Who's checking your numbers?
Get your books organized and a CFO reviewing them every month, so you make decisions on real numbers instead of your bank balance.
In a lot of good businesses, the books get done by whoever has time.
A spouse, a family member, an office manager, or the owner late at night. Transactions get entered. Nobody steps back and asks what they mean.
So you run the business off the bank balance. Money in the account feels like a good month. Then a big tax bill, a slow season or a payroll week shows up, and you find out the account was hiding something.
That isn't a character flaw. You're busy doing the work that pays for everything. But when the person keeping the books is also too close to the business, problems stay invisible until they're expensive.
We see your books the way a banker, a buyer or the IRS would, and tell you what we find before they do.
Here's what a monthly review tends to catch:
- Profit that isn't real. Personal spending, owner draws or loan payments mixed into expenses, which makes it impossible to tell what the business actually earns.
- Cash and profit going in different directions. A profitable year with no money in the bank usually has a reason, and it's usually findable.
- Jobs or services losing money. Some work pays well and some quietly costs you. You can't tell which without clean numbers.
- Money owed to you that's getting old. Unpaid invoices that nobody is chasing.
- Tax set-asides that are missing. Profit that will be taxed, with nothing put aside for it.
- Mistakes that compound. Miscategorized entries and missed reconciliations that get harder to fix every month they sit.
Clean books, a monthly meeting, and numbers you can act on.
- Clean books. Reconciled every month, categorized correctly, with business and personal money separated.
- A monthly numbers meeting. We walk you through what happened, what it means and what to do next. Plain language, no accounting lecture.
- A short scorecard. The handful of numbers that tell you how your business is doing, tracked the same way every month.
- A cash forecast. What's coming in and going out over the next few months, so payroll weeks and tax dates stop being a surprise.
- Tax planning built in. Your numbers and your tax strategy in one place, so year end holds no surprises.
Bad records had been costing one owner $60,000.
A roofing company doing about $350K a year came to us four years behind on filing and owing the IRS more than $100,000. Underneath it were books that hadn't been kept, no plan for owner pay, and business and personal money mixed together.
We rebuilt the books and filed correct returns for the missing years. Once the returns reflected the real numbers, the IRS balance dropped by $60,000.
An operator reading your numbers.
Tom Taglang is a Certified Fractional CFO through the Association of Chief Financial Officers and an IRS Enrolled Agent. He has spent his career on the leadership side of growing companies, including COO roles at two nationwide firms, so he reads your numbers the way an operator does: looking for what to do next.
“He patiently explained every step, gave me a plan, and kept me accountable.”
Three steps to books you can trust.
Free intro call
Tell us how your books are kept today and what you wish you knew about your numbers.
Cleanup and review
We get the books current and accurate, and show you what we found.
Monthly rhythm
Books closed each month, then a meeting to go over the numbers and decide what to do.
My bookkeeper is family. Do they get replaced?
Not necessarily. Often they keep doing the day-to-day work and we review it, fix what needs fixing and show them better ways to do it. Many family bookkeepers are relieved to have someone to check with.
I'm doing fine without a CFO. Why now?
Most owners start paying attention to the numbers after something goes wrong. It's cheaper and calmer to do it before.
I'm embarrassed by how far behind the books are.
We've seen far worse, and nobody here will judge you for it. Getting them caught up is the first thing we do.
Isn't a CFO only for big companies?
A full-time CFO is. A fractional CFO gives you the same kind of review for a fraction of the cost, sized to a business your size.
Find out what your books are really telling you.
Book a short call. We'll talk about how your numbers are kept today and what an outside review would look like for your business.