Financial literacy is the skill that binds every effort to grow a business, an interdisciplinary skillset that blends math, industry acumen, experience, and a long-term mindset.
Eric, Luisa, and Nashira are Bluevine customers who started companies to help other business owners manage their finances. They joined us for Financial Literacy Month to discuss their business stories, explore the importance of financial literacy, and share some practical and personal advice for new business owners.
What you need to know
- Financial literacy isn’t just knowledge, but a skillset which affects your financial decision-making.
- To grow your business, you need someone on your team who understands money management.
- Take practical steps to improve your finances early, but don’t get discouraged if you can’t do it all—most of your learning will come from experience.
Meet Eric, Luisa, and Nashira
Eric Trettel grew up on a hobby farm in rural Minnesota. He spent his first decade after college floating between jobs until finding fractional work, where he discovered an outlet for his entrepreneurial spirit and a door to personal and family freedom. He built a client base at his accounting job and in 2021 left to launch Sota Bookkeeping. For three consecutive years (and running), they’ve been voted as a finalist in the Minnesota’s Best Accounting Firm competition.
When Luisa Alberto was a personal financial coach, she noticed a gap in the services her clients were receiving—there was an unmet need for hands-on, holistic financial coaching, especially among women founders. She decided to meet this need herself, and founded People First Finance as a women-run and women-focused agency to manage their clients’ bookkeeping, accounting, tax strategy, and finance consulting as one.
Brooklyn-born Nashira Lynton started Renewed Wealth Therapy after a triumphant climb from four-figure debt to a six-figure net worth. Today, she guides and supports professionals through the same journey, like a “50% holy, 50% hood guide to financial health.” Her wealth therapy blends her own expertise with community support to help clients relieve financial stress and establish sustainable well-being.
What is financial literacy and why does it matter for business owners?
It’s important to have basic knowledge of how to manage your business finances, but as Eric says, “Someone on your team (a business partner, employee, outsourced bookkeeper, etc.) needs to be able to not only understand the financials but also translate them to those that don’t.” He emphasizes that “cash is king,” and calls accounting the “language of business.” Luisa compares being financially literate to “making sure you have air to breathe and water to drink.”
The message is clear: Financial literacy is foundational, and it’s not just a knowledge set, but a decision-making framework. Nashira considers financial literacy a process, one of “making decisions aligned with one’s values. It’s an ongoing journey of learning and implementing what we learn into actionable steps.”
Luisa adds, “When we learn how to make money, manage money, and make our money work for us, we win.”
What Eric, Luisa, and Nashira use to manage their business finances
Eric and Luisa both use QuickBooks Online. As a bookkeeper, QuickBooks has been especially fruitful for Eric. By specializing in it, his “reputation has led to many referrals, even from Intuit.” As an expert, he calls it “clearly the best solution out there when it comes to bookkeeping” and says it “can handle the needs of most businesses.”
Nashira instead uses Google Sheets. She likes to keep her business finances focused, and says her Sheets method helps her “stay organized and ensures I know exactly what I need and when I need it.”
Choosing your accounting tool will depend on the size of your business, how your accounting process will scale as you grow, and the preferences of your bookkeeper.
Advice for new business owners
Luisa advises all new business owners to open a business checking account, “get really good at asking for the sale, and deliver high quality work.” She also reflects on having spent much of her early earnings “on things that I thought would move the needle but didn’t.”
Nashira recommends you “simplify your payment processes for clients” to smooth your cash flow, and wishes she’d done so sooner. Eric suggests not only that you improve your offerings and processes, but also that you use the freedom of entrepreneurship to spend time with friends and family. He also adds, “not many entrepreneurs get excited about maintaining their own books,” so “hire a bookkeeper as soon as possible.”
What’s the best financial management decision you’ve made since forming your company?
Eric: “I made the decision early on to work exclusively with QuickBooks Online. As a product expert, I can help many small business owners with issues that other bookkeepers, and oftentimes even QuickBooks customer support, cannot.”Luisa: “Taking a line of credit before I needed it.”Nashira: “Moving my funds to [an account] where they accrue interest. Previously, I made the mistake of choosing an in-person bank that offered minimal returns. Huge lesson learned.”
But trying to collect too much advice—instead of learning from experience—can be its own trap. “You don’t have to have it all figured out,” says Luisa. “Keep it simple and master one thing at a time.”
We thank Eric, Luisa, and Nashira for their thoughtful responses. Find more of them and their businesses using the links below.
Eric Trettel is a fractional CFO and owner of Sota Bookkeeping, an accounting firm offering virtual bookkeeping services to entrepreneurs and small businesses across the United States. They’re based in Minneapolis.
Luisa Alberto is the founder and CEO of People First Finance, a 100% women–owned and operated agency that provides holistic financial services to United States businesses. Their offices are in San Francisco.
Nashira Lynton is the founder of Renewed Wealth Therapy, an agency that cultivates financial health and well-being in professionals and their businesses. They’re headquartered in Houston.LinkedIn, Website
