Your Financial Stack as a Creator

Hey.

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Monetizing your channels is important.

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But what should you do with the money once you’ve made it?

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Where should you deposit it?

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How do you pay taxes?

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What can you do to grow it?

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In today’s newsletter:

• Perfecting your financial stack

• Quick Link highlight: How to attract more brand deals (from an expert)

• Boost your creator earnings by $10k with Karat Banking

 Your financial stack should bring ease into your creator business. If it’s complicating your financial situation or adding more stress to your business, it’s time to rethink it.

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Here’s the 4-part stack we recommend.

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1. Business Bank Account

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This is non-negotiable. Your business bank account should:

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• Show you real-time revenue across platforms

• Let you set aside money automatically for taxes

• Give you visibility into cash flow (are you actually profitable?)

• Make tax season easier with clean records

• Ideally reward you with APY (although the big banks don't really do this)

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(Surprise, Karat’s Business Banking does all of this…with no fees.)

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Why Separate Business and Personal?

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Here’s the truth: The moment you start making real money as a creator, your personal and business finances need to split up.

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Not because the IRS says so (though they do), but because mixing them could cost you thousands in missed deductions and wasted time.

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Think about it:

• You want to see if your YouTube channel was profitable in 2025. You can’t run a clean profit and loss if your personal expenses are in the mix.

• You’re making note of deductions for 2025. Was that Uber on June 23rd for a content shoot or brunch? It’s hard to remember, huh?

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Tax time becomes a nightmare when you mix personal and business. Plus, even if you're incorporated, mixing business and personal puts your personal assets at stake should you ever be involved in a legal dispute.

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And quite frankly, separating the two is a simple fix (more on that below).

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2. Business Credit Card

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There are two main reasons to open a business credit card:

• Easier flow: Having one card you put all business expenses on makes bookkeeping easier.

• Rewards: If you’re spending a few thousand dollars on business expenses each month, you should be earning cash back or points.

The Karat Card, for example, comes with:

• 1-3 points back per dollar spent

• Redeem points for statement credits, Times Square billboards, and more

• No fees

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3. Invoicing

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With all the love in our hearts: Stop sending brands your Venmo.

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Professional invoices with your business name make you look legitimate. They also make tracking revenue 10x easier.

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When everything lives in one system, you can see:

• Which brands paid on time?

• Which are 60 days late?

• What’s your actually monthly income vs. what’s still outstanding?

4. AI Bookkeeping and Tax Planning

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There are three things that kill creators at tax time:

• They’re scrambling to categorize transactions because they haven’t done it all year.

• They miss out on thousands of dollars in savings because they aren't strategically deducting relevant business expenses.

• They spent everything they earned and never set a dollar aside for taxes.

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All are preventable.

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Categorizing Transactions

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This is one of those things that’s much easier to do in small increments than all at once. Yet we wait until the last minute to categorize a year of transactions. 😅

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Karat’s AI Bookkeeping automatically categorizes your creator-specific expenses—equipment, software subscriptions, travel for content, home office costs, business meals.

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The way you categorize expenses matters. If they're inaccurate, you might miss out on deductions you could've taken.

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Saving for Taxes

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Once your revenue comes in and expenses go out, you need to set aside a percentage of your profit for taxes.

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This ensures that you have enough to make your quarterly estimated tax payments and cover the bill if you owe at the end of tax season.

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Karat’s Tax Planning feature also automates this for you.

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If you have questions about your taxes, creators who bank with Karat get access to vetted creator accountants at discounted rates.

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Reply to this email if you want a free consultation, and we’ll connect you.

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How to Actually Set This Stack Up

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These lists always sound great in theory, until you think about migrating your current stack over.

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Our creator support team is here to help.

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We’ve been able to port people over from their previous financial tools to Karat in under 30 minutes.

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If you need help switching bank accounts and making sure everything translates over, reply to this email and we’ll get creator support to help you.

From now until the end of the year, you can receive an additional 10% on all platform direct deposits (up to $10,000) when using Karat Banking.

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Wait, huh? Open a Karat Bank account via this page. Connect your Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, Patreon, and Twitch for direct deposit.

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Any time one of those platforms pays you, we’ll pay you an additional 10% of whatever that payment was.

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Yes…this does mean that if YouTube deposited $1,000 from AdSense into your Karat bank account, we’d pay you $100. 👀 (until December 31st only)

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Learn more about this promo here: Activate your 10% boost HERE

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Terms Apply.

👀 How to attract more brand deals (from an expert).

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#️⃣ New Instagram "early access" Reels.

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📈 How to grow on YouTube in 2026.

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☕️ Coffee brand hiring - $5k/mo for 5 UGC videos.

Every month, we match ~50 creators in Creator Studio (our free Discord community) with similar creators to connect and learn from one another.

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It's provided creators across all niches with new perspectives and support, created life-long friendships, and helped creators grow their businesses.

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It’s completely free to join the Discord and get connected: Join Creator Studio

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See ya next week,
Karat