Erica Steele
Read how a small business owner like you are switching to Cashflowy.
“Your tool is the only one that will connect with my Navy Federal accounts.”
Erica Steele has been in business for years. She’s tried every bookkeeping arrangement: contract bookkeepers, monthly, quarterly, on-staff. She’d also tried Profit First before, without success. Cashflowy was the first tool that gave her a clear shot of her finances in seconds, and the only one that recognized her credit union.
At a glance
1 the only bookkeeping tool that connects to Erica’s Navy Federal business accounts
20+ years of trying every bookkeeping arrangement before this one
3 basic questions she needs answered every month: how much tax, can I pay myself, where’s my money going
Multiple Profit First attempts before this one. She failed every time. The tool was the missing piece.
1 click to see where her money is going on her Cashflowy dashboard
Meet Erica
Erica Steele is a holistic doctor running Holistic Family Practice VA. After years of running a brick-and-mortar clinic, she left the States in 2023 and rebuilt her practice as a virtual operation: public health education, consulting, and one-on-one work with clients.
Her business is mature. She’s been an entrepreneur long enough to know what she does and doesn’t want.
“I’ve had a big staff. I’ve had a small staff. I just have no desire.”
What she does want is a system that runs her finances without requiring her to hire anyone or wait two days for an email reply from a bookkeeper she barely knows.
Twenty years of trying every bookkeeping arrangement
Over her career, Erica has run the full gamut of bookkeeping setups. Contract bookkeepers. Monthly engagements. Quarterly engagements. In-house staff. Every variation, at every price point.
“I’ve had contract bookkeepers. I’ve had them on staff before. All kinds of different variations.”
None of those arrangements gave her what she actually wanted. The bookkeepers did the work. They sent the reports. But there was always a layer of distance between Erica and her own numbers.
“There is a distance in a relationship with a bookkeeper.”
By the time she rebuilt her business as a virtual practice in 2024, she was clear on what she wanted next: not another human bookkeeper, and not a software stack that required her to run five different reports just to answer one simple question.
Profit First, finally, with the right tool
Erica had tried implementing the Profit First method before. The mindset made sense to her. The accounting structure made sense. The discipline made sense. What she didn’t have was a tool built to actually run it.
“I’ve tried to implement it before with not a lot of success, because again, having a proper tool.”
This is the part of her story that mirrors so many Profit First practitioners. The framework asks you to slice your income across multiple accounts, automate transfers, track allocations, and stay disciplined about the percentages. Doing that on top of QuickBooks, Xero, or a generic accounting tool is exhausting.
Cashflowy is compatible with the Profit First model. Safe owner pay, tax reserves, profit allocation, and category-by-category visibility are part of the platform’s architecture.
For someone like Erica, who already understood the method and just needed the tool to match, that’s the difference between “tried and failed” and “finally working.”
Finding Cashflowy on social media
Erica saw Cashflowy in a social media ad. She was already in the mindset of replacing her old setup with something more automated and more aligned with how she actually thinks about money. The ad caught her attention. She tried the platform.
Two things hit her almost immediately.
Cashflowy is the only tool that connects to her credit union
Erica banks with Navy Federal Credit Union. Anyone who banks with a credit union, particularly Navy Federal, knows the drill: most accounting and bookkeeping tools either don’t support credit union connections at all or force you into a clunky manual upload workflow.
She braced for that with Cashflowy too. She was already mentally preparing to upload statements manually.
“I will say your tool is the only tool that will connect with my Navy Federal accounts. I was concerned about that, but I was surprised. It picked it up, no problem.”
Adding her accounts took minutes. They auto-populated. The transactions started flowing.
For credit union users, this isn’t a small feature. It’s the difference between a tool that fits their banking setup and a tool that demands they switch banks to make it work.
One clear shot, not five different reports
The other thing that hit Erica fast was the dashboard. After years of running multiple reports to answer the basics, she could see everything in one view.
“One thing I liked about the tool was that I could get a really clear shot of where I am quickly. I’ve been looking for something where I don’t have to run five different reports.
Especially with me being a solopreneur now, I just don’t feel like I should have to go through so many leaps and bounds.”
Her three questions were the same three questions most solopreneurs are quietly asking themselves every month:
“How much tax do I need to pay? Can I pay myself? Where’s my money going? Just really basic, basic stuff.”
Cashflowy answers all three on the same screen. No exports, no joining reports, no bookkeeper turnaround.
What else she notice
Documents in the same system as the numbers
Erica is a self-described organization person. Her receipts and statements lived in Google Drive, separate from her bookkeeping. Cashflowy’s document storage means everything lives in one place.
“I also like the document section. I had it in Google Drive, so it will be nice to have it within a system, so I can easily pull documents and receipts.”
Aesthetics that don’t feel like accounting software
She noted the dashboard wasn’t just functional. It looked good.
“It’s very aesthetically pleasing. Pretty easy and intuitive.”
A system that fits her stack, not one that replaces it
Erica thinks in terms of software ecosystems. She uses GoHighLevel for invoicing, Stripe for payments, and has built her business around a deliberate stack. Cashflowy doesn’t demand to replace her tools. It plugs into her financial layer and does what it does best.
“I think it fits into an ecosystem that I’m building.”
Cashflowy is the financial brain of a solopreneur’s stack.
In her own words
“One thing I liked about the tool was that I could get a real clear shot quickly of where I am. I’ve been looking for something where I don’t have to run five different reports. Especially with me being a solopreneur now, I just don’t feel like I should have to go through so many leaps and bounds in order to understand how much taxes I need to pay, can I pay myself, where’s my money going. Just really basic, basic stuff. I really like your tool. And it fits into an ecosystem that I’m building.”—
The takeaway
Erica’s story isn’t the story of a first-time bookkeeping customer figuring out her numbers. It’s the story of an experienced business owner who has seen every option, hired every kind of help, and tried every framework. She knew what she wanted. The tools just hadn’t caught up.
Cashflowy gave her three things she couldn’t get anywhere else: a real connection to her Navy Federal business accounts, a Profit First architecture that actually runs the method she already believes in, and a single dashboard view that answers the three questions she asks herself every month.
It fits into the ecosystem she’s building. It does what it does well. And it doesn’t ask her to hire anyone.
Want a real clear shot of your business in seconds?
Connects to your bank. Including credit unions like Navy Federal. Built for Profit First from the ground up.