Beginning Balance – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Technical and general information from the podcast's RSS feed.

Beginning Balance

Jesse Mecham

Business

Frequency: 1 episode/11d. Total Eps: 111

Jesse Mecham and Mark Butler teach you how to manage your business cash flow, hone your business model, and not freak out about money.

Site

RSS

Apple

Recent rankings

Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.

Apple Podcasts

🇩🇪 Germany - entrepreneurship
19/10/2024
#78
🇩🇪 Germany - entrepreneurship
18/10/2024
#42

Spotify

No recent rankings available

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Links found in episode descriptions and other podcasts that share them.

See all

https://www.youneedabudget.com
200 shares
https://markbutler.com
200 shares
https://letsdothebooks.com
156 shares

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3wMCZBxlAflM7K0xgsIWGO?si=22e269862d624216
1 share

RSS feed quality and score

Technical evaluation of the podcast's RSS feed quality and structure.

See all

RSS feed quality

To improve

Score global : 53%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

Year

Latest published episodes

Recent episodes with titles, durations, and descriptions.

See all

From Barista to Billionaire (Mo' Money, Same Problems)

Episode 112

Friday, September 27, 2024 • Duration 38:09

Mark and Jesse discuss their most recent read, Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire by Andrew Wilkinson, a one-time barista and co-founder of Tiny, a holding company that buys and holds businesses for the long-term (like Berkshire Hathaway). At the age of 36, Wilkinson found himself owner of a company worth over a billion dollars, and in a new stratosphere of wealth he had never experienced before. What he found, though, was that the same problems which pervade life in the lower economic classes are still there in the upper crust. The presentation of the problems are different, sure (the middle class aren't generally obssessed with yachts), but the nature is the same -- jealousy, covetousness, ego, etc.

Jesse shares his own experiences dealing with business and financial success while trying to stay genuine and honest.... while cracking some terrible puns in the process.

Mark Butler

The Money School: https://moneyschool.works

https://markbutler.com

https://letsdothebooks.com

YNAB

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Read moreCollapse

Gardening, Compost, and Business Complexity

Episode 110

Friday, September 13, 2024 • Duration 32:45

Good gardens require good soil, and good soil takes compost and plenty of time. Jesse shares his experiences composting soil for his garden, and how it applies to business. Like compost, good business ideas take time to execute. They can be executed more quickly, but that often involves more complexity. Mark and Jesse then pivot to discuss complexity in business plans, and when it's worth pursuing complex solutions to problems.

Jesse's rule of thumb: if the business strategy is simple, but the implementation is complex, it's probably worth doing. Many things that appear simple on the surface involved solving complex problems. YNAB's direct import function is a good example. Direct import means that users can link their bank accounts to their YNAB account, and transactions automatically appear in YNAB for them to categorize. It's an important part of making YNAB a smooth and easy to use tool. The intricacies of actually pulling bank data from various banks, each with their own constantly changing API's and backend implementations, is very complex and requires a lot of effort to solve. On the other hand, if a business strategy complex at the outset, before you get into the details of actually pulling it off, it's probably a bad idea!

Mark Butler

The Money School: https://moneyschool.works

https://markbutler.com

https://letsdothebooks.com

YNAB

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Why You Should Be Tracking Your Net Worth

Episode 101

Friday, May 10, 2024 • Duration 35:36

In today's episode, Jesse discusses his net worth tracker, a basic spreadsheet in which he records the balances of his investments and other assets quarterly. For Jesse, net worth is the scorecard of personal finance -- it's a way of keeping track of what direction you are going with your money. However, scorecard is an impersonal way to describe net worth, perhaps even suggests that one's value is tied to net worth. This could not be further from the truth! There's a lot more to a person than their net worth, but net worth does tell an important story about a person's money, and money is a vital part of a person, even if it's not their whole self.

As Mark has observed during his time coaching people to manage their money, people that routinely spend beyond their means -- that is, accrue negative net worth -- have allowed their desire for consumption to exceed their ability to consume. Their net worth represents a person who is out of touch with their tradeoffs. As Mark has mentioend in previous episodes, YNAB is all about making your tradeoffs crystal clear, and learning to love the choices you make to bring your money in alignment with your priorities. In short, learning to love your spending.

Mark Butler, Virtual CFO

The Money School: https://moneyschool.works

https://markbutler.com

https://letsdothebooks.com

YNAB

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Read moreCollapse

Simplify Everything

Episode 10

Friday, August 6, 2021 • Duration 37:23

How you manage your financial systems is an indicator of how well you manage the rest of your business, says Mark Butler. Long lists of bank accounts, complicated credit card payment schemes... as businesses grow their financial systems becomes more complex, but without careful management, it's easy to let become a jungle that accounting has to hack through every month to close the books. Simplifying these things leads to less stress, less hassle for your accounting team (and less cost), and importantly, more clarity around how profitable your products and services are and the resources needed to sustain them.

Mark Butler CFO

https://markbutler.com

You Need a Budget

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Read moreCollapse

Reconciliation: Way Cooler and More Critical Than You Think!

Episode 9

Friday, July 30, 2021 • Duration 19:47

It a fussy word, and almost sounds archaic nowadays, like "balancing your checkbook." But reconciliation is critical to ensuring that your bank account actually lines up with the jobs you assigned to your dollars in Rule One!

Basically, reconciliation is a process in which you compare your actual bank balance to your balance in YNAB. This serves two purposes. First, it ensures that you are entering expenses in YNAB correctly; mistakes happen, direct import occasionally throws an error, or you manually enter a transaction twice by mistake. By reconciling your accounts regularly, you can catch these errors and discrepancies quickly. If you reconcile infrequently, it can be very frustrating and time-consuming to track down the source of the error.

Secondly, reconciling ensures that your YNAB account matches reality. In order to give your dollars a job and assign them to handle future expenses, you have to know that the dollars are actually there in your bank account. It's the reality check. Reconciliation is a simple process, but if you neglect it for long periods of time you can end up with very different balances in your YNAB account (or whichever budgeting system you use) and your bank accounts. And at the end of the day, what really matters is that you have the cash in your bank account!

Mark Butler CFO

https://markbutler.com

You Need a Budget

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Read moreCollapse

Rule Four: Age Your Money, Not Your Strategy

Episode 8

Friday, July 23, 2021 • Duration 41:11

Jesse and Mark wrap up their review of the four YNAB rules as applied to business with Rule Four, age your money. This rule is a consequence of following the first three rules, and it refers to the fact that once you have embraced the rules you will find yourself paying for this month's expenses with last month's money. Maybe even money from two months ago. That's called aging your money, and it's crucial for being strategic in business.

Mark Butler CFO

https://markbutler.com

You Need a Budget

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Read moreCollapse

Rule Three: Budget Is a Verb, Not a Noun

Episode 7

Friday, July 16, 2021 • Duration 40:49

Mark and Jesse continue analyzing the problems of small business finance through the lens of You Need a Budget's "Four Rules." Today they explain that Rule Three -- roll with the punches -- is a call to actively, and continually, budget for the business.

The budget is not a static document that gets set once a month, or once a quarter, or yearly, then measured against. Budgeting that way is a good way to feel continual frustration at not meeting numbers, because all budgeting involves guessing at what you will spend. And guesses are usually wrong!

Rule Three encourages business owners to roll with the punches instead. You do this by adjusting your budget as you go, throughout the year, using the categories you've established as your guideposts. Did you overspend on travel and entertainment last month because an unexpected opportunity to pitch a product to an out of town client? That's ok! You simply move money from another category to cover the overage in travel and entertainment. It's not a budgeting failure to have overspent in that category; in fact it may be a very wise business move. In traditional historical budgeting methods, that overage would be a big red number on a spreadsheet. In YNAB, it's just called rolling with the punches.

Mark Butler CFO

https://markbutler.com

You Need a Budget

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Read moreCollapse

Rule Two: Dealing with "Fluke" Expenses

Episode 6

Friday, July 9, 2021 • Duration 21:54

Mark and Jesse expand on Rule Two, or "embracing your true expenses." When Mark onboard a new client, he helps them import six to twelve months of prior expenses into YNAB for analysis. With these numbers, Mark and the client can get an idea of the true expenses of the business, including expenses that occur infrequently, whether it's annual insurance premiums or unexpected costs related to operations. Often during this process the business owner will point out how the expenses during the historical period were a fluke and not representative of a normal operating cycle. But the reality is, unexpected expenses are a normal part of business, and what we perceive as flukes are really just unexpected expenses that we can learn from, and prepare for, in the future.

Some entrepreneurs feel that saving up cash today for expenses that will happen in the future hamstrings them by limiting their opportunities for growth or competing with peers in their industry. But as Mark pointed out in the discussions about Rule One, having cash on hand ultimately gives business owners options.

If a business owner saves a pile of cash for an expense that never occurs, they can simply decide to reallocate that cash to do other jobs. The reverse scenario is more dire. Not having enough cash to handle an unplanned expense, or an irregular expense that hasn't been saved for, usually involves taking out a loan of some kind to pay for it. That's going backwards!

Read moreCollapse

Rule Two: Sleep Better at Night by Embracing Your True Expenses

Episode 5

Friday, July 2, 2021 • Duration 36:33

Mark and Jesse discuss how YNAB's Rule Two can help business owners sleep better at night, by setting aside money for their known (and some unknown) future expenses like taxes, insurance, future hiring, and more. No more sweating during tax season wondering what your tax bill will be and how you are going to pay for!

Mark Butler -- the Virtual CFO

https://markbutler.com

You Need a Budget

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Read moreCollapse

Managing Your Emotions Around Money with Rule One

Episode 4

Friday, June 25, 2021 • Duration 31:55

Mark and Jesse conclude their discussion of Rule One -- Give Every Dollar a Job -- for businesses by exploring how it can help anxious owners gain control over their emotions around money, cash flow, and what to do with the company's excess cash.

Mark Butler CFO

https://markbutler.com

You Need a Budget

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Read moreCollapse

Beginning Balance – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Beginning Balance – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other10

Amazon17

Spotify1

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other10

Amazon17

Spotify1