well-practised self-talk that excuses them from using the numbers.

Don’t do what you can delegate is a favourite line of coaching which should not apply to reading your financial statements. Another is I’m no good at maths!

Sometimes their discomfort is way deeper. Often, I see real trauma in their eyes from things like business deals gone bad and huge accounting or tax bills. Actually, just being belittled by their dad’s accountant can be holding them back from owning greater success.

With reactions like this, it’s clear that most business owners believe that their financial statements are for someone else to use. In fact the way many accountants operate today, it’s clear that they think it’s the case too.

BUT I need you to understand that... without getting comfortable with your financial statements, it is impossible to tell how your business is going. It is also impossible to forecast its future. Most of all it means you’re doing business in the dark with no targets. Fighting off bandits that you can’t see.

It’s been my experience that too few business owners pay attention to their financial statements. But the thing is, those financial statements are not a boring thing separate from the business for someone else to deal with or interpret on your behalf.

They are for YOU, because, to have a financially successful business, you need to familiarize yourself with the financial side of your business, so you can make financially informed decisions with the information provided. That information is actually gathered from your actions as a business owner so you will find your own financials surprisingly easy to read and understand once you lean in.

When I work with business owners, we often meet virtually on Zoom – and it’s great! We can share screens and I help them dive into reports like their Profit and Loss Statement. You’d be amazed how rapidly they understand their own information, spot errors, and have ideas on how to better categorise things.

You are the most important user of the financial stuff. Weirdly, business owners have known and understood their financial information for centuries but this century, that knowing seems to have become lost to most business owners.

Without this knowing, business owners are stumbling about in the dark. They are vulnerable and their hard-earned money is ripe for the picking by predators selling quick fixes. Those fixes take the form of many advertising, coaching, and digital snake oils – people promising the world, yet unable to deliver for you. Success becomes elusive, partly because you don’t understand the truth of what goes on in your business.

Something has gone very wrong – something has disconnected you and many others from that knowing.

Accounting is broken.

My purpose since 2016 has been to find out what went wrong and how to reconnect YOU to your business so we can all prosper again.

Quietly, I pushed back against the status quo to take this journey. I’d seen problems coming in the early 2000s, but I couldn’t really articulate them. I knew I could help reconnect you to your numbers, but selling solutions for problems people don’t know they have is harder than pushing shit uphill.

However, I did not give up and I’m proud to announce to the world that I’ve finally worked out what was wrong and how to fix it for business owners once and for all!

In fact, this is why I say accounting is broken and insist that the ripple effect is massive. The consequences, if we don’t fix it, are going to continue to blow back on our society in the most chilling way– all the things that make politicians shit bricks.

- Depression and indecision set in.

- Families get ripped apart.

- Workers get laid off.

- Businesses close.

The list goes on.

Accounting really is broken– and I’m here to heal that as well as all the relationships wrapped up in it. Healing is a gift we all have deep within us, and it becomes stronger as we lean into ourselves to assist others. I have found it on this journey and in the pages of this book, together we will be healing your relationship with all sorts of things including healing the damage of unscrupulous actors in our industry.

Many of my peers cringe at me when I say, Accounting is broken. They probably think, Who is she to judge? So let me address that before I give you my findings and the amazing solutions everyone can utilise.

A Little About Me

I’m definitely not your stereotypical accountant but I have been a Chartered Accountant for well over 30 years. As this century started, I returned to public practice after a stint in commercial accounting to help transition business owners to Goods and Service Tax (GST) and become more tech savvy. For the years that followed, I watched as my industry became more regulated and computerised, less personal, and more expedient.

I declined a partnership offer in the firm I worked in, and some years later asked to reduce my hours whilst I studied business coaching. As I mentioned in my backstory, that request was perhaps a little ambitious! The head partner decided he would treat it as a resignation and I suddenly found myself in a very insecure territory, personally and financially. Driven by necessity and curiosity, I explored different ways to serve business owners.

Along the way, I’ve welcomed the woo-woo that the universe has delivered and I express gratitude and enjoy what manifests to help me.

I have been working with entrepreneurs and business owners everywhere to banish the anxious moments that prevent financial understanding. My clients emerge with a renewed sense of purpose and are confident about their role as the storyteller of their business story.

I help them discover their innate financial intelligence and I enjoy watching their power grow as they delegate effectively and collaborate with experts to maximize profit, minimize tax, and pave the way to the freedom they desire.

More importantly than being a Chartered Accountant, I am an observer of other human beings. I am, at the same time, a daughter, wife, and mum who loves observing the strengths and flaws that make every human unique with something exceptional to offer the rest of us. I love to do new things– I even started gymnastics at age 56 and experienced the joy of representing Australia at the Gymnastics for All Gymnaestrada in 2023. Finally, I am an author determined to help you and other business owners engage with your numbers so your business can be its best.

Solutions – lovingly distilled by me for you.

Before we launch into the rebellion, let me share a behind the scenes moment or two from writing this book. After a couple of years of trying to write my book, I attended an online book writers retreat. The universe even lined me up with an awesome free location to write in.

So there I was on the first night inside this beautiful farmhouse sitting at the huge dining table. The room was quiet and serene, the fire was crackling, but I felt despondent. Surrounded by resources and scattered papers, a mix of jumbled ideas floating through my mind, I thought, Why can’t you just neatly pack it all away into nicely labelled lever arch files, or better still, have it all electronically tidy with nothing but a laptop in front of you?

And then, it hit me– this week and this book are about distillation. Extracting the essential meaning of something; purifying through heating and cooling. Not having everything be perfectly neat and tidy, but rather being open to the messiness that is distilling a large mix of information into something more bite sized.

A dear friend and spiritual leader recently pointed out that I deserve credit for resiliently searching for a solution. I recognised accounting was broken but I didn’t stop there. I kept searching and searching for ways to explain these issues to business owners. The search became a crusade. I committed to educating myself with different ways of presenting problems and their solutions. Each book in the avalanche of audibles I consumed exposed me to other parts of the puzzle I was trying to solve.

I took many risks to dissect the matrix of confusion faced by business owners. Let’s face it: I’m an accountant. I like to distill a year’s worth of transactions into a couple of pages of numbers– it’s a science of sorts. But that’s not what is needed this time.

What’s needed is to take all the whys and wherefores of this problem and the solution I discerned – with its stories of pain, heartache, rebellion, and renewal – and distill them into a quick and lively invitation to you to help yourself to improve your life forever by engaging with your numbers.

That’s why I am always surrounded by resources as I write. It’s art and alchemy and magic of sorts that I am perfecting for you! Our Financial Rebellion is the crusade to engage business owners with their financials.

The goal is not the green tick of reconciling. The goal is meaningful financial statements – for YOU.

Meaningful financial statements allow YOU to get comfortable with listening to your business, feeling its pulse, taking its temperature and giving it clear direction.

You can achieve this yourself at first and then delegate the relevant pieces, with confidence, to others.Regularly reviewing those financial statements means you stay in touch with the story of your business and check the work of those you have delegated to.

YOU are the solution.

As I wrote this book, I discovered many, many layers of contributing factors that culminate in the un-readable financial reports that are often placed before you. You have been deprived of the ability to use your financial information to make decisions that propel you to your goals!

Us clever accountants have simplified financial statements to the point of being so generic that you don’t recognise your own business in them. Boring and meaningless through expediency.

Then suddenly, in one of those 3 a.m. awakenings in the book-writing process, I realised that what’s missing is YOU– the business owner. You have the knowing to put the meaning back in, to wake up those numbers so they can speak to you and communicate to you what’s going on in your business. Think of your knowing as your secret sauce– it is unique to every business owner and reflects your passion and your business with all its nuances.

However, not everyone wants you to take back your financial power by using words that are meaningful to you. Many professionals don’t believe in your secret sauce, they are happy with the status quo– a status quo where you don’t know!

You have felt that haven’t you? Are some of these things true for you?

You’ve been bossed around by bookkeepers and accountants.

You have been charged fees you don’t understand and can’t really afford.

You’ve asked question after question, without receiving a good explanation:

•About tax bills

•About what is really deductible

•About how to improve your cash flow

•About how to pay yourself

•About superannuation

•About how best to set up software

•About whether you should have a company

•About who should do what to get the right data in there

•About who should do what with the information once it is in there

•About how to reduce your accounting fees

… only to receive a bill for the time that didn’t get you an answer you could understand.

The main complaint I hear is that accountants won’t return your calls, don’t speak to you, and are definitely not there for you if you drop the ball.

Claim YOUR Power and Flex it with me!

To claim this power back, we will need to band together and support each other on the journey. It’s not as hard as you think, and it will be immensely rewarding.

Each of you will be invited to overcome a few of your own internal obstacles. You may even get push-back from the professionals who serve you. Ironically, accountants and bookkeepers’ jobs will improve as you all take on your power and bless them with checked and accurate financial statements in your language.

Their work will become more enjoyable as they collaborate with well-informed business owners instead of sorting rubbish from generic bookkeeping and dictating what is or isn’t a business expense.

You will also benefit from rhythm, routine, reflection, and even the company of like-minded people on this journey.

Say NO to the status quo and begin your journey of transformation.

Are you ready to say NO to meaningless financial information and discover your secret sauce so your financials can speak to you? Of course you are– what business owner wouldn’t be?

The Financial Rebellion is a journey we can take together. There are many unique paths and supports in each person’s battle, yet we can support one another’s learning journey along the way. The first step is to stand up and be counted as a Financial Rebel.

I define a Financial Rebel as a business owner who is willing to admit to their lack of understanding of their financial statements, AND, as a result of any messages in this book, has taken new steps to engage with their financial information and learn more about it.

I guarantee that learning will be easy - let me explain....

Have you ever seen a wedge-tailed eagle use the updrafts of thermals or hill slopes to rise effortlessly? Despite their weight, they rarely need to flap their huge wings. They soar higher and higher in great circles. Pairs of eagles often engage in aerobatic displays to advertise their territory to competitors. That is the sensation I want for business owners on this journey, and it is the experience I have witnessed with my clients over the years.

Engaging with your financial information sparks the flame that creates an updraft that will carry you gently higher and higher in the same way. It seeds abundance and flow which continues to spiral you ever higher through each new stage of growth in understanding. It is possibly a never-ending spiral, but we will not tire of it, as each day we awake as a new person facing new challenges in our businesses.

Until you choose to spark that flame though, you will remain as powerless as you feel today.

My wish for you is that over time you ultimately transform into a financially confident, empowered, and competent business owner with control over your accounting systems and processes. You will be comfortably working with your business numbers to take your business faster to your intended destination.

This is urgent for all of us. We need all the ingredients of a Financial Rebellion to push through to meaningful financial engagement.

Part One

The Way It Is Today has you

doing business in the dark!

(Your financial success is hiding in the fog of the unknown.)

Often as the day starts there is mist and fog giving a feeling of unrest and anxiety. Deep within, we feel the promise of the sunrise bringing light to the day ahead– revealing new ways of thinking and being. Let’s examine anxiety and limiting beliefs and how they can hold you back from using the numbers in your business to guide you to better and better outcomes.

Business owners are a gutsy group of people. They have passion; they take risks and it’s often because they are pursuing a purpose greater than money. Business ownership requires an endless array of decisions and most of those decisions will have a financial impact on that business, its owners, staff, and community.

The world at large assumes then that