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Transcript
Zach Wojtowicz:
What’s up, everybody? Welcome to “The Building Code,” where today I’m flying solo. Once again, sad music plays, right? We’re going to make sure that Charlie gets back in the studio here at some point, but he’s probably somewhere in Europe having the time of his life, spending time with his new fiancé. Good for him. Some of us have to stay back in Nebraska.
But that’s okay. We’ve got a great conversation today. I can’t wait to get into it. A little financial management with Kathy Svetina. She’s the owner of NewCastle Finance, but she is a fractional CFO. She has got a long and storied career where she spent 14 years doing senior-level financial planning and analysis for Fortune 500 companies and she understands all about how financial information helps drive business forward. And she’s on a mission to really work with our contractors who need better financial reporting and especially the WIP report.
So we’re going to have an entire episode getting a grip on WIP. So, let’s not delay. She’s also got a podcast where she talks about just small business in general. She’ll tell us all about that. I’m really excited to have her on. Let’s get her in here.
Hey Kathy, welcome to “The Building Code.” It’s your first time on “The Building Code,” but you’re a veteran, so this won’t be a problem for you. How are you today?
Kathy Svetina:
I’m great. Thanks so much for having me on, Zach. I really appreciate being here.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Absolutely. No, the pleasure is all ours. And really it really comes down to we want to talk to you about some important topics in the construction space like WIP. And I tell you what, I travel a lot for Buildertrend, and this may be the most popular topic that comes up in the seminars and events, so I’m really excited to dive in.
Before we do that, I want give our listeners a little bit of context. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and what you really do and also of course, tell us a little bit about your podcast.
Kathy Svetina:
Sure. So, I’m a fractional CFO, which means that I work as a CFO in a lot of businesses for a fraction of the time, for a part-time of the time. And I work a lot with remodeling construction businesses. So, when we’re talking about WIP, I see this all the time, people not having WIP, and their financials as being an absolute mess, and people have no idea what’s happening. So, I’m really glad that we’re talking about this. I’ve been doing finances for a little over 20 years, but I’ve had my own company, NewCastle Finance, doing fractional CFO work for the last five years.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Wow. Yeah, it says in my notes as I’m looking over it, that you also spent some time at Fortune 500 companies, so you’ve got quite a story, a journey. When did you actually go off on your own? How much time did you spend outside of or in the corporate structure and then off on your own?
Kathy Svetina:
So, the corporate structure was 15 years all together, different types of companies. The last company that I was in was in banking and then I realized that’s not what I want to be doing. For the last five years, I’ve had my own fractional CFO service and because as you’ve talked about, I do also have my own podcast because everything that you do in your business is eventually end up then in your finances. So, on my podcast, Help! My Business Is Growing, and we talk about a lot of different topics. We talk about operations, HR, sales, marketing because everything is important when you think about your finances.
So, I got a lot of questions about these different topics. Obviously, I’m not an expert in those, but I know people who are, and we discuss these topics that can eventually end up in your finances. So “Help! My Business Is Growing” is the podcast.
Zach Wojtowicz:
No, love it. That makes a lot of sense. Word-of-mouth and get those listeners out there and naturally they connect with you and they’re like, “I want to work with Kathy.”
I am curious, why construction? When you decided to go off on your own and do these things, did you have an ideal client or have they just naturally gravitated toward you, brought you to the industry? I talk to a lot of customers and Buildertrend customers that it’s a little … I call it a quilt. They all have a little bit of different story of how they ended up in construction, which is a very important segment of the economy obviously but there’s a noted labor shortage and people actually not going into the construction space. So, what brought you to it or did they find you?
Kathy Svetina:
That’s a great question and I’ve always been interesting in construction and before I started my own business, we actually remodeled our own house, and I had to deal a lot with contractors. We actually had a construction company that was, obviously, building our house, and I really fell into the deep end basically being a project manager for a year. And so, I could tell you all about HVAC and …
Zach Wojtowicz:
For the contractor?
Kathy Svetina:
For the what?
Zach Wojtowicz:
For the contractor. You were running the project for them or you were having to coordinate your own?
Kathy Svetina:
No, I wasn’t running the project for them but even though we had a general contractor, there was still a lot of things that they needed my input on. So, I fell into the deep end of this, and I’m always curious about different industries, so that’s how this interest in construction remodeling started. And then through talking to them, I realized that they have a problem with financials. They just didn’t know are they’re making money? Are they not making money? So, I figured if there’s one person, there’s probably a couple of other people, and that’s how I fell into this industry, and it’s been a fascinating field.
Zach Wojtowicz:
And that’s been the last 14 years is working with this or with this industry?
Kathy Svetina:
For the last five years.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Five years. Got it. Okay. So yeah, that’s really an interesting background and context. You’re a fractional CFO and a fractional project manager, and it lines up really nicely with the way that a lot of our customer stories are. I’m the same way. I was a teacher. Ended up leaving teaching for very unrelated reasons. It’s just kind of an accident. Found Buildertrend. Ended up loving contractors. Have continued to stay in roles where I’m working with them. So, we got a lot in common. Podcast host, fell into construction.
Kathy Svetina:
We do.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Good stuff. Let’s talk a little bit about the WIP and why it is so important for profitability. Let’s just give for listeners that hear that … Interesting, I’ve had different people tell me what WIP is, and there’s accounting WIP versus writing a project WIP. Let’s just clear the air here. From the fractional CFO herself what is the WIP report?
Kathy Svetina:
So, WIP report stands for work in progress. So, essentially, it’s a progress of all your jobs that are currently running that you are actively working on. Not the ones that you have completed, but the ones that you’re working on. And what you’re looking for is, obviously, when you’re doing a job, you’re doing estimates and then you have an estimate of how much you’re actually selling it for and then how much the cost is going to be. So, throughout this job you are basically looking at how much cost has come through, how much you have billed to your clients or your customers, and what is your current profitability. And this is really important because as things are happening, for example, you have a couple of change orders coming through, this is going to significantly change your jobs and what you thought that you were going to make and how much cost is going to be.
So, you want to make sure that you’re keeping a pulse on this versus at the end when the job is finished, because as the job is going, you can mitigate some of the issues that you have. Like something is running over budget. What can we do about this? And on top of that, it’s also giving you a lot of information about the future, meaning how much cost is still going to come through, how much you still need to bill your clients. And the reason why that is important, too, because that is significantly going to affect your cash flow in the future. So, it’s a work in progress, it’s a wealth of information about your finances, and it’s such a crucial report in remodeling and in the construction industry.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Yeah, that’s really interesting. It’s a little bit of a forecasting tool, as you said, to be able to project, but it’s also a report that’s very actionable. You’re under-billing, so you should probably do something about that because then otherwise you’re not going to be able to fund the job, or it’s coming out of your pocket to fund the job. Are there any other implications of the WIP or insights that it can provide besides those two very obvious use cases?
Kathy Svetina:
This is a really important one, under-billing, meaning that you are actually using your own money to fund the cost. If you want to be in a situation, whether you’re under-billing and over-billing, over-billing is where you have more money coming in from the customer versus what you’ve actually paid out. So, in terms of the cashflow position, this is where you truly want to be and so that you’re not using your own money, you’re actually using your customer’s money to pay for the job. And that is one significant thing that if you don’t have a work in progress report, there’s no way you’ll be able to see this. Absolutely no way.
And the other thing that is also really important about the work in progress report is if you don’t have that adjustment made in your financial statements, your profit and loss statement, your income statement is going to look like a rollercoaster because if your accountant is not doing that adjustment in the financial statements … And I see this all the time. Remodelers and construction people are so confused by it. And the reason for that is because if you are in this industry, you’re taking a lot of cash up front and that is going to end up on your profit and loss statement, but the costs are going to trickle down later on.
So, what you’re going to see is I have so much profit today, but three months from now, all the cost is going to come through and you’re panicking like, “Oh my God, where my money is going. I have no money left. My profit and loss statement just doesn’t make sense to me.” And that is the reason why work in progress report, adjustment on your financial statements, it’s crucial to do that in this industry. And this is a specific problem in remodeling and construction industry. You don’t really see that in any of the other industries.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Yeah. Well, and correct me if I’m wrong. Aren’t there tax implications as well if your P&L and your other more business health reports are misreported to the IRS? It also can affect even more surprise costs or fees or it has huge implications if you’re not staying on top of these details. I’m an amateur, but is that also a risk?
Kathy Svetina:
Yes. 100% percent yes, especially if your jobs are crossing fiscal years. So, for example, if you started a job in 2023 and you have gotten the majority of the cash from your customers, so they have paid you. So you have gotten the majority of those bills in 2023 from your customers, but the actual cost for that, majority of that is going to come in 2024. What it’s going to look like in 2023 is that you have so much more net income because there’s no cost associated with that. Remember that’s coming in 2024, and in 2024 you’re going to have a loss. So, it evens out eventually, but the problem is that you have to prepay all of these taxes that you don’t really owe. So if your accountant is not aware of that, and is not doing those adjustments, it’s not really doing you any service.
Zach Wojtowicz:
And you mentioned, this is a unique problem in construction, so other industries don’t have to use a WIP report, or is it just something that has been applied to construction because of the unique dynamic of the project types, the way that it’s declared to the IRS on contractor based work, all those things/
Kathy Svetina:
How this is called, it’s called a revenue recognition. When you actually recognize revenue. Industries have different issues. For example, if you’re a SaaS company, and you’re taking a lot of subscription upfront, so they’re going to have a similar issue if they’re not adjusting that on their financial statements. So, they have a similar issue but the work in progress report, the way how it’s designed for the remodeling and construction, it’s very custom to remodeling and construction. So, you don’t see that in any of the other industries. But the whole issue with the revenue recognition can be seen in other industries as well. But this is a specific problem with the WIP for the remodeling and construction.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Sure. So, is it common for accountants who maybe aren’t familiar with construction to give advice on accounting without considering the WIP report?
Kathy Svetina:
Yes, unfortunately, and I see this all the time, too. And the problem with that is because a lot of the accountants and especially bookkeepers, if they don’t understand this industry, they’re not going to be doing WIP. They might not know how to do WIP, or if they do, they might do it wrong.
And one of the main things about WIP too is if you want it to be accurate, you need to have systems in place that actually allow you to do this. And this is where Buildertrend is such a tool that I really, really like because you have a central repository of all these estimates and change orders and all the costs that had come through and all the purchase orders and everything is in one place. So, that work in progress reporting, it’s really easy to do. It’s because you’re not going from spreadsheet to spreadsheet, and it’s in all these different folders, and it’s a mess. You just go into one system, one system of truth that it’s going to give you that information.
And then it’s so easy to take the information that you have about your contract and then compare that to your accounting system. And that’s why a lot of the accountants and bookkeepers don’t do these things is because it’s kind of impossible to do it, and it takes a really long time and the information might be not accurate because they have to go to all these different spreadsheets to go and produce this WIP report and at the end of the day, it just might not be accurate even.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Yeah, that is a scary proposition. You could be out there listening to this thinking, “Well, I do WIP,” but now you’re thinking, “Do I do WIP right?” How do they go about remedying whether or not their WIP processes, if they have them, are correct or not? What would be your recommendation?
Kathy Svetina:
So, if you don’t have WIP, the revenue is essentially going to be whatever you have billed in that particular month. And again, it’s not going to adjust whether the cost has come through or not. And this is where that rollercoaster P&L comes through. So, for example, in May your customer is going to give you a $100,000 because you are remodeling their house and then your costs are going to come in the next four months. But because they have already given you money today, they don’t have to give you money in the next four months or whatever the draws are.
So, you’re going to see that income completely hitting you in one month, but the cost is going to come in the next month. So, you’re going to have that mismatch and that’s why we call this … In accounting the technical term is revenue recognition. How you’re actually recognizing your revenue. And I know this sounds very technical, but it’s super, super important for construction and remodeling because if you’re not matching your revenue with cost, it’s really going to make it hard for you to understand your financial statements. So, it’s super important for the accountants and bookkeepers to do those WIP adjustments on your financial statements. And if they’re not, you will see that on your financial statements.
And I can tell you this right now. If you are a constant scratching your head like, “I don’t understand what’s going on. I have all this money, but I’m constantly feeling like I’m …
Zach Wojtowicz:
Behind.
Kathy Svetina:
… Like it’s not enough and I don’t know how things are going,” that’s probably because they’re not adjusting your financial statements with work in progress report.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Yeah, that’s the thing about construction, right? It’s so risky. There’s all these moving parts, you’ve got costs coming in the door constantly. It’s really easy to lose track of what’s buying what, who’s funding what. And so, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “I don’t think we do that or I don’t think we do that right,” that’s why we bring on people like Kathy to give a resource. Someone that you can reach out to, to help look at these things. Or at least; Kathy, you touched on this; finding someone that can help you depending on what’s going on with your business or community.
What is your process like when you bring on a client? Do you diagnose their financial statements? Do you get down to even their cost codes in Buildertrend? Are you doing full architecture of financial design, or is it just really getting their mechanics around how they use WIP or other account principles?
Kathy Svetina:
It really depends. When first the client comes in, essentially, I do a whole full assessment of their finances, and I call this a financial house. So, essentially, I’ll look at their bookkeeping and accounting. How it’s actually done and how their accounting people are doing this. And then we take a look at what do they have for financial analysis because now that you have data, what are you actually doing with it is the next step. We’re not just here to gather data and to have a bunch of reports. It’s like are those reports actually giving you insights that you need to have to actually run your business well?
And then the third thing we’re looking at is all your financial systems and processes, because that is super important. Again, you can create a report, but if you cannot create it on a monthly basis with ease, and if you’re constantly scrambling, then that’s not going to be good. So, you need data that is accurate, up-to-date, and it’s easily accessible and that is where the process and the systems comes in.
And then the fourth piece is obviously financial planning. Making sure that you have budgets, that you have regular forecasts, that you have cash flow forecasts, and also that you have plans for the future. Where you want to be in the next year, three years, five years because we want to plan for that as well.
And then the fifth piece, which is really important, and it’s so easily forgotten in the small business space, is what we call internal controls. Making sure that you’re safeguarding the assets, so that essentially what it means, that you’re not giving all your access to just one person because they can do a lot of damage to your business. I’ve had clients that they have been stolen from, from their bookkeepers, unfortunately. It’s very uncomfortable to think about, but it does happen in the small business space. So, what are you doing to actively prevent that?
And so, the assessment looks at all these five pieces and then of course I look at what do you have in place that you need to have in place? And then we put a plan together and then we execute it.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Yeah, that’s amazing. That makes a lot of sense, especially on the controller piece, having checks and balances. Not having things that are easily missed because one person is the gatekeeper. And scalability-wise, too, it makes it more difficult if there’s natural bottlenecks in the business. Something I forgot, I lost my train of thought with WIP, is how often are people running WIP? Is it a monthly, quarterly? What’s the frequency that you recommend that people are looking at running a WIP report?
Kathy Svetina:
That’s a great question. So, I think of it as WIP, obviously, it’s as much of a management report, making sure that you’re actually making good decisions about the business and that you’re getting insights on your job. And also, it’s a report to adjust your financial statements so that financial statements are accurate.
So, for adjusting of your financial statements, making sure that they’re accurate, you only need to do it once a month. So, at the end of the month when you’re closing your books, when the accountant or bookkeeper are closing your books, they should be doing a work in progress report, and they should be adjusting those financials based on the work in progress report. So, that’s one piece.
However, if you want to take a look at your WIP let’s say every week because you want to know how your jobs are doing and if you have the systems and the process in place that allows you to do that accurately, for sure. Run it every week if you can. So, at least once a month but if you can do it more often and if it actually gives you more insights, then sure.
Zach Wojtowicz:
When someone is setting up a WIP process, what are the most common pitfalls that people make when actually going through the mechanics of running a WIP report? Is there a cost they forget to include, or what’s the scope of WIP?
Kathy Svetina:
The number one thing that’s a common mistake is not having the correct data. And again, that’s why tools like Buildertrend are so good because you have a central repository of all the estimates, of all the change orders that you might be doing, all the costs that have come through. So, having that accurate information, that is number one. So, the systems and the process that you have to actually run this report are super, super, super important because if you’re just guessing, “Hey, I did a change order for I think it was $10,000, and I think it went here,” it’s just, you’re guessing. And when you’re guessing you don’t have accurate information. And if you’re just guessing, then it’s like, “Should I really do that?” And then that’s where a lot of people just don’t end up doing it.
And then, obviously, the number one other thing is then people just don’t do it because it’s too much work, and it takes too much time, and it’s too much involvement. And I will tell you that for clients, one of the clients that I did it for, we actually automated as much as we could, and a work in progress report actually takes about an hour and a half in a month. It’s almost unheard of.
Obviously, if you can, you want to do it in a short amount of time, but because they have a lot of jobs, and there’s a lot of moving pieces, it takes about an hour and a half every single month. And before that, they just didn’t have anything. So, it can be done, but you need to have the right systems and a process behind it that actually support it. So, I hope that answers your question, Zach.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Yeah, I think the follow-up to that is if you were looking for a way to improve your WIP, the reality is a lot of the day-to-day operations need to be really sound. You got to be doing the data entry in a tool like Buildertrend, and you got to make sure your employees are following the right procedures. This is all these things that will end up being costs on a project. Soft costs, indirect costs. If you’re cost plus, it all ends up being cost in some capacity.
And that’s the thing in my clients that I work with, they struggle with because it’s habitual changes in their day-to-day, and it’s very granular. But I always like to dangle the carrot. It’s like, “But if you do these things, what you get is better financial decisions, long-term planning, profitability. Maybe you can take a vacation.” An hour and a half a month is way better than a tax audit where you don’t know, and you’re paying fines and having to go through an adjuster and all the things that go with it.
And to your point, change orders, construction’s very risky. Handshake agreements on something like a change order ends up in lawsuits, litigation. Those are way more expensive than having to get people to follow procedures that protect you. It’s all risk management to some degree. Would you agree?
Kathy Svetina:
Oh, yeah. And this industry lives and dies by good project management as well and good project management is not just … What also falls into this umbrella is, obviously, documented, documented, documented. Because if you’re just shaking a hand to someone for what would be a $20,000 change order, the customer can turn around in three months and say, “I don’t remember you ever telling me about this,” or, “You said it’s going to be $10,000,” and now, it’s your word versus their word, and you’re going back and forth. It makes it for a bad financial outcome. And two, makes it for a very bad customer experience as well because now they’re pissed off, and you’re mad because now you’re not getting the money. So, documenting this is so, so important.
And the other thing you mentioned before about the cost codes, the way you set up these tools and your accounting system is also important as well. So, they need to really be talking to each other. That’s an important, important piece. And with the cost codes, you can be as granular as you need to be and as you want to be. So, for example, if you want to go and track nails, you can do that as well, if that is an important piece when you’re making financial decisions.
There’s always a balance between how granular you go versus how much is it actually useful to you. So, if you’re seeing yourself being super granular, but you don’t really need that, just don’t go there because then it’s just going to create a lot of problems with when you’re looking at the jobs and you’re like, “I don’t know. This item’s supposed to be here, but now it’s actually here.”
So, make it all of the reports and all of the … actually should be supporting your financial decisions. So, if you’re not seeing that direct correlation between your financial decisions and the financial reporting, then there’s a disconnect here, and you have to talk to your financial people to make sure that you’re getting the reports that are actually useful to you. So, I will put that out there as well.
Zach Wojtowicz:
I’ve talked to a few experts in the financial space, and they all say the same thing. It makes a lot of sense why you would want every screw and nail on a expense report or a WIP report or whatever budget, but at the end of the day, if you’re spending more time then trying to get into the dollars and cents, not the macro side, your time is valuable, too. So, finding ways to make sure those reports are giving you insights that let you move quickly to make sound decisions quickly is really that balance.
It’s funny, I’ve had a lot of; we’ll call them debates, conversations, I don’t know, where I would go to customers, and we would argue. It’s like, “You don’t need 10,000 cost codes.” Like, “No, I need to see exactly what I’m spending.” I’m like, “But you don’t because you’re not going to actually be able to see anything in the ocean of information.”
So, thank you for validating me at the very least, but if you’re listening out there, it’s okay. Do you have a recommendation of how detailed they should go? Is there a level that you like to advise your customers on, especially in a WIP context of what they’re looking for?
Kathy Svetina:
So, in the WIP context, the way how I like to see it and the way how I present it, too, it’s basically on a job level. We don’t go directly into the cost codes. We do that as we’re looking at the actual budget for the job and then we’re trying to figure out how much the cost has come through. I don’t know, let’s say labor for electricity.
But in terms of the WIP report, I would not go into the detail because you want to see a holistic overview of all your jobs and the more jobs you have, that report if you go into the cost codes is going to be a monstrosity. So, you don’t need that. What you need is essentially job A, how is it doing? Where’s the cost? How much cost is still expecting, meaning how much cash is going to go out? How much do I still need to bill, meaning how much cash is going to come in Where we are and whether we’re over-billing and under-billing. That’s really all you need to know. If you want to go into specific budget for a specific job, that’s where I would go into the cost code.
And again, I would actually start more of a summary in the cost codes and then as you are working with these reports, especially if you’re just creating them, make it so that it’s not as granular, it’s more of an overview of it. And then as you’re working through these jobs, you can always add more. In the next job when you’re going to start, you can add more details, and that’s where you’re going to give a good balance of how much detail you actually need and how much detail is too much.
Because if you are just starting to do this, it’s hard to figure out where do I want to be? And a lot of people go into, “Ooh, I need to do all of the details. I need to know everything.” But it ends up being an overkill and people just get super, super overwhelmed with it, and they just don’t end up using it. And at the end of the day then they’re like, “Well, I’m just not going to read through it because it’s too overwhelming.”
Zach Wojtowicz:
Overwhleming.
Kathy Svetina:
So, that’s not going to serve you.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Yeah.
Kathy Svetina:
You have to find a good balance between too much and just enough.
Zach Wojtowicz:
And everybody’s a little different. Some people are just more prone. They like the mess and they’re like, “I need every piece in detail.” So, it’s always a little bit of calibration. If you’re not asking the question, “Is that really useful?” Then there’s a good chance you probably won’t come to it in your own in a consulting space. It’s your job to challenge them to think, are you going to get value out of this or is it worth the work?
Kathy Svetina:
Yeah, exactly.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Well, we’ve had a really great conversation about all things WIP. Is there anything else that you would like people to know about that report or anything in the construction financial management space that we can endow to our wonderful listeners?
Kathy Svetina:
So, one of the things that I created specifically for this show is an actual video that walks you through the WIP report because there’s a lot of technicalities too. And I myself, I’m a very visual person, so it’s a lot easier for me to see it visually versus processing is auditory. So, if you’re interested in that, I actually have a video, and it gives you also a downloadable Excel version of WIP that you can use as an example that you can either use it in your business or give it to your accountant and bookkeeper to say, “Hey, I want to see something like this,” if you don’t have it.
And you can find these resources at newcastle.finance/buildingcode. So newcastle.finance/buildingcode. You’re going to have the video and the spreadsheet, so just go ahead and use it. I’m all about producing resources for construction and remodeling businesses that’s going to help them have their business more healthy and sustainable in the long run.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Wow, thank you so much, Kathy. That’s awesome. I’m sure a 33-minute video is no short video editing, so thank you so much. And for our listeners out there, I hope you can check it out. We’ll link it in our show notes as well on our .com page where this podcast gets posted.
Kathy, before I let you go, you have your own podcast as well where you talk all things financial, I imagine. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about it? What’s it called? Where can we find it? What are your topics? We’d love to give you a little forum here to tell us about your podcast.
Kathy Svetina:
Yeah, thank you. So, the name of the podcast is “Help! My Business is Growing,” and you can find it anywhere that you’re listening to podcasts. We’re pretty much everywhere. Spotify, Amazon, Apple. Wherever you find your podcasts. And it’s really about going diving into the deep details of different topics, for example, sales, marketing, operations, that are going to affect your business financially as well.
So, we want to fix those problems before they become a problem financially, and that’s where we go into and solve those types of issues. And I have all of these experts in their areas in that they talk about the things that they see a problem in their businesses in these different areas, and then we connect them to the finances. So, “Help! My Business is Growing.”
Zach Wojtowicz:
I love it. Well, I’m going to check it out for sure. Our listeners, I’m sure, will check it out. Thank you so much for coming on “The Building Code” today. It was great to have you, and you’re always welcome back. I hope we can have you again and talk maybe little income statements or profit and loss. Maybe just educating me in general.
Kathy Svetina:
Sure, I’d love that. Thank you so much, Zach. It’s been a pleasure.
Zach Wojtowicz:
Yeah, thank you. Kathy.
We just had Kathy Svetina over from NewCastle Finance. She’s also the host of “Help! My Business is Growing.” What a great name for a podcast. I love it. I’m going to be checking it out for sure. Really excited to see what she talks with her customers, her guests, everyone who’s on her podcast. Go check her out.
She also mentioned those resources on WIP. I can’t tell you how valuable that would be. I’ve traveled all over the United States. I’ve talked to a lot of bookkeepers, a lot of accountants, and this is a topic that is really challenging. We discussed it at length in the episode. You may not know what WIP is. You may be using WIP, but you’re not sure necessarily if it’s right. So, you got to be looking for those warning signs, and these resources really help provide context of what exactly should I be doing.
So, Kathy, thank you so much for providing that. She even mentioned to me off-air that she even has one between margin and markup because I’ll tell you what. If you’re not running your business on margin, you’re leaving money on the table. So, check out in the show notes where we will link her website with those resources. It’s newcastle.finance.us/buildingcode. Go check it out. Free for everyone who’s listening.
And thank you so much for listening to “The Building Code.” It was really great to get into a little bit of a topic that can really help improve your business overall and the way that you’re running it. So, shout out to Kathy and everything she’s doing to help contractors across America.
That’s it for today on “The Building Code.” Please don’t forget to check us out on YouTube where you can see me sitting by myself without Charley, or even maybe some of our other co-hosts like Courtney and even Jon Walker. It’s so great to work with you all with “The Building Code” and have our listeners. You can also download us where all podcasts are available. Spotify, Apple Music, so on and so forth. Thank you so much. I’m Zach Wojtowicz, and we will catch you next time.