Meeting Title: Uttam_Liam Date: 2025-01-20 Meeting participants: Liam Mears, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:01:13.240 ⇒ 00:01:14.800 Liam Mears: Hey? What’s up? How’s it going.
2 00:01:17.060 ⇒ 00:01:18.699 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! How are you?
3 00:01:18.700 ⇒ 00:01:21.510 Liam Mears: Doing well long time. No talk. How are things going.
4 00:01:21.510 ⇒ 00:01:23.226 Uttam Kumaran: I know. Dude it’s been
5 00:01:23.790 ⇒ 00:01:27.900 Uttam Kumaran: it’s been really busy. It’s good, though. We signed a couple more clients.
6 00:01:28.852 ⇒ 00:01:34.049 Uttam Kumaran: All like pretty like some of our highest contract values
7 00:01:34.694 ⇒ 00:01:42.600 Uttam Kumaran: but it’s been a slog for like a month. So finally like getting to.
8 00:01:43.100 ⇒ 00:01:45.780 Uttam Kumaran: you know, some finance stuff. And
9 00:01:46.410 ⇒ 00:01:52.762 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I’m glad, like the process, I think, for the most part has been smooth for people. I think.
10 00:01:53.270 ⇒ 00:02:00.300 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we’re still having the problem with Miguel and Wise. I’m talking to him about potentially moving him to gusto and like figuring out the bank stuff.
11 00:02:00.860 ⇒ 00:02:01.610 Liam Mears: I don’t know.
12 00:02:01.610 ⇒ 00:02:02.519 Uttam Kumaran: Everything in there.
13 00:02:02.960 ⇒ 00:02:04.160 Liam Mears: I don’t know what the issue.
14 00:02:04.160 ⇒ 00:02:05.169 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know either.
15 00:02:05.523 ⇒ 00:02:11.890 Liam Mears: Use wise other clients, and like I. So it’s not like, know how to use the platform.
16 00:02:12.030 ⇒ 00:02:17.230 Liam Mears: So I’m just sitting there like, why, why is this the one? Because you’ve given me my!
17 00:02:18.930 ⇒ 00:02:23.319 Liam Mears: You’ve given me more access than I have for other clients that was mind boggling to me.
18 00:02:23.940 ⇒ 00:02:25.539 Liam Mears: Sorry that that’s been a pain.
19 00:02:26.230 ⇒ 00:02:41.869 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s no problem. It’s no problem. It’s I wanna we’re. I’m I’m talking to him about potentially moving into full time. Anyways. So I think we’ll do that through gusto. But yeah, I’ve been using this you know the sheet more heavily, and the sheet is basically gonna become
20 00:02:42.200 ⇒ 00:02:50.949 Uttam Kumaran: most of the like financial operating system, I think, for the company. So a couple of things. One
21 00:02:51.170 ⇒ 00:02:55.859 Uttam Kumaran: where I’m I think I’m gonna move the AR
22 00:02:56.560 ⇒ 00:03:03.370 Uttam Kumaran: process to the sheet. Basically. So we kind of consolidate everything. In one place, I think
23 00:03:03.950 ⇒ 00:03:11.230 Uttam Kumaran: we’re gonna have, I think, 2 more clients that
24 00:03:11.720 ⇒ 00:03:13.970 Uttam Kumaran: are gonna get billed for this next month.
25 00:03:14.501 ⇒ 00:03:22.847 Uttam Kumaran: And we also still need to do the pool parts invoice for this past month. So I remember, I need to get you that final number.
26 00:03:23.940 ⇒ 00:03:27.960 Uttam Kumaran: so are you? Okay with that, if I move that that AR spreadsheet into here.
27 00:03:27.960 ⇒ 00:03:31.819 Liam Mears: Yeah. Oh, yeah, I mean, absolutely for sure. That’s that’s that’s very minor.
28 00:03:31.820 ⇒ 00:03:37.859 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay? And then, I think the other thing is, yeah, I wanna try and get like
29 00:03:38.340 ⇒ 00:03:42.010 Uttam Kumaran: the Pml flowing into here.
30 00:03:42.010 ⇒ 00:03:46.909 Liam Mears: This is where things are, gonna get tricky. So do you, are you.
31 00:03:46.910 ⇒ 00:03:51.396 Uttam Kumaran: For a couple for a couple of reasons. One is like I I don’t care. I care
32 00:03:51.940 ⇒ 00:03:58.210 Uttam Kumaran: I care mostly at 2 expense items I care. I care well 2 items I care about the overall revenue.
33 00:03:58.210 ⇒ 00:03:58.700 Liam Mears: Yup!
34 00:03:58.700 ⇒ 00:04:04.159 Uttam Kumaran: And I care about the payroll cost the variable. Every other expense
35 00:04:04.300 ⇒ 00:04:12.680 Uttam Kumaran: is like less critical for now. But I basically want the actuals to fill in from there.
36 00:04:13.286 ⇒ 00:04:14.199 Uttam Kumaran: You know.
37 00:04:14.510 ⇒ 00:04:33.970 Liam Mears: Yeah, that’s no problem. So what I could do if those are the only if I was doing it for every category, that’s something that we can address online. That’s gonna be worth like, all right, that’s super. And I feel like it’s not worth it. But in the instance that it’s just revenue and just payroll for. Now, 1 1 thing I could do is for the month. I’ll just go ahead.
38 00:04:34.080 ⇒ 00:04:43.299 Liam Mears: and I can just export all of the items that are categorized in revenue or payroll related items, and then I’ll just go ahead.
39 00:04:43.420 ⇒ 00:04:57.219 Liam Mears: I can just throw them in separate tabs and make sure that it’s included. That’s super easy. That’ll be like a couple of minutes. So I’m a hundred percent on board with that I would say, I’ll shoot you.
40 00:04:58.293 ⇒ 00:05:03.150 Liam Mears: Full 5 is changing how we’re providing our clients, the financial statements which is our time
41 00:05:03.650 ⇒ 00:05:07.069 Liam Mears: gonna email, you a file on a monthly basis.
42 00:05:07.400 ⇒ 00:05:09.680 Liam Mears: And what I can do
43 00:05:10.170 ⇒ 00:05:14.712 Liam Mears: is that gonna shoot you? I’ll shoot you a Pdf file and we’ll have all of the
44 00:05:15.660 ⇒ 00:05:29.713 Liam Mears: all the line items. And basically what you if you want, I have a base. I have a pretty good understanding of what you’re gonna want out of this. But if you want to go ahead and just like look through the line items and make sure I know what the revenues are. I know what the
45 00:05:30.230 ⇒ 00:05:35.320 Liam Mears: payroll expenses are gonna be that you want to look at like, yeah, I don’t know if
46 00:05:36.740 ⇒ 00:05:55.380 Liam Mears: I have a big idea what you’re gonna want. But if you want to go ahead, and when I send you the finalized one, you can just like highlight the specific accounts that you want me exporting so that way we can break it out a little bit. I wanna make sure exactly what you want. I’m also not providing you with like too much. I don’t need this so once we’re done, that would be awesome.
47 00:05:55.410 ⇒ 00:06:13.080 Liam Mears: I know that you’re slammed if we can. If we can finish your financial statements this week, that’d be awesome, and that would involve me having the revenue. Everything else is done reconciled all the accounts of categorize everything I don’t want like. I just don’t want December to linger in.
48 00:06:13.080 ⇒ 00:06:13.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
49 00:06:13.800 ⇒ 00:06:16.030 Liam Mears: Month of February, where I’m like.
50 00:06:16.260 ⇒ 00:06:16.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
51 00:06:16.700 ⇒ 00:06:28.720 Liam Mears: Then I had a little less trust and run. Do it for January, and I would hate for us to get too behind, you know. So especially, you know, we’re we’re to the point where, like, you’re going to want to have your
52 00:06:28.900 ⇒ 00:06:37.069 Liam Mears: actions were filed over the next couple of months ideally right, and we’ll get extended, and that’s never a big deal. But like you’ve done
53 00:06:37.130 ⇒ 00:07:04.633 Liam Mears: such a good job to this point. I would hate for the summer to be able to hold us back now. So but overall, I know that you’re slammed, and again I’m doing my best to, you know. Try and take over what I can, and I’m 100% on board. I love how organized you are. I think we’re in a good spot again. I’m super pumped to hear that your revenue is gonna be ramping up, going into this. Take off a little bit more. That’s awesome for you. That’s awesome.
54 00:07:05.370 ⇒ 00:07:10.497 Liam Mears: yeah, I feel like, feel like, yeah, I think we’re in pretty good spot.
55 00:07:10.810 ⇒ 00:07:14.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we have like, I think we’re gonna have 2 new
56 00:07:15.316 ⇒ 00:07:17.849 Uttam Kumaran: people for payroll as well.
57 00:07:20.000 ⇒ 00:07:24.049 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m gonna I’m make gonna make sure that they’re all in gusto, and then
58 00:07:24.360 ⇒ 00:07:32.240 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll be paying them based on what’s in clockify as well. So everybody’s in clockify and
59 00:07:33.240 ⇒ 00:07:35.520 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think the one thing
60 00:07:35.860 ⇒ 00:07:40.050 Uttam Kumaran: is, some people are slow to update, clockify.
61 00:07:40.190 ⇒ 00:07:41.610 Uttam Kumaran: So I need to think about.
62 00:07:41.610 ⇒ 00:07:47.539 Liam Mears: I can change my payment dates. That’s not an issue. If you think that that’s the best way to go. People are taking too long.
63 00:07:47.540 ⇒ 00:07:49.760 Uttam Kumaran: Most people are pretty good, but
64 00:07:52.830 ⇒ 00:07:58.909 Liam Mears: So usually I’ll I’ll go over my dates that I have in my personal calendar that I’ve been like
65 00:07:59.928 ⇒ 00:08:06.379 Liam Mears: the 1st of the month. And this is that is kind of an ambitious, is it? The 1st
66 00:08:06.720 ⇒ 00:08:08.740 Liam Mears: hold on, I think I did the second.
67 00:08:09.200 ⇒ 00:08:12.910 Liam Mears: Yeah. So I’ve been doing the second for monthly.
68 00:08:13.550 ⇒ 00:08:17.669 Liam Mears: and I’ve been doing the 17, th I think
69 00:08:18.400 ⇒ 00:08:27.540 Liam Mears: 17th for the mid month. Contractors. Is that too early like? Should I reach? I stagger that a little bit more towards like the 4, th like the 19, th or something like.
70 00:08:29.370 ⇒ 00:08:32.949 Uttam Kumaran: I think, leave it. But I’m going to.
71 00:08:33.240 ⇒ 00:08:38.570 Uttam Kumaran: But can you tell? So those dates are? If you just tell me one more time. I’m just gonna note it down, and then I’ll.
72 00:08:38.570 ⇒ 00:08:41.179 Liam Mears: Yeah, I’ve been doing the monthly.
73 00:08:41.530 ⇒ 00:08:43.630 Liam Mears: I’ve been doing the second of the month
74 00:08:44.059 ⇒ 00:08:46.709 Liam Mears: because I I try because I know also
75 00:08:47.538 ⇒ 00:08:54.239 Liam Mears: twice a month once go from the 17th to the first, st so make sure the second.
76 00:08:54.890 ⇒ 00:09:00.609 Liam Mears: That’s the earliest. I want to do it, so I can do the second, and then the 17.th
77 00:09:01.040 ⇒ 00:09:05.819 Liam Mears: So make sure that I cover the second to the 16th for the mid months.
78 00:09:06.290 ⇒ 00:09:07.235 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let me.
79 00:09:08.130 ⇒ 00:09:09.290 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I’m trying to like.
80 00:09:09.580 ⇒ 00:09:12.789 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think people would be pissed if I did the 3rd like I don’t know.
81 00:09:12.790 ⇒ 00:09:14.780 Liam Mears: I don’t think anybody would notice.
82 00:09:15.260 ⇒ 00:09:19.530 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let’s do the 3.rd Then, because I’m gonna set an auto reminder in slack
83 00:09:20.696 ⇒ 00:09:24.960 Uttam Kumaran: to send a message to everybody that’s like, get your thing in by.
84 00:09:25.430 ⇒ 00:09:28.180 Uttam Kumaran: You have 2 days to to finalize everything.
85 00:09:28.180 ⇒ 00:09:28.860 Liam Mears: Correct.
86 00:09:28.980 ⇒ 00:09:34.890 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’m gonna have a process like, if people need to do corrections, what happens? But I want I want
87 00:09:35.060 ⇒ 00:09:36.940 Uttam Kumaran: to start to set that up.
88 00:09:37.050 ⇒ 00:09:39.180 Uttam Kumaran: cause we’ll be almost at like
89 00:09:40.780 ⇒ 00:09:48.060 Uttam Kumaran: like, what? Like 10 people, 10 or 11 people. So I just wanna make sure that everybody has that in there.
90 00:09:48.460 ⇒ 00:09:53.060 Liam Mears: Yeah, that should be just fine. Nobody’s gonna freak out about an extra day.
91 00:09:53.740 ⇒ 00:10:05.509 Liam Mears: To that point. I mean, payments vary so much based on like weekends and holidays, anyway, so I don’t think anyone’s good. Usually when it’s like a handful of days people wait a minute. But one day no.
92 00:10:05.690 ⇒ 00:10:08.320 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah. And the biggest thing is like, we’re
93 00:10:08.690 ⇒ 00:10:17.189 Uttam Kumaran: we’re starting to to work on forecasts for the year. And the forecast. We’re like starting to break down by like.
94 00:10:17.460 ⇒ 00:10:26.730 Uttam Kumaran: how many hours are we’re trying to look at like billable rate we’re trying to look at like how many people are on the service side versus how many people are on the operation side?
95 00:10:26.870 ⇒ 00:10:32.470 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s why I want to get a process of getting actuals in there.
96 00:10:33.050 ⇒ 00:10:41.519 Uttam Kumaran: As they close that way, I can overwrite the forecast as it goes, and then the forecast. Some of the forecasts.
97 00:10:42.009 ⇒ 00:10:47.039 Uttam Kumaran: like, build on the prior actuals in terms of like growth rates and stuff
98 00:10:47.210 ⇒ 00:10:50.430 Uttam Kumaran: so ideally like everything flows into here.
99 00:10:50.700 ⇒ 00:10:52.180 Uttam Kumaran: And then we’ll start
100 00:10:52.330 ⇒ 00:11:00.930 Uttam Kumaran: this process now. So I I think if we can just start with the top line revenue items and the people expenses
101 00:11:01.050 ⇒ 00:11:06.680 Uttam Kumaran: like we have, we do have a fair bit of like more fixed than variable expenses. But I’ll
102 00:11:06.800 ⇒ 00:11:08.360 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll get to that later.
103 00:11:08.500 ⇒ 00:11:11.140 Liam Mears: That’s the big thing. I wanna.
104 00:11:11.500 ⇒ 00:11:12.530 Uttam Kumaran: Make sure.
105 00:11:15.300 ⇒ 00:11:16.030 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
106 00:11:16.700 ⇒ 00:11:17.470 Liam Mears: Awesome.
107 00:11:17.600 ⇒ 00:11:20.257 Liam Mears: Okay, great. I. So I changed that date.
108 00:11:20.790 ⇒ 00:11:23.340 Liam Mears: So we’ll be a 3rd going forward.
109 00:11:25.860 ⇒ 00:11:31.250 Liam Mears: Damn! I feel things have really started to smooth out for you. I know that this invoicing thing
110 00:11:32.530 ⇒ 00:11:34.369 Liam Mears: I will. I it’s always just like
111 00:11:34.610 ⇒ 00:11:38.189 Liam Mears: I just wanna make sure that I’m getting the information over to you in a timely manner directly.
112 00:11:38.190 ⇒ 00:11:45.119 Uttam Kumaran: No, I didn’t. Someone didn’t finalize their hours, and then it because of holidays. I missed it. I just need to do it right now.
113 00:11:45.760 ⇒ 00:11:48.218 Liam Mears: Yeah, I know that you’re probably scrambling.
114 00:11:48.570 ⇒ 00:11:55.009 Uttam Kumaran: No, we look. We signed a bunch of clients like. So it was a lot of just like getting them contracts and stuff like that. And then
115 00:11:55.550 ⇒ 00:11:57.750 Uttam Kumaran: we brought on 2 more people.
116 00:11:58.500 ⇒ 00:12:00.390 Liam Mears: And it’s just like a lot going on.
117 00:12:00.390 ⇒ 00:12:08.149 Liam Mears: It’s good stuff. It’s a lot, though. It’s a lot. So I know that you’re hanging in there. But let’s set a goal if we can.
118 00:12:08.730 ⇒ 00:12:33.326 Liam Mears: If I can get financials finished and over to you by say, let’s say end of the Friday, that’d be awesome. So basically, just waiting. Once I have the invoice information to answer that then revenue will look good, and I’ll be done sound like so basically like 99% there. But once that’s done, I’ll be able to do my thing. I’ll be able to shoot financials overview. And you’ll get those via email.
119 00:12:34.887 ⇒ 00:12:39.720 Liam Mears: Now, these people are not utilizing the qualify platform.
120 00:12:40.470 ⇒ 00:12:54.706 Liam Mears: I don’t like, I don’t blame them. Honestly, I I who doesn’t wanna just like yeah, it should just be as simple as getting an email. That’s how that’ll be delivered going forward on a monthly basis. And yeah, I don’t have any new updates for you. This has been pretty smooth.
121 00:12:55.511 ⇒ 00:13:09.500 Liam Mears: I will keep. I’ll make sure that I’m actively are you? Are you? I didn’t want to put this in writing because never supposed to be promoting, changing up the communication. Are you happy with getting message through the platform?
122 00:13:09.500 ⇒ 00:13:13.719 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s fine. That’s fine. Because I that’s actually much preferred.
123 00:13:14.052 ⇒ 00:13:18.730 Uttam Kumaran: My schedule is kind of all over the place. So I feel like we’re doing a great job just chatting whenever we.
124 00:13:18.730 ⇒ 00:13:23.179 Liam Mears: I had it typed out. And I’m like, Wait a minute. This is not. I’m not supposed to be. But then
125 00:13:23.180 ⇒ 00:13:25.910 Liam Mears: 5 o’clock clients were like. I will never look at that ever.
126 00:13:26.310 ⇒ 00:13:27.130 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, really.
127 00:13:27.130 ⇒ 00:13:33.550 Liam Mears: Like, yeah, yeah. You know, you’d be surprised at how many startups aren’t like super tech, savvy? And they just like
128 00:13:34.010 ⇒ 00:13:38.319 Liam Mears: hand everything down to other people to delegate, you know. Okay? Well, I guess I would have thought that.
129 00:13:38.320 ⇒ 00:13:44.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, look, we’re we’re a data company. And so honestly like, soon we’ll get this all actually like.
130 00:13:44.660 ⇒ 00:13:46.689 Uttam Kumaran: I won’t be running much of this
131 00:13:46.840 ⇒ 00:13:51.500 Uttam Kumaran: through the spreadsheet longer term. It’s just like
132 00:13:51.820 ⇒ 00:13:55.790 Uttam Kumaran: we work for our clients first, st and then we work on ourselves. Second, so.
133 00:13:55.790 ⇒ 00:13:57.609 Liam Mears: I respect it. That’s how it should be. Right?
134 00:13:57.610 ⇒ 00:14:00.130 Liam Mears: Yeah. So yeah, that’s awesome.
135 00:14:00.460 ⇒ 00:14:14.659 Liam Mears: Alright, man, listen like I know that we’ve been like we haven’t fallen off every other Thursdays schedule. But if you can just give me a little, I’m gonna be so bad. If you’re taking me today I’m really good. I’ll always answer within 24 h.
136 00:14:14.660 ⇒ 00:14:15.250 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
137 00:14:15.250 ⇒ 00:14:32.659 Liam Mears: So, and I’ll always be able to schedule scheduling you just like the super short notice. I’m really bad at so sorry this time of year going into tax season. It’s gonna be ugly ugly, the best way, because this is a good month for me.
138 00:14:32.660 ⇒ 00:14:33.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
139 00:14:33.360 ⇒ 00:14:52.043 Liam Mears: But I’ll always be able to schedule you. Just try and give me at least 24 h ahead note of a heads up, and I’ll always have the availability matter of like, usually not today. But like the next day, I appreciate your patience with that. And yeah, as things go message me email me. However, you want to reach out.
140 00:14:52.390 ⇒ 00:15:11.799 Liam Mears: I’ll be. I’ll be around a breakout. How we’re gonna switch things up. I’ll be flexible. Just keep me in the loop, and let’s try and get these revenue numbers will be January. My number one priority is just like, if we could finish it by end of the January 31.st That’d be amazing.
141 00:15:12.930 ⇒ 00:15:15.980 Liam Mears: Alright, man, I’m good. How are you feeling.
142 00:15:15.980 ⇒ 00:15:17.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Good. Good.
143 00:15:17.410 ⇒ 00:15:24.960 Liam Mears: Okay. Great. Yeah. Let’s we’ll try and keep. Keep in touch. We’ll touch base here and there. I know that you’re slammed, and but we’ll be.
144 00:15:25.150 ⇒ 00:15:35.189 Liam Mears: We’ll be chaotic on our end. We’ll always have the time. So just keep, keep in touch with me and greatness. Things change, and you know we’re flexible. So appreciate you taking the time today.
145 00:15:35.200 ⇒ 00:15:36.559 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect thanks, liam.
146 00:15:36.720 ⇒ 00:15:38.599 Liam Mears: Alright! Talk to you soon. Have a good one.
147 00:15:38.760 ⇒ 00:15:39.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you too.