Construction Banking Tips, Tricks, and Hacks with Special Guest Deanna Zubrickas
When it comes to banking, the construction industry comes with some nuances. And if you’re using Profit First, you’ll have even more specific needs. This week, we’re talking with Deanna Zubrickas of Relay Financial, the official banking partner of Profit First. She shares how contractors implementing Profit First can more easily set up bank accounts, manage subcontractors, track expenses, and more.
Topics we cover in this episode include:
- How to avoid spending hours at the bank to set up Profit First accounts
- How to make it easier to pay subcontractors
- Relay helps you identify and track transactions
- Relay’s Zero Liability Protection
- Relay’s fee structure
- Workflows in Relay
- Relay makes statement downloads easy
- Getting started with Relay and Profit First
DISCLAIMERS
Contractor Success Forum is an informational podcast and does not promote specific products or services. This episode is intended to be educational and does not represent an endorsement of the Relay platform. We recommend listeners do their own due diligence before signing up with Relay, or any other provider.
Relay is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services and FDIC insurance are provided through Thread Bank and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. The Relay Visa® Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa® debit cards are accepted. *The interest rates and annual percentage yield on your account are accurate as of 05/16/23 and are variable and subject to change based on the target range of the Federal Funds rate. APY will vary between 1-3% depending on the balances held. Earn 1% APY on savings balances of less than $50,000, 1.5% APY on savings between $50,000 and $250,000, 2% APY on savings balances between $250,000 and $1,000,000 and 3% APY on savings balances of more than $1,000,000. There are no minimum balances or minimum deposits required to earn interest on your account.
LINKS
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Wade Carpenter, CPA, CGMA | CarpenterCPAs.com
Stephen Brown, Bonding Expert | SuretyAnswers.com
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Wade Carpenter: Welcome to the Contractor Success Forum. In this episode, we are talking about some of the nuances of construction banking, which you may or may not have with other industries, as well as some of the issues with implementing Profit First around construction banking.
So, we’ve got a very special guest today that is going to give us some great insights. So let’s get into it. If you’re new here, I’m Wade Carpenter with Carpenter & Company CPAs. Here with me is my cohost, Stephen Brown with McDaniel Whitley Bonding and Insurance.
Our guest today is Deanna Zubrickas with Relay Financial, a business internet banking platform that I’ve worked with for many years now. And Relay Financial is the official banking partner now of Profit First.
Deanna is actually uniquely qualified to answer these questions because she is now certified in Profit First as well. So Deanna, welcome. And thank you for doing this. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and Relay Financial?
[00:01:00] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, absolutely! Thank you both for having me on today, this is awesome. I’ve been working with Wade for quite a long time so you know, this feels super comfortable. I love that.
My name’s Deanna. I’m a product specialist and account manager here at Relay. So I’m also a Profit First certified Professional. And Relay is an online banking platform. We aim to offer free banking and better financial clarity for small businesses.
But we’re also, just as Wade said, now the official banking partner of Profit First, which is super exciting. So, people that sign up with Relay, you have access to FDIC insurance, 20 checking accounts, no minimum balances, 50 debit cards. It’s free small business banking at its core and you’re able to run budgeting or cash flow methodology directly through Relay, which is pretty cool.
[00:01:47] Stephen Brown: Now did you say you could open up 20 different accounts?
[00:01:50] Deanna Zubrickas: Absolutely. You can do 20 checking accounts and you can do two savings accounts, so a total of 20.
[00:01:56] Stephen Brown: Well, how do you keep track of all that?
[00:01:58] Deanna Zubrickas: So you have a dashboard and you’ve got all of your individual accounts, so it’s super easy to see.
[00:02:03] Wade Carpenter: That’s one of the things that we’re going to get into, I think, because that’s one of the things I love about Relay. I think I go back at least four years with Relay before–
[00:02:11] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah! You’re an OG, Wade.
[00:02:13] Wade Carpenter: I mean, before you even came into the picture I’ve recommended Relay because it works so well with Profit First, and they built some really nice things to help with Profit First.
How to avoid spending hours at the bank to set up Profit First accounts
[00:02:23] Wade Carpenter: But, well, if we can jump into that, using Profit First, I’ve heard that, and I did that myself when I first started Profit First, was, went to a bank, and I spent hours sitting down with the CSR, filling out all this paperwork to open all these accounts. And it’s such a hassle. A lot of contractors, they need to be on the job. They don’t need to spend all kinds of hours at a bank doing this, and that’s one of the stumbling blocks.
How is Relay a little different in that area?
[00:02:53] Deanna Zubrickas: Well, it’s funny that you even got to that point, Wade, because I feel like a lot of times when you mention to a teller when you go to the bank that you need, you know, five accounts, they kind of look at you like you’ve got three heads. So you’ve already made it pretty far, which I think is pretty great.
But yeah, the process with Relay is different. We are fully virtual, so we have no physical branches. So you don’t have to take time out of your day to come and set up those accounts, which is pretty great.
The whole application process takes about 10 minutes. We still require all the same information, you know, your SSN, your EIN, some business documentation, but beyond that 10 minute application, once you’re approved, you can create your five Profit First checking accounts whenever you want on your own timeline. So you don’t have to fill out additional paperwork. It’s functionality that’s built directly into the platform. You can open it whenever your heart desires.
[00:03:40] Wade Carpenter: And for contractors, I usually say six, but that’s a, maybe a topic for another day.
How to make it easier to pay subcontractors
[00:03:46] Wade Carpenter: There’s a lot of issues with Profit First, but for contractors in general, I just wanted to kick around some of these. One of the things with contractors is constantly trying to pay subcontractors, as well as collecting information for 1099s, and me as the accountant, they bring it to me at the end of the year and say, I got to do 1099s, but they don’t have the information. These subcontractors are long gone.
[00:04:09] Stephen Brown: I paid with Venmo.
[00:04:10] Wade Carpenter: We’ll get into that. You’re going to kill me here. Anyway, getting these W 9s and to be able to do these 1099s, how can Relay help us, as far as paying subcontractors in general?
[00:04:20] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, I’m sure January is a pretty tough time of the year for you and your firm, Wade. But, yeah, Relay definitely understands the struggle there. So when you’re creating a payee, let’s say you’re paying a new subcontractor, never paid them before, you can request all of their banking information. So, let’s say you’re going to pay them by ACH or check maybe, you can request all of that and then also require a W 9 form.
And when you’re requiring the W 9 form, The payee actually cannot receive payment until they’ve uploaded their W 9 for you.
[00:04:49] Stephen Brown: Whoa. And their insurance certificate. Let’s start adding that in
[00:04:52] Deanna Zubrickas: And this, and this, and this. We’re going to have a lot of checkboxes.
[00:04:56] Stephen Brown: No, that’s great. That is so great.
[00:04:59] Wade Carpenter: She just did a demo for one of my contractors that asked that very same question, like getting insurance certificates and stuff like that. But getting the W-9 is great. Stephen, go ahead and ask your question about the Venmo thing. Cause that’s one of the things that’s hardest to track.
Let’s talk about that.
[00:05:13] Stephen Brown: I was only halfway kidding, but I know to you it is very serious. Because from an accounting standpoint, you’re giving them cash. And then you’re going back and trying to account for it and then post it to a particular job. If that’s the way you have to do business with that sub, I would suggest you try to get subs that have insurance and W 9s and–
[00:05:35] Wade Carpenter: And a bank account.
[00:05:36] Deanna Zubrickas: And a account, yeah, underline that part, and a bank account.
[00:05:39] Stephen Brown: Also, see if they have an email address. That helps too, sometimes. I’m just kidding, but it’s true.
It’s amazing how many people that are starting off in construction, but you want to track these costs. And also, one question I had is the main thing that we’re always talking about on our podcast is job costing. Getting it set up right, getting it coded right, and then downloading your bank statements and reconciling them.
I noticed that you work with a number of different software vendors. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:06:15] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, absolutely. So we have direct integrations with accounting softwares like QuickBooks Online and Xero. And for anybody listening today that’s familiar with that, often you have to reconnect to your bank feed multiple times to your local branch, and you’re duplicating transactions, it’s super messy, or Wade has to come after you and say, Hey, I need to reconnect your bank feed.
So we actually built a direct connection with both of those softwares. You connect once, you never have to reconnect again, which is pretty fantastic. So it saves time on both ends of that process. Then we also integrate with payroll softwares like Gusto. So we give you more information on your Gusto payroll transactions and shortfall warnings, which is pretty cool.
And beyond that, not so much of an integration, but we do connect to all of the payment platforms out there. So whether it’s Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, all those different Pieces that you might receive or send funds through, you can connect directly to Relay as well.
[00:07:12] Wade Carpenter: Well, Stephen’s question led to about three things I want to talk about, at least. I mean, so let’s start with the Venmo thing too.
Relay helps you identify and track transactions
[00:07:22] Wade Carpenter: The guys go to Home Depot. Or something like that. And, me as an accountant, I’m trying to figure out what these transactions are or we’re asking the owner months later and, the traditional banking platform, you can’t really tell what in the world that transaction is.
So can you take that question first?
[00:07:38] Deanna Zubrickas: Absolutely. This is one of my favorite questions ’cause you’re right, you’re constantly decoding what the vendor name is on the bank feed.
So Relay, actually, when you use our debit cards, we will show the brand names and logos for all the businesses that you’re transacting at. So it’ll actually say, Home Depot with the Home Depot logo on it, which is pretty cool. But if maybe there’s a transaction with like a parking lot or something that you don’t recognize, you can actually click into that transaction and not only see the category that we suggest, but also that vendor’s phone number, their website, their address, the map location.
So the background information that you would typically Google just to reconcile the transaction, you see directly in the bank feed, which is pretty cool. And so, yeah, and if you have multiple contractors out there with multiple cards, you get that information across all of them.
[00:08:29] Stephen Brown: Well, what about employees you’re sending out on the job, expenses?
[00:08:33] Wade Carpenter: He’s just jumping all into it!
[00:08:35] Stephen Brown: You mentioned the 50 debit cards that you could get. And A typical contractor will send a crew out on a job and they’ll give them a daily stipend for food and lodging. And a separate gas card maybe for fuel. What can you do to help them with that?
[00:08:52] Deanna Zubrickas: That’s actually the exact reason why we offer 50 debit cards per business is to allow you, if you have multiple people out in the field, you can create those cards for them whenever you need. They can be physical, they can be virtual. You’ve always got the option to select which checking account they’re connected to.
So whether you’re doing Profit First or not, if you really want to separate these transactions by project, by employee, it’s very easy to do so and even easier to, you know track those on the back end. But each of these cards you can set daily or monthly spending limits, you can see all their transactions, you can freeze the card, change the pin.
So even though you’re handing over multiple cards to your employees out in the field, the business owner still has full control over it. And then you get all that background information on the transactions too, which is just like–
[00:09:35] Stephen Brown: And if you fire somebody, you can shut down their card.
[00:09:38] Deanna Zubrickas: Exactly. Yeah.
Anything yeah, that you’re used to, like, calling the branch for, or physically going into to put a stop to, like putting a hold on a card, you can do directly on the mobile app or on your computer on Relay.
[00:09:50] Wade Carpenter: A lot of people in construction may know the name PexCard. And I’ve had a lot of people using that. And that essentially they’re pre funded debit cards, but typically it’s a monthly fee plus four, eight dollars per card per month.
[00:10:04] Stephen Brown: Yeah, it’ll nickel and dime you to death.
[00:10:06] Wade Carpenter: And the tracking on it, it’s horrible as a CPA.
So that’s one of the reasons I love being able to spin up a card like that. We didn’t really go into the virtual cards.
[00:10:18] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, for anybody that haven’t seen a virtual card before, it works the same way as a physical card does. The biggest difference is you can use it ASAP, so you’re not waiting a week for it to arrive in the mail. Or if you’ve got, you know, many people have a virtual business now, right? If you’re spread out across multiple states or even multiple countries, it’s going to take a long time to receive a physical debit card.
So you can spin one up immediately, or a lot of people, if you’re trialing softwares, it’s nice to attach it to a virtual card and cancel it if you don’t want to move forward, or, you know, multiple different uses there. You can use it everywhere you use a physical card, minus an ATM, so there’s not really a lot of restrictions on it, which I think is pretty cool.
Relay’s Zero Liability Protection
[00:10:56] Wade Carpenter: With a traditional bank and a debit card, if you swipe a transaction, it’s gone. But with yours, you have the zero liability. Can you talk about that?
[00:11:08] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, so, all of our cards are partnered with Visa, so they’re covered by their a Zero Liability insurance policy. Every single transaction you see in your bank feed, you could dispute it if you want. You literally click into the transaction and scroll to the bottom, there’s a dispute transaction button. So that’ll open a ticket with our support staff immediately and they can start to investigate it.
So yeah, I think that’s a lot of the, the reason people move away from debit cards, but you get the same protection here, which I think is awesome.
[00:11:34] Stephen Brown: And are deposits insured?
[00:11:36] Deanna Zubrickas: Absolutely.
So Relay is FDIC insured. Previously, this was up to the basic 250k coverage, but over the last month or so, we’ve actually extended this to 2.5 million dollars through our partner bank. In the contracting world it’s very common to have a lot of money, more than 250k in your account, so this is a really nice option.
[00:11:58] Wade Carpenter: Yeah, I mean, that, that’s something I was going to bring up, but can you explain how they work? Because normally you get 250, 000 per bank, not per account. We recently had the issue with the Silicon Valley Bank foreclosure, and if the government hadn’t stepped in, I personally know a client that would have lost 7 million in that transaction.
So unless they physically take money around to $250,000 per bank, how are you accomplishing that?
It’s a great
[00:12:25] Deanna Zubrickas: question, and the setup is something a lot of people haven’t heard before. And really we wanted to offer the 2.5 million after what happened with SBV, just to give customers another option, give you some of mind. But it helps to understand how Relay is structured
So as I mentioned we’re a virtual banking platform. We’re what’s called a neobank. A neobank is a financial tech company built on top of a physical partner bank. So our physical partner bank is called Thread Bank. They’re located in Tennessee. They’re a physical branch. Tennessee, yeah, Stephen!
Our Thread Bank is how we are FDIC insured, it’s how we have banking capability. But like, the skin that you see when you log into Relay is really the tech company. And so, with that explanation, through Thread and their partner network of banks, we are then allowed to offer 2.5 million. So it’s 250k per their partner bank network.
So we open all these accounts in the background for you. It’s not something that looks any different. All of the cash is still liquid. You can access it whenever. It’s just stored in multiple banks for you in the background so it can be fully insured.
[00:13:32] Wade Carpenter: It’s just swept virtually to these other accounts. So that’s how they’re accomplishing that, which I think is great. And, obviously it was a question that this particular client was about losing seven million dollars. And thank goodness the government stepped in that case, but
there’s
no guarantee and there’s bank failures all the time.
I mean,
[00:13:52] Stephen Brown: But you know, the nice thing I like about this platform is it allows you to get the best operating service as you can for your clients.
For example, wire transfer. You have a fantastic outfit out of London that does nothing but wire transfers. And the security looked to me to be incredible.
[00:14:14] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, so we do still offer wire functionality. For basic Relay accounts. It’s 5 to wire domestically, 10 to wire internationally, and we can send in 26 different currencies. And something that I’ve learned a lot from talking to business owners is a lot of banks will actually physically require you to come in to send a wire or, you know, confirm information. And this is something you could do directly from your phone here at Relay, which I think is pretty cool.
Now for contractors that are constantly doing wires like, you know, five plus a month, we actually have a package available that Wade knows a lot about called Relay Pro. And basically it’s a 30 a month fee, but it gives you unlimited wires.
Depending on the bank you’re with, it can be 30, 40, 50 per wire to send something. So, unlimited for 30 is a pretty great deal. I can’t say I’ve heard anything like that out there. So, depending on your transaction volume, that could be a great option for you too. But if you’re also a company that receives a lot of wires, we receive wires for free on Relay too.
So ACH wire check, you can receive them all for free. Actually, I had a business move on Relay specifically to receive wires, and they saved $12,000 a year on that function alone.
[00:15:25] Stephen Brown: Wow.
[00:15:25] Wade Carpenter: You did a demo recently for one of my electrical contractors in New Hampshire that had the same problem. He had to go to the bank physically and do that, and it’s going to save him quite a bit of money.
Relay’s fee structure
[00:15:37] Wade Carpenter: Can you talk in general about the fees and, I would like to come back to Relay Pro, and talking about the software thing. Can you just talk about the fees and the fee structure?
Because from a Profit First standpoint, a lot of people are really concerned where we’re starting a new bank account. We need five new bank accounts, and if they go to their local branch, quite expensive. Let’s go back to that question if we can.
[00:15:58] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, absolutely. That’s, that’s usually like the second question, right? Is if your bank will actually allow you to open five, six accounts, then the next question is, well, how much is this going to cost me? Right. And if you’re a business that’s wanting to start with Profit First, a lot of times you’re not going to have those, that extra 25 a month to pay for all these accounts, right?
So there’s no signup fee, there’s no monthly fee, no minimum balance requirement at Relay. All of our core services are free. If you are using the basic Relay functions, the only thing you would get charged for is outgoing wires. If you do not wire, it’s completely free to utilize Relay. And that brings us to the Relay Pro option as well.
So Relay Pro is an Accounts Payable option that people can upgrade for. Anyone listening today is familiar with Bill.com or Melio, it’s a nice sub for those. It allows bills to sync in from QuickBooks or Xero. You get approvals. But you also get those unlimited wires that I mentioned, and same day ACH. So if you do not wire, or you do not upgrade to Pro, it is completely free to bank with Relay.
[00:17:02] Wade Carpenter: And again, that’s one of the things I love because we really haven’t gone down that path. There’s the RelayPro and I love the fact that if we’re supporting a contractor and trying to pay their bills and they’ve got QBO, it just goes right in and payments get made.
Workflows in Relay
[00:17:17] Wade Carpenter: But even with the free part, is the workflow. Bill.com has been one of the biggest names and Melio but it’s very expensive and it’s very clunky. And with Relay, just even the basic, we can have some workflow and some approval levels.
Can you talk about that for just a sec?
[00:17:37] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, so the basic version of Relay for Payments, that’s going to allow you to request the payment information, request the W 9s, or sorry, I should say, require the W 9s and you get to see the whole process, like you’re confirming the payment before it’s going out and everything.
With Pro, that’s where your bills sync in directly from QuickBooks or Xero So anything unpaid in your accounting software will automatically show in Relay every three hours, so you’re still making all of your bill payments directly out of Relay.
And as soon as you issue that payment in Relay, again, automatically reflects into your accounting software. So it is a two way sync there, which is pretty nice. And if you do have the approval set up, which you can do single or multi stage approval, you get to view that whole audit trail before you send out payment. So especially for contractors that are coming to you for bill paying, it actually provides a workflow for them where likely before they didn’t have one.
So it’s actually building a process within their business at which the firm is able to help with and do it safely by offering approvals too, right?
[00:18:37] Wade Carpenter: Yeah. Because, honestly, we don’t want to have the liability that comes with like pushing the button, but the owner wants it super simple so that they can take care of these. So it allows you to do that even with a free platform.
[00:18:52] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, exactly. And if you do think that Pro is something that’s right for your business, what’s nice is it’s just a flat $30 fee. There’s no additional charge, no matter how many payments you’re sending out, how many people are signing in, how many people are approving. It’s the flat fee.
might
showing Okay, I may be
[00:19:08] Stephen Brown: showing my age here. There used to be these things called paper checks, and cashier’s checks that–
[00:19:15] Deanna Zubrickas: Mmm.
[00:19:20] Stephen Brown: some old folks might require.
I don’t
[00:19:22] Deanna Zubrickas: know.
Mm
[00:19:24] Stephen Brown: Is that possible? I mean, it’s no big deal to go to your local bank and pay the fee to get a cashier’s check, of course.
[00:19:30] Deanna Zubrickas: Mmhmm. I have heard of paper checks, too, in my day.
So, Relay’s approach to this is we’re a virtual bank. We will print and send the check on your behalf for free. You just will never see it. So that’s our option right now. We won’t send you a physical checkbook. It’s something we’re looking into in the future, especially in this industry.
We know a lot of people require a same day check for payment just based on your own preference. So it’s something we’ll look for in the future, but today we just print and mail them for free.
[00:19:59] Stephen Brown: That’s how you keep your costs down, I’m sure. But you know, I think most people can do without checks.
Just very, yeah, very few people I ever write a check to. It’s just, I do it for my own sense of well being because I want that check to clear and have proof of it. That’s my mindset.
[00:20:23] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah.
[00:20:24] Wade Carpenter: But everybody’s using Venmo now.
[00:20:26] Stephen Brown: Oh my goodness.
[00:20:27] Wade Carpenter: Stop doing that.
[00:20:28] Deanna Zubrickas: I can’t believe that both of those sentences came out of you, Stephen. I pay on Venmo and I pay my physical check.
[00:20:34] Stephen Brown: Oh my goodness. My kids set me up with Venmo, believe me years ago.
[00:20:40] Deanna Zubrickas: But they’re–
[00:20:40] Stephen Brown: They made it very easy for me to pay them.
[00:20:43] Deanna Zubrickas: The only payees they put in your Venmo account.
[00:20:46] Stephen Brown: But I also get to see who they’re paying and what for, and so, there’s that. I got that going for me, but they’re adults now. I don’t need to be in their business, but I am. Anyway, okay, well, thanks. You answered that question.
After researching everything, I’m so impressed at what you offer and how you do it. And Wade tells me just the implementation and the day to day operating of your system is just a joy for him.
Relay makes statement downloads easy
[00:21:16] Wade Carpenter: So let’s stick with that part for just a minute. Number one, I as an accountant, sometimes I’ll get a new client and they haven’t been keeping up their books. And we have to go in to the Chases, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, whoever, and especially if they got Profit First, they’ve got multiple accounts. Download one. And I, as an accountant, love this feature. Tell us about that.
[00:21:38] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, so especially when you’re running Profit First, statement downloads are a huge pain in the butt. So you have the ability to select a month, and select all of the checking accounts that have a statement for that month, and it will all download at once.
[00:21:54] Wade Carpenter: In a zip
[00:21:54] Deanna Zubrickas: file.
Exactly.
In a zip file and it’s named properly. Exactly. And if you’re using something like QBO and you have the statement fetch feature, you can also connect it directly there to Relay. So your statements will fetch automatically into QBO. So you have both options there, which is pretty cool.
[00:22:10] Stephen Brown: Okay. And then you can also go in and easily name each of your accounts in Profit First, which is neat. And allocate the percentage that you and your Profit First advisor set as goals, reasonable operating goals, that’s pretty cool.
Getting started with Relay and Profit First
[00:22:27] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah, so we actually released a new feature recently. I don’t know if I talked about this with you last time on our demo, Wade. But we have an onboarding checklist. So basically, once you’re approved on Relay, this will give you a checklist of how to start utilizing it.
And the first step of that checklist is opening your checking accounts. And our default template on there is actually for Profit First. So it has all five accounts listed for you, some checking, some savings, all the proper names. And for you, Wade, if you prefer six accounts, you can add the sixth one right there at the bottom. And in one click, all of your 5 6 accounts are open at once, which is pretty awesome. So that’s, you know, the first thing to get you started.
But yeah, as you mentioned Stephen, the allocations too. So obviously a huge part of Profit First is your monthly allocations. Some people do this twice a month, some people do it weekly. It depends what works for your business.
We have two ways to do this We have two ways to do this on Relay. You can come do it manually. So this is great for people that are newer to Profit First and still understanding how the cash is moving through their business. So you can come in and move it manually by percentage, or you can use something called an auto transfer. And this we actually built specifically for Profit First users, which is pretty awesome.
So you can create a rule that will run in your business where you can pick your frequency, so let’s say on the 10th and the 25th every month, you’re going to clear out or zero out the main income deposit account and divvy up everything by percentage to your other accounts. So, you know, your owner’s pay, your OpEx, your tax, your profit, and that’s all going to run in the background of your business for you.
And what’s great about that is like we’ve talked about, a huge roadblock is the setup and like what it costs to do Profit First, but the other roadblock is sticking to it. Being accountable for your percentages and this just keeps business owners accountable.
[00:24:13] Wade Carpenter: I love that. That’s where I was going to go. Because, to digress, Profit First had another bank, and all they did was this envelope system, and it was just on paper. QuickBooks Online had their envelope system, and basically it’s just paper transactions where you’re doing it on budget.
And if you really get into Profit First, you understand that physically having another bank account is huge. It’s just separating it. And Relay has a separate bank account with a separate account and routing number, and that–
[00:24:51] Stephen Brown: –it is when you have your transactions itemized too by your accounts. I think that’s what you’re saying. Right?
[00:24:57] Wade Carpenter: Well yeah, they are going to be itemized that way, but the other part is, as you said, with contractors trying to implement Profit First, the book says the 10/24 rule. Profit First Professionals, they teach us a lot of people do not do the 10/24 rule.
In construction, it is very common to have more of a weekly rhythm because a lot of times they’re trying to cover payroll and one of the things where people wreck the system is hey, we’re in a hurry. Money comes in, let’s just shove it all to payroll. And this auto run, I think is what you guys call it, you set it up, it automatically puts it in the right percentages. So.
[00:25:36] Deanna Zubrickas: Your p ercentages are going to look a lot different, you know, maybe than a six months or a year into doing Profit First. You can edit those at any time as your business changes. I think what you were kind of mentioning earlier, Wade, about the separate accounts is, the benefit of that is, yes, they’re unique account and routing numbers, but also shows that way in your accounting system too, which is where the big disconnect used to come with these envelopes, right?
In your bank account, it looks separate, but when you log into your QuickBooks, it’s all together. So it’s just keeping that theme across your accounting software, which is important. Especially if you’re working with a firm that’s also Profit First certified.
[00:26:10] Wade Carpenter: Like I said, I’ve loved working with them for many years, even before they built all this stuff. And that makes–
[00:26:15] Deanna Zubrickas: Yes, you’ve been a big Relay believer, Wade. We appreciate your support
[00:26:19] Wade Carpenter: throughout
[00:26:19] Deanna Zubrickas: the years.
[00:26:20] Wade Carpenter: Again, also working with the contractors and the payables process has been huge for us, not to mention we love not having to download statements one by one.
[00:26:30] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s a huge time saver.
[00:26:33] Wade Carpenter: Yeah.
I think we’ve hit a lot of things. Stephen, did you have any other questions?
[00:26:37] Stephen Brown: I didn’t, I just enjoyed meeting you and I look forward to hopefully having you again, we have lots of things we like to discuss with our contractors and as always, we try to bring them to them, financial professionals, they need to know.
with their insights. And, we generally don’t plug any particular services. we’re not selling things, but we’re genuinely trying to bring to our listeners something that’s really been good for a lot of people. You and your bank platform have been that and we want to thank you for that.
[00:27:13] Deanna Zubrickas: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been awesome. And I know I’ve spoken to quite a few of Wade’s clients at this point since we’ve been working together for so long. And it’s just nice to see people, you know, look at a banking platform like Relay and think like, wow, this is actually going to save so many problems that I have. Like I’m going to be more efficient. I’m going to understand my business more, what’s going on in it. So I appreciate the opportunity to chat more about it. I think it’s awesome. Okay.
[00:27:38] Wade Carpenter: Any other wrap up thoughts, Deanna?
[00:27:40] Deanna Zubrickas: I guess my last wrap up, thought Wade would be the last client that Wade introduced me to you kind of said like, oh, I would really love them to be on Relay, but you know, I don’t think they’re gonna budge from their local branch, but let’s try it anyway.
And, and so we, we tag team it, right? We, we got on the call together and, and kind of showed him, what the options were at Relay. I don’t think he really gave a big commitment at the end of the call, but immediately after that was like, okay, how do I sign up? What do I do? And I think the nice part about that is a lot of people don’t understand what the other options are for them.
A lot of banking is just being settled at your bank, not happy with it or really supported the way you’d want to be. So when you look at something like Relay, you kind of see, well, there are other options out there in or outside of Profit First. And I think that was just a really great example of seeing that and it was cool to see it come full circle.
[00:28:27] Wade Carpenter: Well, I didn’t know you were going to bring that up, but yeah, that was really pretty cool.
I got off the call with Deanna and then the guy’s like, yeah, I don’t know what, he’s one of those that analyzes everything. Within two hours, he sent me an email. It’s like, I’m ready to go. There are a lot of benefits, and that’s why I thought bringing Deanna on the show would be great, because contractors, really do have a lot of nuances and issues that I think they solve.
[00:28:50] Deanna Zubrickas: So
[00:28:51] Wade Carpenter: Okay.
Well, let me wrap this up. Thank you all for listening to Contractor Success Forum.
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