Customer profile: Kate Whitmore takes the shot

June 22, 2011

5 minutes read

Wave customer of the week: Kate Whitmore, Lifestyle Photographer

It starts with a dream. “I am going to take pictures for a living.”

Kate Whitmore is busy building that dream, shooting weddings and portraits outside Columbus, Georgia, and spending quality time with Brett, her husband of exactly two years today. (Happy anniversary!)

Not long after the wedding, Whitmore launched her own photography business. And on the strength of photos she describes as “fresh, real and lively” (including those on this page), Whitmore plans to grow to a multi-photographer shop within five years, while building a business that gives her the flexibility to also shoot projects she’s really interested in.

Our goal at Wave is to help her get there.

Before & after

“I was spending way too much time — hours — entering this information manually.”

Most entrepreneurs avoid accounting if they can. Before Wave, Whitmore was no exception.

“Frankly, it was atrocious!” she says. “I would attempt to set aside time weekly to collect my receipts and record them manually in ledgers that I had created. Usually I missed that time that I set aside and several weeks would go by before I had recorded my expenses and income. At that point, it was too difficult to truly catch up.”

Now, by connecting her bank accounts and using Wave’s other time-saving tools, she’s finally ahead of the game. “It was such an easy set-up, and it amazes me that it organizes your expenses into categories all on its own (and correctly!).”

“Every week or two, I can log in to categorize/match my expenses. At the end of the month, I make sure it’s all together and then print off records such as the Income Statement. It gives me such a great view of what my company made in that particular month, and I’m so thankful that I don’t have to use my ledgers and add them all up anymore! It’s taking me about an hour PER MONTH now to organize my income and expenses. I just make sure I keep all of my receipts in a safe place, and Wave does the rest!”

Even in a light month, Whitmore guesses she’s saving at least 10 hours by using Wave. “I have more time to shoot, edit and correspond with clients.” She also estimates having saved $175 in software costs.

But best of all, she says, “I now actually have time to lounge on the couch watching TV with my husband! :)”