The RDtoCEO Podcast
Dive into The RDtoCEO Podcast, hosted by Registered Dietitian and CEO, Eva Haldis, where she shares her journey in entrepreneurship, with discussions on the basics on building a private practice and becoming a confident CEO. The RDtoCEO Podcast is your go-to resource for mastering the art of transitioning from a dietitian to a successful CEO.
The RDtoCEO Podcast
2024 Financials in Review
Join me for an authentic conversation on finances, growth, and the reality of what financials can look like as you grow a small group practice, while accepting insurance. If you're curious about what it truly means to navigate these waters, this episode has something for you.
We take a transparent look at my practice’s financials for 2024, exploring growth, profits, and lessons learned along the way. This candid review is meant to inspire other dietitians to understand and embrace their own financial journeys, however they may be!
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*Please note that while we strive to provide valuable insights, our podcast is not a replacement for personalized legal or financial counsel. We strongly advise consulting with qualified professionals for specific advice tailored to your individual circumstances.*
Welcome to the RD to CEO podcast. I'm your host, eva Haldis, registered dietitian, who one day found herself a whole CEO of a business. Join me as we navigate the world of entrepreneurship so you can go from being an RD who sees clients in private practice to a confident CEO growing the practice of your dreams. Welcome back to the RD to CEO podcast. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode, the RD to CEO podcast. So wonderful to be back. You can probably hear in my voice I'm a little bit on the raspy side.
Speaker 1:If you heard my last episode that I posted probably like two or three weeks back, I mentioned having the flu and shout out to anybody who's gone through the flu of 2025 because it has been a rough, rough flu season. I think I knew at the same time that we had it outside of just my son's school. That was like completely infiltrated by the flu, like people outside of that. We all had the flu at the same time, even like family in New York and friends in Jersey and we're in Pennsylvania infiltrated by the flu, people outside of that. We all had the flu at the same time, even family in New York and friends in Jersey and we're in Pennsylvania. We all had the flu at the same exact time and it was so rough and I'm really happy to be feeling a lot better, thankfully, and on the mend, aside from a little bit of raspiness left in my voice, but excited to be back today to talking about our 2024 financials in review.
Speaker 1:I love doing financial episodes for a few reasons, but one of those simply because I like listening to episodes that are like this, because I'm nosy, I want to know what people are making, what kind of money they're making, and it's nice to see kind of behind the curtain of what's actually happening. Because it's very easy for us to look online on social media, on people's websites, and be like, oh my God, they have so many employees or they're growing their business or they're like showing up on social media a lot. They must be killing it All these things. And so actually being able to like hear from somebody's financials and like actually know what financially, you know how they're doing, and not to say that we need to use finances as a way to like measure if we're quote unquote killing it or not, but I think a lot of us do, you know, have that as one of our measures of success, and so I like to just be really open about our financials for that reason because I think it would have really helped me to hear some of this earlier on in my business growth because, as I've shared before and I think it was just as common I mean, a lot of us have money stuff.
Speaker 1:There's a lot that goes into our feelings around money and becoming a business owner. I think there's this idea that you can be making multiple six figures and doing all this stuff, and then also there's the reality that being a business owner takes time and growth takes time, and slow and steady is often the name of the game here you do it's not as easy as some of the online business coaches will say around selling these really big figure kind of things. I think when we're talking about private practice, which is what this podcast is primarily geared towards private practice is just going to look different and especially if you take insurance and I think in this sort of new climate of dietetics in particular, but even, I think, in a therapy world with a lot of these more bigger tech companies coming in and hiring people so they can kind of do their own private practice but also sort of contract to them, it's going to be nice to sort of hear like the potential and, of course, something that's really important to take into perspective is that the financials that I'm going to be sharing are based on my group practice, which, you know, currently has two full-time employees, one part-time and one very part-time employee. So essentially, around you know, three full-time hours of clinicians seeing clients and I'm going to compare it to what the numbers were in 2023. So you can see the difference between 2023 and 2024 and see what some of the differences were in. You know why our revenue was different and some of our expenses and things like that. So you know, the other reason I really like doing these episodes is I've actually gotten probably the most feedback from listeners on these episodes because, yeah, like I said, I think even for me, if I had more episodes like this early on, it would have probably been really helpful for me, because I don't think a lot of people share like financial stuff until they're making like maybe a number that feels like worthy of sharing for them and I just want to sort of break some of the shame that comes with money and growth and all those things. So that is what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about my business's 2024 profit loss all that financial stuff in review.
Speaker 1:I want to give a quick disclaimer. If pregnancy and talks about pregnancy is a sensitive topic for you, I will likely be mentioning it throughout the episode. So if it's something that might feel hard to listen to, it could be okay to pause and come back to this episode when you're feeling ready for it, or just skip it altogether. If you are enjoying the podcast, as always, please be sure to subscribe wherever you're getting your podcasts and give some reviews and stars. Thank you to folks who have already rated the podcast and left reviews on Apple podcasts. It's really sweet and I really always appreciate when people reach out to give feedback. It helps me feel like, oh, this is actually helpful for people. So I do appreciate it when folks do that. So if you are listening on Spotify or Apple and want to give us a few stars, I would of course, appreciate that and, without further ado, let's get into the episode today on our 2024 financials.
Speaker 1:So today I'm going to be talking a lot about profit and loss and what that means and, if you've listened to episodes before, the main things that we're going to be looking at is total revenue, the profit that was left at the end of the day, what that actually meant day to day or week to week or month to month, and some of our biggest expenses as a business, and maybe some of the explanations of why our revenue has grown or things have shifted or why profit has gone down. So I'm going to start with talking about how we did in 2024. When I'm talking about revenue this is if you have a QuickBooks and you look at a profit and loss sheet it's going to be the number at the very top. Revenue is basically the total cash that you're getting in throughout the year. So all the things that we've charged people for and or received payment for from insurance companies, profit is going to be the money that is left over at the very end. When all of your expenses have been taken into account and profit. The numbers are going to look a little bit different when I share what happened last year, 2024.
Speaker 1:And then when we talk about in comparison to 2023, and I'll explain a little bit more about that so very excited, our revenue did grow in 2024. Our total revenue in 2024 was $325,780. So that was awesome to see First time hitting the 300,000 marker Our profit. So this is what's left over after all expenses and things like that that have been accounted for. It was $27,202. Now I want to give you a quick comparison to 2023. So let's rewind and remember 2024's total revenues. This is total payments, cash flow, things that we've received payment for $325,780. In 2023, the total revenue was $208,959.88. Now the 2024 profit so this is money after expenses was $27,202 compared to 2023's profit, which was $52,733.22. So why such a big difference in almost like our profit was cut in half?
Speaker 1:Well, when you are a business owner, unless you are paying yourself as part of the payroll system as a W-2 employee through your kind of more formal process, your income is going to be through owner's draw, so that's probably like money you're transferring yourself. That money is not going to be a necessarily taxable expense. That's going to go through your revenue and then leave the profit. That's going to go through your revenue and then leave the profit. So, before you do that, before you pay yourself through as a W-2 of your business, the profit is also going to be probably a sign of how much money you made.
Speaker 1:So I want people to also keep in mind this isn't like, oh, I had $300,000 in the bank and then I had 27,000 left over. This was like over 12 months. And then I had $27,000 left over. So it was like over 12 months. And that $27,000 also isn't taking into account money that I've put to the side for savings, for owner's draws, for tax savings. I've made a couple payments on taxes throughout the year, but there's money that I also save, so the profit might also reflect money that necessarily haven't been paid to me, like I didn't pay myself $27,000 of profit, but that was money that was sort of not tax deductible and so not considered as part of the expenses. I hope that's clear.
Speaker 1:And so the biggest difference between 2024 and 2023 is that I became a W-2 employee of my business. So previously, up until last year, I was just basically transferring myself, honestly, willy nilly, every probably two weeks, not really having a good system in place, and it wasn't until 2024 that I started paying myself as a W-2 employee and just giving myself a standard salary. The reason that I did that is in 2024, I also switched over to be it's considered to be elected as an S-corp for tax purposes. So this also shifted the structure of my business. In a way. My business has remained an LLC, but we are now being taxed as an S-corp.
Speaker 1:I don't fully know what that means, if I'm being honest with you. So this is one of those things I would talk to your accountant about and ask about what's the benefit? The main benefit to my understanding, however, is the more revenue you have, and not necessarily just revenue. Actually, that's not the most important thing when it comes to these sort of tax savings. The profit is really what we want to look at. So, from my understanding, as your profit grows, you may be more likely to have a tax benefit by being taxed as an S-corp versus as an LLC or sole proprietorship.
Speaker 1:And so, as our revenue grew and my profit grew in 2023, my accountant and I talked about it and, based on where the growth of the company was going, he was like it's probably a good idea to switch over to S-corp starting in 2024, and you'll be able to save money long-term on taxes. So that is what I did and, honestly, I did pay a lot less in taxes this year than I did last year, but I also had to pay those taxes through my own paychecks, because now I'm a W-2 employee. So that is really one of the biggest differences, I would say in why our profit was so different, because now my salary is considered as part of some of the biggest differences, I would say in why our profit was so different, because now my salary is considered as part of some of the expenses that we've had. I would say the other big difference in our you know probably why the revenue was so different was because my team grew. So in 2024, we started the year with three employees. Everybody was, I would say, mostly full-time at that point, and so that was a good start to the year.
Speaker 1:One of our clinicians went out on maternity leave this summer, and something that I did, which was interesting, was that I hired two people and one person, because there was one person that I'd interviewed who was a great clinician and great fit but couldn't really commit long-term to going full-time with us but in the summer had a lot more flexibility, and so it actually just made more sense to have that person come on PRN to cover our clinician who was on maternity leave and some of the clients that she already had. And then I hired a second employee at the same time to continue to, as we are growing, to continue to hopefully go full-time, and so I think that also just sort of helped by the time the summer was happening. I feel like it sort of just kept things stable because neither of the two or newer employees were seeing a ton of people. But it was sort of like evening out what my clinician who was on maternity leave probably would have seen during that timeframe. So they kind of all became one full-time outward person, and so I think the consistency of the three full-time outward clinicians is really what has allowed for a very sustainable revenue growth. Once our clinician who was on maternity came back, the PRN person also kind of, you know, finished their PRN work with us and our, you know, a fifth employee that I'd hired remains very part-time, but it actually worked out well with our client who was on, our clinician who was on maternity leave also, you know, having less hours available. So throughout the year what that's really done is allowed me to have three sort of full-time hour clinicians on hours, even though there's actually, like currently, four employees that I have as dietitians. Hope that makes sense. What I'm saying. The point is like typically the amount of clients we're seeing is as if there was three full-time employees, and so that has really allowed for that consistency in the revenue to continue to grow and you know, as it ebbs and flows throughout the year.
Speaker 1:When we started in 2023, I had at that time it was probably two full-time employees and one part-time, and so our third employee who went full-time probably was much more, I would say, getting closer to full-time towards the end of 2023. So I think that is like most of the year. It was like two full-time, one part-time. As I've grown my practice, as I've sort of gone through maybe the ups and downs of like busier seasons, slower seasons, all these other things, I've become much more on top of the numbers and in some ways, you know, learned a lot on how I need to be paying attention to numbers Because I would say in 2024, in the fall, you know, or like, it was probably early late August, early September, when I found out that I was pregnant and you know, my first trimester was rough. So this whole pregnancy has just been a little bit challenging and I've certainly taken a little bit more of a backseat on my practice not to say that I'm not involved in doing things and you know all those other stuff but I haven't been as involved on things because, just simply, I was unwell for months, and so I would say I wasn't as on top of the numbers towards the end of the year, and that helped me realize some of the goals that I have for this year of 2025 is how can I sort of pay attention to what our clinicians are doing on a weekly basis and making sure that we're having more stability for our clinicians caseloads, you know.
Speaker 1:Nonetheless, with all that to say, you know, having at least like these three full-time hours worth of, you know, seeing clients, you know it did basically make about $300,000 in revenue. And the other thing that I want to look at and point out is our biggest expense, which, as a group practice owner will always well say should be. If you have expenses that are bigger than this, then that might be something to think about. But typically the biggest expense for a group practice who is in private practice is going to be payroll, and so our payroll in 2024 was $218,708. And you know, so keep in mind, that was you know, I would say that's two thirds of our revenue. That was, you know, I would say that's two thirds of our revenue. And in 2023, our payroll was $102,051. And compared to the revenue of 2023, which is $208,000, around about. The payroll was actually like about half. So that's really interesting to look at too to see like, oh okay, what's kind of going on.
Speaker 1:I think a big lesson to take from this, and this is something that group practice owners when we're growing our teams, the more clinicians you have, the more revenue, of course, that will be generated, but also the more profit that's left over, because at a certain point, everybody sort of hits a point where part of their revenue is going towards paying for some of these expenses, and so there's just more people accumulating revenue and there's more profit to be made. This is really where I like to put that back on my team. So, for example, this year we've added a 401k. I'm doing a couple of other shifts this year with my team as far as things that are gonna be more financial benefits and things like that. So when I see this growth, I'm like, oh cool, the more clinicians we have, the more clients we're seeing, more revenue, profit. All that that means I can put more back into the team, because it's not just about me making money, right, it's about them also, and so I always want to be clear on that as well, and so those are like the biggest, I would say like takeaways, as far as the financials of course, that our revenue has grown, you know, about 115,000 from 2023 to 2024, which is very exciting.
Speaker 1:And you know, it's been an interesting year for me as around one, just finding out that I'm pregnant pretty much the second half of the year, and sort of how I've been navigating that, which I'll probably do an episode on, maybe in like a retrospect episode, like once I have this baby, because, not to say that I don't think I've handled it well, but I just I've just sort of been handling it as it comes. And so the nice thing is, you know, three of my clinicians on our team have been with us for at least two years or more, and so a lot of things are also just pretty consistent. You know, we have good systems in place. Everyone kind of knows what they're doing as we bring on more people. Of course there's changes and things that happen, but it's nice to have some of that consistency happening on our team and that's made it, you know, much easier to continue this.
Speaker 1:And the other thing I want to say is, through all that, so with our increase in revenue and all that, my pay, I would say probably in 2023, like I said, I was kind of willy-nilly just giving myself transfers of money as I needed it, but I was trying to get close to you know something that was like I remember thinking like once I get to a profit number that's close to my old salary for my full time job, which for me, before I quit and left and made, you know, started my private practice was 54,000. So to see that number in the profit of 2023 felt good for me. It was like, oh, this is great. You know it was like 52,000, but really it's probably closer to like 53. But you know it was like 52,000, but really it was probably closer to like 53. But you know, in knowing also, some of that went to a lot of that went to taxes and wasn't necessarily all paid towards me.
Speaker 1:Once we decided to shift to an S-corp for my practice, my accountant suggested paying myself a $40,000 salary, which honestly was nice just to have a number and go with that. But I'm sharing that because I make much less than my team does and I'm okay with that. I work 20 hours or less still, especially this last, you know, second half of the year of 2024, where I was like pregnant and sick and just needed to be in bed all day. You know they're the ones generating the revenue. I really have, at this point, taken a backseat on taking clients. I did take a few new clients in 2024, which I hadn't done in a while but at this point as of now, I have about three standing clients who, once I go on maternity leave, will be transferring to other clinicians and once I have a baby this baby and come back, I probably won't be taking on new clients for some time. So most of the revenue, of course, is being generated by my team and I'm okay with making $40,000 a year. You know a lot of people, I think, who are in group practice who maybe make more I think we have to think about it contextually of like do they take insurance? Are they still seeing clients? You know, as the owner, if I was seeing my own clients, you know our revenue would be higher, so I could pay myself more from that because my expenses would be obviously different. But I don't really see that many clients anymore, and so for me, given the amount of hours I'm working you know the things that I'm doing I feel good with the amount of money that I'm currently making and it's working for my family Plus.
Speaker 1:If you've ever listened to me talk about profit first or are familiar with the profit first system, that is one of the things that I do is give myself, you know, a profit. Owners draw every quarter, so that's something that I set aside. So I was, you know, I paid myself. I actually skipped myself on payroll one week because I was like freaking out about money. So I really actually like I think my actual salary take home from 2024 was 36,000, maybe 37. But I also probably gave myself, you know, from the profit I would say I think like maybe $4,000. So, yeah, I was like still close to $40,000 last year. Plus I also started doing business coaching and this podcast and some of the other stuff. So I've had a little bit of a supplemental income from there too, but not honestly that much, and so I'm good with that and I want to sort of just share that, to like dispel any shame that anyone might have if they're making less than they think they should be making, if they make less than their clinicians make.
Speaker 1:It's hard because, once again, as an insurance provider, I'm limited by the insurance companies and how much they reimburse us here in in PA and wanting to also make sure that my team is being fairly compensated and making sure that our financials are in order, so that things are not all black. We do have an office space. We're actually moving to a bigger space this summer, so you know the expenses have stayed. You know, I would say the expenses that I have are pretty. There's not a lot to cut out. So, anyway, all I have to say I'm okay with that and I, like I said, I work probably less than 20 hours a week. Still. Would I love to work more? Yeah, but maybe not so much right now, where I'm in this sort of pregnancy era that I'm in. If we think about it, if I was like working, you know, 40 hours, I would think you know to double that I would be making like 80,000. So it's sort of like makes sense for the amount of hours I work, and a lot of it is really a testament to my team and, once again, my goal is to like put that money back to them, which is one of the things that we are going to be doing this year, which I'll talk about in a future episode. So that is our 2024 kind of recap.
Speaker 1:I want to also share that when we look at profit and loss sheets and this is when I look at it I look at it from QuickBooks. This is just like a snapshot of how the months are right. Some months are like our revenue looks really low, and then I'll go to my office and get my mail and have like 10 checks that are from like months prior. So sometimes like especially as insurance providers like 10 checks that are from like months prior. So sometimes, like especially as insurance providers like the money that we're getting paid is from work that was done three months ago and so the numbers tend to very be fluctuated in that way. And, yeah, there's just like a lot of like variables on what the profit and loss sheet is really capturing. I think budgeting your actual cash flow is a whole different conversation, which I'm sure I will talk about at some point as well.
Speaker 1:So when you're looking at your profit and loss sheet, especially in the beginning of the year, I remember talking to my business coach, hannah, about this, because I was like why is the first three months of the year my profit is always so low or negative? And that's just a very normal thing. That happens in the beginning of the year, especially with, like paying taxes, everything's renewing, everything's prices are going up. So you're just spending a lot more upfront in those kind of early, early months and then later you'll see some more growth and less of those expenses coming up. So when we look at profit and loss, I don't want you guys to look at it and be like this means everything, but it's obviously important, you know, to see, like how much are we bringing in? And revenue is not the most important thing. I do like to see it. Of course it'd be like, okay, cool, we're bringing in this much, this much, but if your profit, if you're not making any profit, like that money is going somewhere and not maybe you know whether it's for your team or for you like where is that money going? So it's really important to also be looking at your profit and the cash flow that you're having. And so when we look at this, just as a reminder, it is meant more as a snapshot and not meant to seem like it's, like I said, like I have $300,000 sitting in a bank account, because I certainly do not.
Speaker 1:I know I spit out a lot of numbers today and kind of went all over the place, as per usual. I hope it's helpful. I hope it was clear in sort of differentiating between 2024 and 2023, like really seeing the potential for growth. As I've done in the past, our revenue has continued to grow and it's been a slow and steady growth which in retrospect, is, I think, a really sustainable way to be, and so I'm really proud of that. You know, if I look at back at 2022, our total revenue for the year was $85,000. So we went from, you know and if I look back I can even pull back 2021, the revenue for the full year was 44,000. So we have 44,000 to 85,000 to 8,000. So the numbers have sort of doubled and I would say seeing revenue growth steadily is very exciting and also, obviously, keeping eyes on the profit, and that's what's going to allow for a more stable growth of your business. So if it feels like you hear me say we made $325,000 in revenue, you're like whoa. Just keep in mind I started in 2021 with $44,000. And that was when I was by myself and very, very part-time as a new mom. A lot can happen. I just want to tell everyone that keep going and don't be afraid to look at your numbers If some of this stuff feels confusing around.
Speaker 1:What does it mean? I'm happy to help, support somebody. Know. If everybody want to do a consultation call and talk about budgeting or like money, definitely talking to an accountant or a financial advisor probably more helpful too, or a business coach that also works with money stuff. So I think one of the biggest things that we get afraid of is actually like looking at what's going on in our money and understanding it, and once we have sort of more of that reassurance, you can make information with that. So that's why I love looking at data and just objectively looking at it and seeing what is to be seen. I think that's all I got to say about that. I hope this episode was helpful. Love your feedback.
Speaker 1:If you found it helpful, if you found it chaotic, if it felt confusing or if it was like, oh, this makes a lot of sense and I hope to be sharing more episodes soon and getting back on some kind of rhythm. I think at this point you can expect probably more of a monthly episode from the RD to CEO podcast until probably this summer or fall, as I prepare to have a baby in probably about two months. Yeah, if there's any topics that might be interesting to you. I would love to hear from you. Be sure to check out some of the links in our show notes for our website where you can get more information about coaching. I'm not taking on any new coaching clients at this point just because of my maternity leave coming up, but definitely will be in the late summer and fall. Or if you just have any other questions, in particular about any of the topics, you can always send me a message and I'm happy to answer.
Speaker 1:So hope you enjoyed listening. It was great to be able to chat again with the listeners of the podcast and I will hopefully talk to you soon. Bye, thanks for listening to the RD to CEO podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for any resources mentioned or find more at wwwrdtoceocom. Never miss an episode by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time.
