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).
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.
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.
Free worksheets:
Various worksheets I use with clients that I’ve made available for free. Currently, that’s just a Profit & Loss worksheet for side-hustles and consultants, but more to come.
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
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...
What to do after ranking your clients
This is the third email in a series on ranking clients. Check out the previous issues: How to rank your clients and What you can learn from ranking your clients. If you enjoyed this series, feel free to share it! You can learn a lot from ranking your clients....
Trust but verify (aka how to spot check a Profit & Loss report)
Profit & Loss reports are one of the most common small business financial reports. They are relatively easy to understand, can be generated with a few clicks in your accounting software, and are the starting point for your financial decisions, tax returns, bank...
Invoicing starts during the sale and client onboarding
Invoicing is usually an afterthought in many small businesses. It's seen as a simple formality like getting a receipt at the store. And, sending an invoice is nothing more than the very last step in getting paid (short of cashing them checksss 🤑). You just...
Review your project profitability to learn better pricing
Profitable project pricing is unassumingly difficult. You need to accurately do client discovery, assess the scope, plan employee capacity/labor, figure out how much overhead and direct expenses will cost you, and build some profit into your proposal, all while...
Test your client-facing tech (instead of assuming it works)
Technology is great and can be an absolute gamechanger,... until it isn't. Then, there's all sorts of frustrating little hiccups, glitches, and weird UI bugs where the software that you bought to make your life easier, now makes your life much much harder. And, when...
Writing a mission statement that doesn’t suck
Traditional, structured business plans usually include business descriptions, SWOT analyses, market research, financial projections, and various strategic breakdowns (eg sales strategy, marketing strategy, etc). And, at the veryyy beginning, in the executive summary,...
Reader question: “How can I intelligently cut back my recurring software subscriptions?”
It seems like everything is a subscription nowadays. You used to buy software once, use it for 3+ years, then maybeee buy an upgrade if you really needed it. Now, you gotta pay a subscription fee every month just to keep the software running. And, all those little...
Systemize your invoicing to prevent mistakes and improve your cash flow
Invoicing is a core aspect of small service business cash flow. It's how you let clients know what they owe, how they should pay you, and how long they have to pay you. Without invoicing, you wouldn't get paid and money wouldn't flow into your business (which is...
Things to consider when setting revenue-based goals
Basic revenue and profit targets are some of the most common business goals. They're straightforward, unpretentious, and easy to make. They don't need any fancy software to track or assess progress. And, you can keep them as simple as a sticky note on your screen, a...
How to constructively think about your business without totally ruining the holidays
Great business planning (and New Year's resolution-ing) involves a lot of intentionality, self-reflection (on both yourself and your business), and reviewing business stats (like financials, CRM data, etc). You need to take a hard look at your business, what's...
Late fees aren’t the answer to your cash flow problem
Every business owner has been burned by a late payment (or even nonpayment) before. You followed up, sent emails, and left voicemails, but your client was still full of excuses and the payment was late. And, while you were still upset with your client, you may've...
Systemize your owners’ bonuses for more predictable cash flow
There's a variety of reasons why you may've become an entrepreneur and started your own business. You might've wanted a better work/life balance, more flexibility, to be your own boss, you were laid off, etc. But, money is always part of the equation. (You have bills...
Getting more value out of a SWOT analysis
Everyone's first experience with a SWOT analysis is terrible. It's typically your first real exposure to business strategy and you just don't have enough experience in your business yet (because you're a business student, new entrepreneur, new to business...
The symptoms of disorganized cash distributions (and how to correct them)
Small business cash flow is an incredibly complex topic with lots of nuances. Every single aspect of your business impacts your cash flow. That's what makes rooting out the core cause of your cash flow issues and fixing them such a difficult process. It can take...
An intentional, targeted mini-budget is better than a half-assed full-business budget
Budgets play a vital role in big businesses and startups. They keep everyone on the same page in those hectic or unwieldy environments where there isn't one point person (like the owner, a controller, CFO, or director of operations) calling all the shots and approving...
Reader question: “Should I send clients gifts during the holidays?”
Halloween is behind us, everyone is gearing up for the holidays, the radio is playing entirely too much Mariah Carey, and business owners everywhere are wondering if they should send client gifts because "that's what real businesses do". But, like most other "that's...
What you can learn from ranking your clients
"Rank your clients then fire the bottom-tier ones" is classiccc business advice. And, it's relatively good advice (as far as soundbites go). You shoulddd periodically prune your client list and fire the clients that are causing excessive hardship, stress, and internal...
You need to do a pre-goal-setting assessment
There's all sorts of goal-setting frameworks and theories (eg SMART criteria, OKRs, BHAGs, OGSMs, etc)*. They're supposed to help get your rough goals & dreams out of your head, onto a piece of paper, and into a standardized structure that makes sense which can...
The flaws with ROI and other things to consider when making decisions
I won an award! 🥳 CPA Practice Advisor named me on their annual '40 under 40' accounting professionals list. I've "emerged as [a] future leaders in the profession." Whoop! 🙌🎉 There's two sides to every finance/accounting measure and the...
Business savings isn’t just for emergencies
Most small business owners don't have an extensive finance background before starting their businesses. You're good at a particular skill (eg, marketing, design, writing, coding, law, whatever), you saw an opportunity to open a business, and you went for it. This...
How to rank your clients
All clients aren't created equal. Some clients are easier to work with, more profitable, send referrals, or just have more interesting projects than the rest. Then, others are a royal pain, take up too much of your (and your team's) time, drag down profitability, hurt...