Why Visionary Founders Can’t Ignore Their Books Anymore with Morgaine Trine of Honestly Bookkeeping

If you’re a big-picture, ideas-all-day founder, bookkeeping probably lives somewhere between “I’ll do it later” and “please don’t make me.”

Same.

That’s why I wanted to bring on Morgaine Trine, founder of Honestly Bookkeeping, whose whole mission is to help visionary founders build financial systems that actually support real decision-making, not just tax-season panic.

And her story is not what you’d expect from a numbers person.

From Ancient History to Modern Money

Before Morgaine Trine was untangling founder finances, she was… studying ancient Mediterranean history.

Her original plan?
➡ Museum curation
➡ PhD
➡ Lots of gray, damp cities
➡ A fast track to seasonal depression

Her words, not mine.

On her mom’s couch, having a full breakdown about what to do next, she realized something huge:

It wasn’t “museum curation” she really wanted.
It was being close to the history and archaeology she loved.

So she asked herself, how can I live in the Mediterranean and still work?

Answer: start a remote business.

She joined a course for women who wanted to build online businesses and travel. The course was mainly about design and VA work… but the parts that lit her up were the finance modules:

• Comparing invoicing tools

• Building spreadsheets

• Understanding how money moved

Meanwhile, inside the course Facebook group, everyone else was freaking out about their numbers.

“This is the exciting part!” she thought.
Everyone else: “This is the scary part.”

That contrast was the lightbulb moment.

Bookkeeping Is Not “Just Data Entry”

Morgaine was also working at an investment firm at the time, and her stereotype of the “finance bro” got totally shattered.

Instead, she saw:

• Warm, thoughtful people

• Deep trust with clients

• Front-row seats to major life transitions: deaths, births, kids going to college, retirement

Her boss said something that stuck:

“We’re in people’s safe space more than any other provider.”

That clicked. She realized she loved being in that safe, vulnerable place with people around their money.

But here’s the thing she learned very fast:

👉 Bookkeeping is not basic admin.
👉 It is not “something you should be able to do as a founder.”

You need to understand:

• Tax law

• How different expenses impact your taxes

• How systems talk to each other

• How your business model should be reflected in your chart of accounts

That’s specialized knowledge. You wouldn’t write your own legal contracts from scratch. But somehow we’ve all been sold the idea that we should be doing our own books.

Morgaine's take? Release the shame. This is a profession for a reason.

Building Honestly Bookkeeping (From the Mediterranean)

Once she realized finance was her lane, Morgaine Trine found a program that taught:

• GAP principles

• Full bookkeeping cycles

• How to set up and run a remote firm

She built her business while living her dream:

• Italy

• Crete

• Cyprus (where she’d studied for her thesis)

• The Canary Islands

She was literally:

Visiting archaeological sites by day,
Building a bookkeeping firm by night.

Her first client? Came from three simple posts on her personal Facebook:

“Hey, I’ve started a bookkeeping business. If you know anyone who needs help, let me know.”

A university acquaintance reached out:
“I started a business and desperately need bookkeeping help — can we work together?”

Done. First client signed.

The Messy Middle: Pricing, Boundaries, and Capacity

From there, it was all the stuff we don’t see on Instagram:

• Undercharging, overdelivering

• Using a flat monthly fee with a super-vague scope (“I’ll do your bookkeeping”)

• Realizing some clients are low-touch and others want to text you 24/7

• Hiring part-time contractors to help with the actual bookkeeping work

She also has Opinions™ on that classic advice:

“Charge what you’re worth.”

Morgaine’s issue with that phrase:

• It ties your self-worth to your pricing

• When you’re new, you don’t know the real value you create yet

• It ramps up the pressure and self-doubt

Instead, she treats pricing like an experiment:

• Track the actual time and energy

• Notice how “emotionally needy” some clients are

• Adjust pricing based on both the numbers and the emotional load

Over time she noticed something interesting:
Her role changed every 6 months.

• At first: doing all the client work herself

• Then: hiring contractors

• Eventually: realizing she loves running the firm more than doing the debits and credits

Now her bookkeepers handle the full cycle and client relationships, and she:

• Steers the vision

• Designs the systems

• Oversees quality

• Makes sure the books actually serve the business and not just the IRS

Why Bookkeeping, Operations, and Mindset Are All One System

Here’s where it gets really interesting.

Morgaine noticed a pattern:

Bookkeeping problems are almost never just bookkeeping problems.

They’re usually:

• Operations issues

• Mindset / nervous system issues

• …or both

A few examples she sees again and again:

1. Money Scarcity → Revenue Plateaus

Clients with deep money scarcity beliefs often:

• Hit the same revenue ceiling over and over

• Can’t bring themselves to invest in help

• Stay in “bare minimum bookkeeping for taxes” mode

No clean data = no confident decisions = staying stuck.

2. Chaotic Ops → Messy Books → Reactive Decisions

If your back-end is all over the place:

• Multiple tools that don’t talk to each other

• Random spreadsheets

• Stripe over here, PayPal over there, Shopify somewhere else

Then what happens?

• Bookkeeping takes longer

• There’s more room for error

• You’re always behind

• You end up making decisions based on vibes instead of numbers

That’s why she uses an ecosystemic approach:

“Who and what touches money in this business, and how do we make them all talk to each other?”

Think:

• Payment processors (Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, etc.)

• Payroll (Gusto, OnPay, etc.)

• Inventory software

• Your bookkeeping tool (Morgaine uses Xero exclusively)

The more those tools integrate, the less manual data entry, the fewer errors, and the more time you can spend asking meaningful questions like:

• “Why are sales commissions trending up this quarter?”

• “Is our new offer actually more profitable?”

• “What’s our real margin on this product line?”

For Visionaries Who Hate Spreadsheets: Do This Instead

If you’re still early or can’t yet afford a bookkeeper, Morgaine’s advice is not “just learn bookkeeping.”

Instead, she suggests:

1. Drop the Shame

Stop telling yourself:

• “I should know how to do this.”

• “Everyone else has it together.”

Bookkeeping is a specialized skill. You’re not broken because you don’t magically know tax law.

2. Get Curious, Not Panicked

Treat your books like an experiment, not a performance review.

Instead of:

“Ugh, I’m behind, I’m bad with money.”

Try:

“What’s actually going on here? What patterns am I seeing? What surprised me?”

Curiosity calms your nervous system and makes the work less painful.

3. Do Less at a Time, But More Often

This one is huge.

Most founders:

• Avoid their books for months

• Then get smacked with hundreds of transactions

• Spiral into dread and decision fatigue

Morgaine’s rule of thumb:

Shorter, more frequent sessions beat marathon catch-up days.

• Weekly “money blocks” (even 15–30 minutes)

• Categorize recent transactions while you still remember what they were

• Reduce the number of “WTF was that?” Amazon charges you have to dig up

This also helps you:

• Catch fraud or weird charges quickly

• Cancel subscriptions you’re not using

• Build confidence: “I can handle this.”

4. Remember: Compliance Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling

There are really two layers of bookkeeping:

1. Compliance bookkeeping

   • So the IRS doesn’t come knocking

   • Bare minimum, retroactive, “file-and-forget”

2. Management-level bookkeeping

   • So you can make better decisions

   • Proactive, structured for your business model

   • Turns data into strategy

Lots of businesses get stuck at level 1.
Successful, long-term businesses live at level 2.

Why Her Firm Doesn’t Do Taxes

One last thing I loved:

Morgaine’s firm provides:

• Bookkeeping

• AR / AP

• Payroll support

• Advisory (how ops + numbers connect)

But they don’t file taxes.

Why?

• It creates a built-in check and balance

• Your CPA and your bookkeeper look at the same numbers from different angles

• If one goes MIA (it happens more than you’d think), you’re not stranded

Plus, you get more perspective instead of one person doing everything in a black box.

Final Thought

Bookkeeping isn’t about perfection—it’s about awareness. When you stop treating your numbers like a scary secret and start seeing them as a conversation partner in your business, everything shifts. Decisions get clearer, options expand, and you step into leadership instead of reactivity.

💡 If you do one thing after this episode, let it be this: choose a recurring “money date” with yourself—15–30 minutes a week to log in, look at your numbers, and ask, “What are you trying to tell me?” That small habit is how calm, confident financial leadership is built.

Connect with Morgaine Trine:

• Instagram: honestlybookkeeping
  

• Website: Honestly Bookkeeping