Johnnie Walker, Director at Rooled and a former Impact Investing professor at Columbia, opened his Summer Launchpad session with a piece of advice most founders ignore until it's too late: start tracking finances from day one, even before you have a single dollar of revenue.

Building the Financial Foundation Early

The simplest starting point, per Johnnie, is a spreadsheet. Download your bank activity and allocate it by category. QuickBooks or a similar platform works too, but he was clear that founders should get guidance before setting one up rather than fumbling through it alone.

Whichever method you use, reconcile your cash balance to your bank account every month using your statements. The bank account, Johnnie said, is the gold standard record of every transaction your early-stage company makes, and everything else should tie back to it.

A few practical habits he pushed founders to adopt immediately: keep receipts for every expense over $75, which is the IRS threshold for deductions, and lean on tools like Brex, Ramp, or Mercury to make that storage painless. For early contractor payments, Johnnie suggested Gusto, which handles 1099 filing and invoice storage without extra overhead.

"The bank account is the gold standard record of all transactions."

One point Johnnie stressed hard: file tax returns even with zero revenue or profit. Each state has its own criteria for requiring registration that would then necessitate annual filing., and there are specific filing requirements for companies with >25% international ownership of which founders should stay aware.. Delaware C corps also owe franchise tax by March 1st every year, a deadline that catches founders off guard more than any other. His broader recommendation was to stick with cash basis accounting until well past your seed round. Accrual accounting adds overhead you don't need that early.

Where AI Fits (and Where It Doesn't, Yet)

On tools, Johnnie's take was straightforward: QuickBooks dominates in the US, Xero is preferred in the UK, Europe, and Australia/NZ, and founders should pick whichever platform has more support in their environment rather than agonizing over the choice.

He was candid about AI's current role in bookkeeping. Tools like Claude and ChatGPT are increasingly viable for basic financial statements, and can already pull bank data, categorize transactions, and produce statements. But he estimated they're still months, maybe weeks, away from being a reliable substitute for outsourced bookkeeping. Claude specifically is solid for financial statements today, but not yet reliable for building forecasts. Those should still be built in Excel or Google Sheets.

Two Numbers Every Founder Should Track Separately

Johnnie drew a sharp line between two financial perspectives founders need to maintain at all times, and conflating them is a common mistake.

The forecast is a simplified three-year annual projection, the kind that goes into pitch decks and board decks. It should cover revenue assumptions, cost assumptions, and gross margin. Johnnie noted that metrics like customer count are often more intuitive for a board or investor audience than raw financial figures, and that for SaaS, fintech, or fast-moving consumer goods, there's no need to project beyond three years.

Runway is the other side: short-term cash management measured against current burn. A monthly view is fine when things are comfortable, but it should shift to weekly when cash gets tight. Runway isn't something founders typically share externally, but Johnnie was emphatic that it's critical to manage carefully regardless.

Once you're post-seed, expect investors to want a monthly budget quickly after close. Information rights in financing documents typically require one within 30 to 60 days of year end. And consistency matters more than founders realize: never show investors numbers that changed without explanation. Reliable reporting builds confidence and, practically speaking, frees up board time for actual strategic conversation instead of number-checking.

Hiring, Audits, and Where to Park Your Cash

On cost, Johnnie gave founders real numbers to plan around: bookkeeping typically runs $50 to $500 a month depending on transaction volume. Part-time bookkeepers charge around $20 to $30 an hour, while platforms run $100 to $200 a month. Pre-seed, a spreadsheet or Claude is genuinely sufficient.

Don't rush to hire finance help either. Johnnie's guidance was to hold off on a full-time finance hire until well into Series A, and when you do hire, the most common first role is a VP of Finance who owns the monthly close and has some strategic involvement. True CFO-level expertise is typically outsourced until later. Audits generally arrive at Series B, sometimes Series A for fintech companies, and the first audit can go back to day one of the company's existence, which is exactly why clean books from the start matter so much.

On treasury, Johnnie flagged that with interest rates now at 3-4%, leaving funds in a 0.5% account is no longer a passive default, it's actively criticized. Preserving capital still comes first, but his recommended structure is primary funds parked at a major bank (Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo) with an operating account at Mercury or Ramp, transferring funds month to month as needed rather than leaving large balances sitting at neobanks.

Founder Takeaways

• Start tracking finances before you have revenue. A spreadsheet is enough to begin.
• Reconcile your cash balance to your bank statement every month.
• File tax returns even at zero revenue, and don't miss the Delaware franchise tax deadline (March 1st).
• Keep your forecast (3-year, investor-facing) and your runway (short-term, internal) as two separate tools.
• Never show investors numbers that changed without explaining why.
• Don't hire full-time finance help until well into Series A. A VP of Finance is typically the first role.