[Video Walkthrough] All about Money & Finances

INTRO: SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Pixifi’s Money Module is where you can see everything you need to know about the money coming in and going out of your business!  It’s basically the financial heartbeat of your studio!  From this money module, you can view, manage, and analyze accounts receivable, payments, expenses, and taxes in many different ways!  Let’s start by walking you through your Overview tab.

OVERVIEW (00:38)

When you go to FINANCES and MONEY, you will land on your “Overview" tab where you will see a graph of all of your income and Projected income for the current calendar year!  If you ever need to see previous years’ money information, you can always change the year at the top of your screen by clicking this Change Year drop-down option.  When you select a new year, your page will refresh with the graph from the year you chose now in view, and the rest of the page at the bottom will also reflect the payments and expenses of that calendar year (and even any accounts receivable… although we hope no one still owes you money from previous years)!

As you hover over any of these dots on the graph, you can see at-a-glance either the total amount due to you or the total amount grossed during that particular month; the green graph is obviously representative of the money that you’ve made and the red graph is the money that is scheduled to come in but hasn’t yet!

Below this graph you will see a mini-dashboard overview of some of the other tabs in this module for an at-a-glance view.  If you want to explore any of these further, you can go to their individual tabs at the top or click the little [View All] button you see at the top of each section.  What you see here does not include all the information available on those tabs, but if you hover over the owner link, a hover bubble will appear that shows you any additional information linked to that Invoice.  For the expenses section of this mini-dashboard, the same is true about hovering over the category where you will see what the item purchased was and which Client/Event/Project it was linked to, if any.  So let’s actually check out a more comprehensive picture of these sections by looking at the tabs above.

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE (02:15)

When you click on the Accounts Receivable tab, you will see a list of all the money owed to you for the current year which you will see in bold at the top of the page, (and again, you can change the year in view at any point in time by picking the year from the drop-down box on the top right corner of your page).  On the top right above the list you will see that you can toggle back and forth between [Unpaid Payments] and [Invoice Balances].  Invoice balances will show you any Invoices that still have a balance remaining, while unpaid payments only shows you Invoices that have unpaid payments that were added to them under the “Required Payments" section of your Invoices.  If you decide to filter either of these lists for specific Invoices that meet certain criteria (such as only viewing Invoices between one date and another date or only viewing Invoices from one specific month, etc) you can use this [Filter Options] tool which you should be quite familiar with by now.

EXPENSES (03:11)

Let’s move on to the Expenses tab!  When you land here, you will see another helpful graph (two, actually!); the first one is a pie graph that shows you the expense total for that year organized by expense category (which you can set up in the Expense Category tab), and the other graph shows a bar graph similar to the one you just saw on the Payments Received tab, but this one shows your expenses (in red) juxtaposed with your payments (in green) for that year.  This is a really cool way to see your outgoing revenue trends and even compare that info to the trend of your incoming revenue.  

You can [Duplicate] or [Delete] any expense here by clicking the buttons to the right of each expense in your listing.  In the Expenses module, when you choose to duplicate an expense, it will ask you how many more of the same expense you want to have in the system and how often it should create the duplicates.  Your starting date will be the first expense created and you can decide how many times it will duplicate from that point on.

You can also filter your expenses using the [Filter Options] tool and Import/Export your expenses to Excel, as well as make any batch updates, (such as batch applying a brand, category, or account, and batch deleting your expenses)!  

EXPENSE CATEGORIES (04:24)

As we mentioned before, all expenses should be categorized for your organization.  As a help tool, we have created this Expense Category Wizard which will offer you some some sample categories you can choose from to get started!  Click [Finished with Selections] to add these new categories to your list (don’t worry - you can always come back and add more of these at any time as well as change the names of any you have added)!  You can re-order your category list at any time as well by clicking this [Re-Order Categories] button and dragging your categories up or down until they appear how you want them.  Now that you have some Expense Categories in your listing, you’ll see that when you’re creating a new expense, the “Category" drop-down menu has been populated with the expense categories you have created, which you can now choose from to categorize your new expense.

MILEAGE (05:11)

You wouldn’t be alone if every year around tax time, your accountant reminds you to give them your mileage report to help with your deductions and you begin to feel that familiar fourth grade dread of walking into school and only remembering that your major science project is due when you see all your friends balancing their volcanoes as they ever-so-carefully exit their parents cars.  No?  Only me?  (laughs).  

Listen… I know you’re out there!  Even those of you who are more organized than the rest of us may be scribbling this mileage down on a notepad in your car, or tracking it on your phones,which is okay….But it still takes that extra step once you get home from your sessions or other random business-related excursions (when you’re likely either exhausted or just plain distracted) for you to actually link up your mileage information with the purpose for that travel, which just happens to be the very stuff Uncle Sam wants to see!  

Well, as always, Pixifi is here for you with a solution!  With our mileage tracker, you can log your mileage while you’re on the go from our Pixifi mobile version, immediately linking that mileage to that specific Event or purpose for travel as it’s being logged!  We are even working on partnering up with a few GPS-based mileage-tracking apps that will sync to your account to make this even easier and more automated, but for now I want to show you how to take advantage of our awesome mileage tracking tool!

Any time you are in an Event, under the Locations tab, you can click the little [+ Add Mileage] button at the bottom to [+Add New Mileage].  When you do it this way, it is already automatically linked to the Event so you don’t have to worry about that part.  You will want to start by adding the odometer reading; even though this is optional, your accountant will be so happy!  You can mark your total distance traveled, the date traveled, and the purpose for travel in these fields, as well as create an expense for this entry that will show up in your expenses.  

There may be times when you want to log multiple mileage entries at once or even just take a look at your overall mileage for the year.  In these circumstances, you can find all of your mileage listed under FINANCES, and MILEAGE.  When you land in our mileage module, you’ll see all of your mileage logged for the current year.  As always if you’d like to view any other year, you can change the year in the top right corner.  You’ll also see in the top right corner that familiar [Actions] button.  If you click [+ Add Mileage] from here, a little pop-up window will appear where you can begin adding your new mileage log.  You’ll notice it defaults to “General" mileage and this is actually the only place you can add general business-related mileage that isn’t tied to an Event.  Everything about this form functions the same way as the one you just used, but if you do need to log an Event-specific entry you can still do so by changing the type from “General Mileage" to “Event Specific Mileage" and pick the Event you want to link this entry to.

ACCOUNTS (07:59)

The Accounts tab is pretty straight forward.  Any account you will be receiving deposits into or making purchases from should appear in this listing.  Whichever account you desire to become your default account will be the one you mark with a “star."  When you click [+ Add Account] you just select the Brand you want to have this account on file with, the name (or nickname) of the account, the type, and an optional description.  Click [√ Save] and it will show up in your list.  It’s as simple as that!  Now, any time you list an expense you can select which account was used, and any time a deposit is made, you can record which account it went into!  

TAXES (08:36)

When you first land on the Taxes tab, you will see a list of all the Sales Tax Collected for the current year you’re viewing.  You can change your view by clicking on these “Switch View" icons which will change the way you are viewing the data, from yearly to quarterly to monthly or between a specific date range.  At any point you can also use the [Filter Options] button to further customize the information you’re viewing and then even Export your summaries based on your filter options/current view.  

PROFIT & LOSS REPORT (09:05)

The Profit & Loss Report shows you your revenue and expenses in yet another view.  Your total revenue for that Calendar year is listed at the top with all of your income broken down by Event type below, or under “Other Invoices" or “General" which have no specific owners (which could be Events, Clients, Leads, Projects, etc).  Expenses are broken down similarly in the section below, separated by Expense type and the total amount paid during that year in each type.  At the very bottom, you’ll see your total revenue for the year, the total sales tax collected for the year, total expenses paid for the year and the Gross Margin for that year!  You can then export your report as a PDF or a CSV spreadsheet.  For any of you who do not operate in the typical US fiscal years, you can create a custom date range to view and manipulate this information the exact same way.  

CLOSING REMARKS (09:58)

Class dismissed!  Thank you for taking the time to learn all about our glorious MONEY Module.  In this video, we went over Accounts Receivable, Mileage, Payments Received, Expenses, Accounts, Taxes, and the Profit & Loss Report!  Hopefully now you can begin to see how so much of your hard work in setting up all those Invoices, Events, Payment Terms, etc really pays off, LITERALLY!  Using our money module to keep your business-related finances super organized will only serve to keep more money in your pocket come tax time, now that all of your write-offs have been meticulously logged and organized!  How awesome will it feel to know that once that ball drops in Times Square, you can run a few reports based off of all the information you’ve been faithfully entering and tracking all year long in just a few minutes?  No mess, no stress!  Imagine being able to hand over a few print-outs or digital files of all the bottom-line figures your accountant needs from you on January 1st?  Your accountant is going to love you!  

We want to say CONGRATULATIONS!  You have completed all necessary coursework for your Junior level and you are now officially a SENIOR!!!!  Also, if you watched all of your videos in their entirety, you have now covered enough of the basics to receive our GIFT to you!  If you don’t receive an automatic email within 5 minutes of the completion of this current video congratulating you on finishing the necessary “coursework", it may mean that you have at least one video you need to complete before you qualify!  

Now, just because you’re a senior doesn’t mean you can “check out" completely - don’t unplug that mini-microwave just yet!  Senior year is when things get REALLY fun so, just because these next classes aren’t “required" to receive your gift doesn’t mean you want to miss out on all this valuable information!  Pat yourself on the back for an incredible foundation of knowledge acquired and follow us to your FIRST Senior Level course, Class 401: Workshops.