Between the castings, side hustles your personal life, lies the scary world of creator admin and finances.
This is what you may call the boring side of being a pro creative, but by getting on top of this you open up so much more time to the side of work you love with a lot less stress.
At MONET we build tools on running creator admin and finances better. So here are our tips in getting more fun out of running your creator business:
1. Separate your business income from your personal spending
This is super important if you want to get along with your agent or accountant, and even more crucial if you ever become VAT registered. Lastly, if you want to get a loan for your business, it’ll be much easier without the fog of your personal spending in your business account.
So, no matter if you are only set up as a sole trader, it’s always best to have a designated bank account for your business.
2. Keep track of your invoices, book-keeping and accounting
There are two main reasons for this really. Firstly, it will save you a lot of time when it comes to tax returns and VAT claims, but secondly it may also help bring you a great payday in the form of a tax refund. Bonus time 💃
So whether you’re just starting to side hustle or if you have a very busy accountant, manager or agent… Take photos of receipts and invoices as soon as you can. Even better if you can tag it to a transaction in your banking app. (Hint: you can do this with a MONET account 💳)
3. Use a tool to manage your to-do lists and schedule
It’s stressful out there, we all sometimes fall short of remembering everything that we need to do and where we need to be, so make your life easier by bullet journaling your progress and keeping a short list of what’s in front of you.
As a personal tip from me… I tend to list everything that I have to do, then choose the top 3 most important ones, along with their urgency. I put everything else aside until those 3 things are handled, then start the process again. But do whatever works best for your mind and workflows 🧘
We’re actually building this at MONET, but it’s not ready yet (sorry) 😇
4. Don’t wait to get paid
This is a big soft spot for us. So often we see creatives (even the super successful creators) struggling with cash-flow just because they are owed money from work they have already finished. How wild is that!
So to solve this, we created a service called InstantPay. We advance your earnings to you from the moment you complete work for any brand, production or platform.
We also insure your earnings for you so you don’t ever need to think about that payment again.
It’s a great tool to start new projects faster and free up your time to focus more on the work you love, stress free – no more chasing payments, worrying about bills or the general awkwardness around money conversations 🙂
Oh, and we also built invoicing directly into your MONET account so it’s even easier to get paid.
5. Understanding your cash-flow is the queen success
Not a far cry from tip 4, but this could be the difference between being able to stick things out before finally getting that project that’s a breakout success, against having to just get whatever project you can so you can pay bills.
By knowing how much you are spending, when you’ll next get paid, and what your back-up is, you’ll find a lot more joy in being your own boss.
6. Look into building additional income streams
Turning a passion into a career is an amazing journey. So it’s important to fiercely protect your career by making it weather-proof. We all felt the blunt thud of when the world stopped in Late March 2020, leading many creators to being unfairly excluded from support and without the access to the means to continue earning from what had taken so long to achieve…
But It was amazing to see many turn their skills into online sources of income with everything from acting classes, to ballet courses, Zoom live performances and even meaningful communities that have lasted.
Experimenting with where your creative skills can take you as a business is a winding road, but it can hugely take off pressure and build unbeatable confidence when it opens up new paths.
E.g. Last year, I met a stunt performer that was out of work for 4 months with a broken collar bone. He set up a shopify store during this time and continues to run an amazing second business selling guitar foot pedals (his other passion) on near auto-pilot.
7. Outsource what you can and focus on the work you love
It’s hard to make great things happen when your mind is blocked up with all the stress of running your own business and doing everything yourself.
When you start to associate the stuff you hate/struggle doing with the work you love, it can lead to all sorts of motivation and confidence knocks. Whether this just means getting someone to help with content, finding an accountant, or working with a manager, it’s often better for your business and your mental health if you do you by focusing on the work you love.
8. Lastly, talk and collaborate with other creators
This is easier said than done, but can really pay off if you can manage to find friends and nice folks who also work for themselves as creatives and freelancers.
We all need to talk things through, so this way you can start to form a great little group to solve some of those tricky problems, whilst leaning on each other’s experience. You may also find it super motivating in the low days and a great way to all pursue better opportunities together.
I hope you find something valuable here and if there is anything on your mind about the business side of creation, please reach out to me or anyone else in the MONET team. We’d be delighted to help 🚀
We see creators as businesses, hard-working, highly skilled forces that can achieve anything with a little bit of help. So reach out.
Jake Casson,
Founder and CEO of MONET
MONET is the business and finance app for creativity. You do you, and we’ll take care of business with the Creator Bank Account that gets you paid earlier alongside free admin tools that take the hassle out of the hustle.
You can get access to our beta app here
