324: Financial Stewardship Is Leadership with Gala McCray

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life, starting now. Lead yourself. The rest will follow.

Hi there, leading ladies, and welcome to today’s episode. I’m joined by my dear friend and fellow leading lady, Ambassador Gala MacRae of Two Arrows Admin. Gala is an executive financial strategist at a financial stewardship firm, which is based out of Texas. She works with founders who have built something real and are ready for the financial clarity to match. Her background spans military service, corporate finance, and executive-level advisory, and she has spent the last several years building a boutique firm that sits at the intersection of precision and care. She believes that numbers on the page always connect to something larger: a vision being built, a legacy being protected, a decision that carries more weight than any spreadsheet can capture.

Two Arrows partners with a small, intentional roster of founders to build and manage the financial systems that hold their businesses, inform their leadership, and grow what they are building. Oh my goodness. I am so blessed to know you, Gala. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Gala is also my bookkeeper for Leading Lady and financial partner strategist with all things Leading Lady and Bright Beginning. She’s just made such a profound impact in how I look at numbers. I cannot wait to talk today. Thank you for joining me.

Gala: I’m so happy to be here.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Oh, girl, we gotta talk about numbers.

Gala: Yes, yes.

AliceAnne: You know, as I was preparing for this conversation, I was just thinking about, like, here we are. You’re getting ready to celebrate ten years. I’m getting ready to celebrate eight years. What a journey, right?

Gala: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I would be remiss if I didn’t share that. My other company, my first company, just celebrated 22 years. And I finally stepped into the year of 2026 as we moved from a very antiquated bookkeeping system, finally to QuickBooks Online, Gala. I could not have done that without you. You were an integral part of my team and that transition to do that. And even old dogs learn new tricks, right?

AliceAnne: Right? Right. And it’s fun to, like, see where you’ve started, where you’ve grown into, and, like, we’re still growing. We’re going to continue to grow and all the things that we’re going to learn and pick up along the way.

Your Financial System Is Not Neutral

AliceAnne: Yeah. That leads me right into our very first point, is that our financial system is either informing how we lead or run our businesses, or it’s working against us. There’s no neutral. What do you mean by that?

Gala: Well, like we just talked about the antiquated system. What comes to mind is, like, there was a decision to stay or move on from that system. And then when we moved on from that system, like finally stepped into a more modern system. Some of the things that I remember you exclaiming and reflecting was like, “That’s it, that’s it. We’re done.” It only took this much time.

AliceAnne: Yeah. You know, it used to take me, like, hours upon hours to complete specific tasks in my bookkeeping. And because it was, it was like semi-manual. I mean, you know what I was using. For anyone that is familiar with the old Peachtree, I think they finally updated their name to Sage a few years ago or something like that. But yes, I was still in Peachtree and hours, sometimes like a half a day’s worth of work in my bookkeeping. I’m doing it now in literally minutes.

Gala: Yeah. So that changes the way you lead. As we work through different payroll challenges, it changes the way that your team members are impacted, the knowledge that they’re able to have at their fingertips. Like, all these new things opened up with the change in the systems. So sometimes we think that it’s neutral. It’s just this program that I’ve been using for years and years and years.

AliceAnne: It’s good enough. This is how I’ve always done it, right?

Gala: Yeah. But the impact, it affects your time, your energy, your mood, the decisions that you make on a day-to-day basis. When it’s taking you a half a day to complete a project, that’s time set aside.

AliceAnne: Yeah, that’s time that’s taken from other things that are going on in the business.

Gala: So I can’t believe how much time I have back. How much time I have back and how much more information I have.

AliceAnne: Mhm. Mhm. Like, there’s things that I didn’t even realize I could track or that there were reports that I could pull. There were things that I could show my employees that would empower them in their role and in their financial goals as an employee. There’s just so much that I didn’t even realize I had access to, or that I could have access to. Yeah. Yeah.

Gala: So yes, it’s not neutral. There’s thought that’s put into it. And if there’s not thought put into it, sometimes that shows as well. There’s always a story and there’s always what goes beyond the superficial in the situation.

Your Numbers Tell a Story

AliceAnne: Yeah. Something I’ve always admired about you is how you teach us that we are a steward of our finances, and how we steward our finances is inseparable from the life that we’re building as entrepreneurs, as women. You know, most founders, we think that our bookkeeping just tells us, you know, how much money we have in the bank. But what you have taught us is that our numbers are not just records. They can also be a reflection of our intentions.

Gala: Yes, yes. And I’ll never forget a consultation I had with a lady. And we’re looking at the numbers over the previous year. And as we get to a certain period, she’s like, “That’s when I checked out.”

AliceAnne: Ooh.

Gala: That’s when I checked out in my business.

AliceAnne: Mhm, mhm.

Gala: And it was evident by the lack of X, Y, and Z that we were seeing through the different categories of how we spend money in our business. We have the revenue that’s coming in. Is it all in one bucket, or are we looking at the different revenue streams that we have, the different ways that we earn? And there’s the expenses of it. How much are we putting towards market? Do we have a plan or a goal for marketing? How much are we spending on office supplies? I know somebody very near and dear to me would tell me that.

AliceAnne: I know that I’m going through something when I’m spending a whole lot of money.

Gala: Oh, that girl.

AliceAnne: That’s me. That is so me. I know that I am going through it when the money is flowing fast.

Gala: Yeah. Yeah.

Gala: And you know the same thing when we look at our environment, when we’re sitting at our desk, some of us love a clean desk and some of us live at our desk. But then when the circumstances and the environment is changed from what it usually looks like, do you usually clean up your desk at the end of the day, or do you have a couple of cans of sparkling water from throughout the week?

AliceAnne: Oh my goodness. I’m feeling called out right now, and she can’t even see my desk on this camera.

Gala: Well, just think about it. Like, there’s signs of what’s going on and how you’re feeling and what’s going on, but you can see the same things in your numbers.

AliceAnne: Yeah, yeah. When I hear entrepreneurs say, you know, “I haven’t checked my books in months” or “haven’t even reconciled last year.”

Gala: Yeah, I hear that a lot. “I haven’t reconciled last year.” For me, I’m not judging while you’re still behind on that task. What I’m really thinking about is, wow, you might have missed some opportunities to see some data of things that were happening in your business that maybe you could have been proactive about, or you could have caught, especially in the day and age of fraud.

AliceAnne: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Right.

Gala: So the faster you can catch that, the faster it gets resolved and you can have your money back. But I often think about just how much information that I get from looking at my books that I couldn’t imagine not checking in frequently to get that information, that data.

AliceAnne: Yeah. And you know, the systems are not overly complicated, but sometimes we’re so involved in the day-to-day, taking the time to look and see, or sometimes how we justify what we’re spending. Like, if Juno is listening, she always cracks up when I’ll say something about the plastic-coated paper clips. But why are we buying those plastic-coated paper clips versus the plain silver ones? Are we trying to signal to those who are receiving these paper clips on the gathered paper that we haven’t going on? Are we trying to spread a little cheer, or are we worried about the bottom line and we just want to hold the papers together?

Gala: Yeah. Yeah.

Getting Out of the Guilt and Shame

Gala: You know, I was having a conversation just earlier this week with a CPA. When I work with my different clients, I always encourage them to have a good relationship with their tax preparer. And when I know their tax preparer, I’ll have a meeting with the tax preparer about what’s going on mid-year and as we’re preparing for the end of the year.

So the CPA that I work with, we have several clients together. We’re talking and we’re going through each client and what that client needs or what we need to review to make sure they’re on track for what they need. And we started talking about a client that’s very near and dear to my heart, who has fallen behind on what’s going on in their business. And we can beat ourselves up about that.

AliceAnne: We sure can. We can beat ourselves up. Yeah. There’s a lot of guilt and shame in that.

Gala: But what we see in our, the CPA talked about is like, you know, you have the support team here, so you don’t have to do it by yourself. To know that, hey, you’re not the only one who has found themselves here. And at the end of the day, it’s not the end of the world, right? So let’s find a way to move forward and just know that I’m here for you, right? Finding a way to deliver that message. So it’s heard. The client feels that. And we’re able to shake off that feeling that comes with that shadow of all the things that are left undone, right?

AliceAnne: I mean, finances is a vulnerable thing, and it’s not always fun to look at them. It can really bring you down when you’re trying to get a dollar bill to stretch, you know, to cover your operational expenses. And I mean, most of us are just even lucky to get it to stretch. And that’s not even talk about gaining a profit. Right on that. Right. Especially in those early years of business, and those early years of business is especially important to set the habits and the foundations of your numbers. That’s hard to do when the last thing you want to do is look at those numbers.

Gala: Yes. Yes. And you know, something that I’ve been having to put in practice for myself is, you know, there’s going to be great seasons where things are fresh and new and wonderful, and there’s going to be the seasons that are tough. And you’re calling on the discipline that you have or the relationships that you’ve built prior to the darker seasons, the seasons of loss, whether it’s financial or relational, whatever the case may be.

But during those warm and fuzzy seasons where you’re putting the routines in place, where you’re having the conversations that stand in the gap when you have to step away for whatever reason, it makes a difference. Yeah. And if I were to encourage anyone in anything, it’s to start creating the routines, the systems, so that you’re not always operating in the extreme of something. And the extreme of something is not your norm, right? For the day-to-day.

AliceAnne: Right? Yeah. So, so important.

Treat Your Business Like a Real Business

AliceAnne: Okay, so our final point here is the standard you hold in your craft deserves to be held in your finances too. And I can’t, I feel like we kind of touched on that, but most founders are building on a financial foundation that does not yet reflect the business they will actually become. And I think this ties beautifully into, like, build those systems early, right?

Gala: Yes.

Gala: Treat your business as a real business from the very first dollar, right. For those of you who ever played sports, they would say in the practices, practice, like, we’re in the tournament. Practice how you want to play or when it’s real, when it’s all on the line, right. And that applies to us in business. If you have one client or 100 clients, how are you working through the process with your clients? Yeah. How are you recording and keeping that income? How are you working through the expenses? If it were a tight year versus a more lucrative year, do the paperclips matter?

AliceAnne: Yeah. And that’s probably the number one thing that when I’m working with clients is I’m like, don’t ever treat your business like it’s a little thing, you know, like it doesn’t matter because you want to build those systems and the integrity of your systems when you’re small so that it can be sustainable as you grow. You know, there’s nothing worse than trying to figure out a system when your schedule is packed full and you’re no longer have the time to build those systems in.

And actually, that’s what I see a lot of, is that people didn’t build those foundational systems, and then they grow faster than the system has grown, and now they don’t have the capacity to implement systems. That’s where the cookie crumbles.

Gala: Yes, indeed. But the good news is that people are not siloed. If you look to your left and your right at any point in time.

AliceAnne: Yeah.

Gala: There is support around you.

AliceAnne: Yeah. So if you are someone who did not build the system, don’t worry, you’re in good company. A lot of women that I coach did not build those systems. A lot of businesses that I’ve coached, men and women, have not built those systems. It’s not just a woman thing. I think that people grow and they think that when they’re small, they don’t need those things, and then they learn the importance of those things as they’ve gotten bigger. So you’re in good company. Lots of people do it, and we have great resources for support in that.

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You Don’t Have to Know Everything

AliceAnne: Gala, I know that you’ve helped a lot of people clean things up, get organized, build those systems. And the wonderful thing about you is you’re so calm and you’re non-judgmental in it, and you don’t get swept up in the emotion of that. And you can really help your clients get through that. Case in point, myself moving to an updated system with Bright Beginning, what would you say to anyone who’s listening and going, “Oh my gosh, my books are a mess. I don’t know my numbers. I don’t have my systems.”

Gala: I would say I’m glad to have that conversation and remind them that every minute, every second, every week, every day, every month, it’s new. What you start today, the new thing that you put in place today is how you would move forward.

AliceAnne: Right? Right.

Gala: It’s just one small little change, and it’s going to create that ripple for you.

AliceAnne: Yeah, opportunity changed overnight. I mean, how many months did we plan for the rollout of my new system? I had three new things happening at once. QuickBooks Online, a new payment processing, changed my payroll system. How many months did we plan for that? Like, over six months.

Gala: Yeah.

AliceAnne: During that transition, as much as I wanted it to be done in a week, that is not how it worked. And it takes time and support. And I’m still reaching out. I’m still asking questions.

Gala: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s pause right there and let’s revisit the conversation, if that’s okay.

AliceAnne: Sure.

Gala: So there were circumstances that put pressure on something that we knew would eventually happen. It’s like, okay, I think now is the time. So it’s like, okay, now is the time. So let’s define now and what that looks like. We’re going to start today. We’ve made that commitment. Let’s look at what it’s going to look like over the next couple of weeks.

Okay, let’s map out the next three months and let’s go through this step by step to make sure that you’re pleased with the results and also that it’s realistic on how we’re going to get there.

AliceAnne: Right, right.

Gala: It’s that decision. The decision happens in a moment, but the process and the support, it comes over time.

AliceAnne: Yeah. And it wasn’t instant, or, and it wasn’t necessarily pretty. But my goodness, by the time that you got to the point where you were implementing and doing it on your own and you’re like, “Okay, I’ve done this. Like, what’s next?” I’m like, you have done it. It is done.

Gala: I’ve done it, I’ve done it, but I’m still asking questions. It’s not. And that’s.

AliceAnne: Okay.

Gala: Right?

AliceAnne: And that’s the beauty of it, right?

AliceAnne: But I think that’s important for our listeners to hear that I’m 22 years in of understanding business bookkeeping. I had never hired a bookkeeper before Gala. I learned it with my husband’s business and then with my first business. So you can imagine how frustrating it was for me that I wasn’t picking it up quickly when we were moving over.

And I’m being transparent and very vulnerable here with you all. Gala, you are a saint for having the patience with me when I was ready to sprint.

Gala: Right.

AliceAnne: And I think it’s so easy to look at another person or even yourself and be like, I should get this. This should not be as hard as it is for me. And I think we carry, especially as high-achieving women, women, we carry that guilt and that shame and that pressure of why is this so hard? Or I should be better at this? Or how did I let it get this bad? Or why am I even making this change when things were quote-unquote good enough?

There’s so much like negative banter around that, right?

Gala: Right.

AliceAnne: But taking a moment to pause and say, this is going to take as long as it’s going to take until I feel I have mastered this, and I’m going to lean on my resources. I’m going to get the support that I need. I’m going to ask the questions I need.

And what I also love about you is you didn’t tell me, “You don’t need to know that.” You’re like, you don’t need to know that I handle that. You were like, “Oh, no, no, no, she has a question. She wants to understand this. I’m going to teach this to her.”

Gala: Right.

AliceAnne: Because I think it’s important. And I think you saw the importance of it is I really wanted to fully understand what was happening and why things were the way they were.

Gala: Yes.

AliceAnne: Even though in hindsight they weren’t as complicated as they were in my head. I love that you had the patience, and you were as thorough in your explanation with that, with me, because finances are vulnerable. And when you are used to being the person that handles it all, it can feel very scary to step into something that you’re not feeling 100% clear on, confident about.

Gala: Yes.

It’s Okay to Ask Questions

Gala: Right. But I think that fear and that vulnerability stops us. It stops us from trying that new tool, from asking that question, from leaning on support. We work with this new payment processing. You’ve helped us a lot with it, Gala. It’s Bill or Jeannie. It’s a wonderful company. They handle tuition processing. It is challenging. And like any tool, any tool has its limitations, right? But they’re sweet. Lovely lady. That is my client support person. I must email her at least once a week and I’m like, “I have a question.” And she’s like, “We’re gonna figure it out.” And she will take as much time as needed to walk me through the process.

And I think that that’s just not something that we talk about enough, that it’s okay to not know. It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to reach out to your support. You’re not bothering anyone. This is your business. Bother away.

AliceAnne: Yes.

Gala: Bother away.

Gala: You know the big thing in that, and you’re right, I do want whoever the end user is to have a clear understanding for a few reasons. This is your business. You are ultimately responsible for it, no matter how much help you bring in and who all is on the team there for you. When we look at who the business belongs to, it’s you.

AliceAnne: Yeah.

Gala: So when the powers that be have questions, they’re not coming to me. They’re not going through the Rolodex to find me. They’re coming to you.

AliceAnne: Right? 100%.

Gala: So you better know what’s going on in your business. And that’s not a threat. That’s not to be scary. It’s meant to say you’re the one driving this. You’re still the person driving this in your business, even when you outsource it.

Knowledge Creates Accountability

AliceAnne: We’re leading. You’re the owner and you’re leading. And the other piece is the accountability that comes with it has to do with your knowledge for the system. How can you hold someone accountable to run things the way that you want them to be run if you don’t understand what’s going on, or you don’t understand or cannot articulate the goal in which you’re trying to have met?

Gala: Right.

AliceAnne: Yeah. So those pieces are important. And the more you articulate it, the more you practice, “This is what I’m looking for. Help me understand how we get there,” are only going to be more empowering to you because, who knows, they might have to take off one day and you still have deadlines to meet.

Gala: Yeah, and people are people. Errors happen. And the more you can check and balance each other, the more likely mistakes will be caught, right? And I do truly believe that most people are good. So I’m not like, “Oh, I need to know this in case somebody’s stealing money from me.” No, that’s not usually the mindset that I have.

My general mindset is I need to understand something that’s happening in my business, number one, because it’s my business. And if I don’t know what’s happening in my business, that’s a problem. And number two is because knowledge is power. You know, you want to know enough that, you know, when something’s off, when an error has been made or something doesn’t line up, or, you know, I just think of all the tiny nuances when I just feel like something just wasn’t right. And I maybe couldn’t articulate it, but I knew enough to kind of dig around and be like, “Oh, there’s where we got off there.”

AliceAnne: And it strengthens the partnership. It sharpens the pieces that come together to make a beautiful situation.

Gala: Yeah.

Your Books Should Reflect the Business You’re Building

AliceAnne: So yeah, this is such a great conversation. And I know, you know, there were three main points here of knowing our systems and having a financial system and having the right financial system for you. Is it outdated? Is it practical? Is it costly for your business? You know, if it’s holding you back. I still, like, shudder when I think of once I finally made this change, seeing that it’s actually doing a substantial savings for me annually. Like, what I was just, I was losing so much money because I was afraid to change to an updated system.

Gala: Right.

AliceAnne: So number one, ladies, have a system. Make sure it’s the right system for your finances, that it’s a system you’re actually going to use, and that it’s a practical system and an affordable and sustainable system for your business.

Number two is you are the steward of your finances and of your life. Your numbers are not just your records, right?

AliceAnne: Gala, that’s saying.

Gala: Oh, no, no. What are our numbers like if they’re not just records? What’s the best way? Like, if you had to be like, “This is the mindset I want you to have around your numbers,” what would you say?

Gala: It’s the legacy. It’s historical. It’s historical information. So we’re looking back, we’re taking in, we’re looking at the story that it’s telling. We’re looking at the clues that it leaves to what’s going on. “That’s when I checked out,” or “That’s when I brought on that partner,” or “That’s when I changed that system.”

AliceAnne: Yeah. But it’s also proactive.

Gala: It is.

AliceAnne: Yes. I was just sharing with Gala before we hit record that she empowered me this year to, like, create a whole separate savings account. I mean, I’ve always had a little bit of savings in my business. I keep money in, like, add it a little bit for a rainy day. But, like, she encouraged, like, something radical, and I hit it pretty aggressively.

And then guess what? Something horrible happened, something very expensive. I had to put a new roof on my building, and I’m not stressed. I’m not stressed because we had set this, like, kind of radical savings plan aside and I’m totally prepared.

Does it feel good? No. But there’s a difference between going, “Oh man, I wish that savings money was going towards something fun” versus, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to make payroll? Where’s this money going to come from?”

Gala: Right.

AliceAnne: Am I going to have to tarp the roof? Where am I put a new roof on there.

Gala: Or close down because you can’t, you can’t have kids in there.

AliceAnne: So it’s not just record keeping, it’s choosing. How do I want to run this business proactively, right?

Gala: It creates an intimacy.

AliceAnne: Yeah. Yeah. And then our final point is your books should have the same quality of care that you do in the craft of your business. I know it’s not sexy. It’s not fun. Sometimes we don’t want to look at those numbers, but it deserves the same level of care and professionalism.

Somebody once said that to me. She said she was going to start treating her business finances as if it was a real business. And I thought, you have a real business. What do you mean you’re not treating your finances like it’s a real business? That was a really, like, alarming statement to me.

But, you know, we have gotten accustomed to living in imposter syndrome or the different labels that we put on things. But what if we shifted those labels to legitimize our business, to steady ourselves in the things that we’re building, to encourage us to keep going, and the great things that we have accomplished are looking to accomplish and will continue to accomplish.

Gala: Yeah.

Build the Systems for the Business You Want

Gala: When we align ourselves with the types of business leaders and women that we are and we aspire to be.

AliceAnne: Yeah, it’s almost like, I don’t know. Do you remember that saying that said dress for the job you want?

Gala: Mhm.

AliceAnne: I kind of think about that in, like, my books too, and my systems, my behind-the-scenes systems. Like, build that system for the business you want.

Gala: Yeah. Real quick, this year, in 2026, I took my home office and I moved into an office that’s outside of my home. And in doing it, I have a work bag that I take with all my business stuff. But it’s like stepping into those labels or mindsets. This is a legitimate business. I have things that I’m going to handle, and the greatness and professionalism that I know that I carry and I send out to you, my clients, the way that I present when I want to land that dream client, or those are the same things that we need to internalize into the business that we’re running.

AliceAnne: Yeah. And that’s a message that we need to remind ourselves of all of us.

You Have a Real Business

AliceAnne: I love it, I love it. Well, Gala, thank you for being my guest today. We have to have these types of conversations. There is no shame in them, no shame. Wherever you are in your journey of entrepreneurship, you have a real business. You have a real business, and it deserves to be treated that way. And as Gala said, to legitimize it and treat it professionally and respectfully and to be a good steward of it. So any parting words for our listeners today, Gala?

Gala: Go forth in what you’re doing. You’re doing a great job in what you’re doing. And if you ever question that, remember that this next moment, this next day, this next week, this next month, there are all opportunities to continue.

AliceAnne: Yes. So powerful. Now, Gala is in the Hub on the first Friday of every month, and she offers a financial focus where she talks about finances and the things that we can, could, should want to do in our business with our finances. And it’s a judgment-free zone where she answers questions. They do coworking, you turn your screens off and work privately and then come back and ask questions. And you just have such amazing support in that. I know that many of our Hub members look forward to that every month. Gala, do you want to touch on that, kind of share maybe any insights or revelation?

Gala: Everything from conversations on high-yield savings to putting together the systems, creating the routines of what’s going on. And one of the members that comes to the Hub told me that I like knowing that there’s a time that I’m going to focus on my finances. It’s not something that I had built in before, but knowing that these meetings are there, I know that there’s time set aside for this, and I’m grateful for that. So come, we’d love to have you and see you then.

AliceAnne: Yeah. All right. Until next time, take the lead.

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