My Writings
Essays
aka Long-form rants
Why I don’t call myself a CFO:
Chief Financial Officer is more than a fancy title. CFOs play a very particular and important role in large businesses. I can help your business, but I’m by no means a true CFO (and I’m not going to lie about it just so I can charge you more). Read more.End the P&L:
Profit & Loss reports are the small business report. But, maybe they shouldn’t be. Read the pros, cons, and learn the P&L tricks. Read more.What you need to know before opening an S-corp:
The internet loves touting S-corps as an one-size-fits-all tax savings. But, in reality, they’re very complicated and, in some situations, may end up costing you money. Read more.The Tools I’m Using:
This is all the tech I use to run Resting Business Face (including the newsletter, LinkedIn content, and accounting practice). Feel free to rip it off.
The Email Library
Updated Whenever I Remember
A (relatively) simple tax review for year-end
Pre-script: these are topics I discuss with year-round tax retainer clients during their year-end tax checkup. If you're a tax retainer client reading this, expect an email to schedule your call in a few weeks. If you're not a client and would like to have these sorts...
How to fire bad clients
Last week's email - 'Why you should let bad clients go' - totally jinxed me (here's a link, in case you're the sorta monster that doesn't read every single one of these 😤). I hit send, checked my inbox, and was greeted with a client tirade. They were...
Why you should let bad clients go
You should let bad clients go. But, you already knew that. The hard part is actually letting them go, especially when they're paying you a lot of money. Our egos and our monthly bills (both the business and personal ones) make letting clients go easier said than done....
How to smoothly transition accountants
I may be biased, but accountants are one of the most important small business hires. At the very least, you need your taxes done. But, as you grow, you may also need help with other compliance chores, like payroll or bookkeeping. And, eventually, you may want their...
Why you should write weekly memos
As kids, there's plenty of obvious milestones, events, and memories to mark our progress. There's semesters, tests, graduations, big birthdays, and all sorts of other major happenings. And, we keep all those report cards, syllabuses, exam grades, pictures, postcards,...
Financial reports need context
Financials are relatively meaningless without context. The context is what gives them their real weight, significance, and, well, meaning. Otherwise, they're just numbers on a page. For example, the same set of financial statements that'd be good news to a...
Your service offerings impact overall profitability (and personal fulfilment)
You started your business because you're good at what you do. That could be marketing, accounting (like me 😉), consulting, or something else. You're good at something and decided it was time to make more money for yourself (instead of earning a profit for your...
Cash vs accrual basis
Accounting seems simple, at first. It's just a bunch of transactions and numbers that need to be categorized and reported. But, when you report the numbers is a much bigger issue than you first realize. For simple transactions (like buying a slice of pizza), it's...
How to build an emergency fund
Saving money and building an emergency fund isn't fun. In fact, it's pretty much the antithesis of fun. Saving is the ultimate delayed gratification. Instead of using money today for something you enjoy (or a surprise bill 😓), you're saving it until there is...
Think about burn rate and runway while scenario planning
Startups frequently describe their financial health in terms of burn rate and runway (respectively, how much money they're spending per month and how long until they run out of money). Those are important metrics when you're spending like crazy and surviving on...
4 ways to charge clients upfront
New entrepreneurs and business owners frequently fall for the Net 30 trap. They accept Net 30 payment terms (aka, getting paid 30 days after the invoice) because they think that's just how business is done. They don't realize there's another way (or don't quite...
How to stop worrying about money (hint: the answer is math)
Managing small business finances can be stressful for even the most seasoned business owners (and outright intimidating for newer entrepreneurs in their first few years). You need to manage invoices, pay bills, negotiate payment terms, run payroll, pay taxes, and...
Back to basics: Profit & Loss vs Balance Sheet
The Profit and Loss report and Balance Sheet are two of accounting's most famous reports. Everyone's heard of them, every accounting software can generate them, and even the IRS is interested in them. And, they're famous for good reason. Together, they give you a big...
Thoughts on the Y Combinator email that’s floating around
The economy hasn't been stellar these last few years. We've had to deal with the COVID pandemic, constantly changing regulations, the entire world suddenly working from home (and, many clients/vendors not being prepared for it), confusing grant applications, and...
Collect more reviews & testimonials before raising prices
Increasing your prices is one of the easiest ways to increase your profit. It significantly increases your revenue while also minimally impacting your expenses (as opposed to outright selling more where you'd need to hire more employees to complete the work). But,...
What to look for in a Profit & Loss report
Accountants and finance people love going on about how important your financial reports are and how much can be learned by regularly reviewing them. And, that's true. You can learn a lot about your business just by taking a regular look at your numbers. You can learn...
Throwback ⏰: Proactively look for surprise expenses to improve your long-term cash flow
Proactively managing cash flow is more than just enforcing payment terms, delaying your cash outflows, and building a tiny emergency fund. You should also actively look for potential cash flow problems and proactively plan for them. Because, surprise expenses that...
Throwback ⏰: Numbers lie like a dog
Mark Twain famously said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," meaning you can manipulate statistics to prove just about anything. That's also true for every number you see out there. Every report, every graph, and every tax return can...
Throwback ⏰: Keep a running ‘progress & goals document’ so you can more easily look back on your growth
True growth is incredibly slow. It's a series of marginal improvements over a long enough period of time until you finally become proficient or successful. For example, they say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert (which is debatable, but this is just an...
Throwback ⏰: Pick 3 business metrics to focus on – then ignore the rest
There's a near-endless supply of business metrics to choose from. Every single software now includes some sorta metrics dashboard. There's financial metrics, operating metrics, marketing metrics, sales metrics, project metrics, human resources metrics, metric metrics,...
Consider your clients Bill Pay process when sending invoices
Bill Pay and Accounts Payable are usually the most disorganized part of any small business's finances. It's the last piece of the financial puzzle that businesses work on. And, there's rarely a legit process other than just throwing expenses on the business card. Even...
Make paying invoices easier for your clients
Friction slows things down. That's true in physics, your car's brake pads, and small business cash flow. All those seemingly little annoyances and difficulties clients put up with, while paying your invoices, create friction and opportunities for your clients to pause...
Be realistic with your cash flow goals. It’ll never be perfect.
Sporadic and unhealthy cash flow makes running a business even more stressful than it already is. Instead of focusing on client work or strategic decisions, you'll be distracted by making payroll, paying next month's rent, and moving enough money around to make do....
Hiring an employee isn’t always the answer to business overwhelm
For all my yapping about profit, cash flow, and small business finance, I still do a lot of tax work. Business tax, personal tax, catch-up accounting, the works. So, you could definitely say this is a busy time of year for me. But, in a way, I'm lucky. I know tax...
How to intentionally review financial reports
Financial reports are the bee's knees. They give you a solid, big-picture understanding of all the little financial details and moving pieces in your business. Then, from there, you can start making educated decisions, working on problem areas, and improving your...