Staying on top of your finances as a small business owner doesn’t have to be complicated, but in order to understand what you are looking at, there are a few accounting terms that you should know to help you make sense of it all. Here are 10 accounting terms defined in plain English, so that you can start to evaluate your numbers and better understand your position.

I'm going to tell you here - I've made all of these mistakes in the past, and sometimes I still do. Some of the things I'm going to talk about will also relate to your personal expenses as well, but a lot of this comes down to mindset.

The number one thing to do is keep up with your finances. You should be looking into your finances weekly and monthly at a minimum. If you don't know what's going on in your bank account, you have no idea what's happening in your business because the bank account tells the story and helps you understand what products are making the most money when or your expenses are too high and where you can make changes to increase your profit margins. Long gone are the days of keeping things in a shoebox and adding it at the end of the year. Let's work together to keep accurate records.

Starting a business can be fun and exciting, but the dreaded “T” word comes rolling around, and often small business owners become confused and stressed. The “T” word I'm referring to is taxes. I understand the frustration of taxes for your business as a tax professional that's been in the business for over 25 years. Business owners struggle with this task more than anything else! I've witnessed the stress and agony some of my clients face surrounding their tax situations.

It's hard to believe that we are halfway through 2022! I just can't believe that we are already there. Now is the time that we need to reflect over the first half of the year and really start to think about how your business is going. So if you really think about it, it's not just about your profit. It’s not only the numbers that I want you to think about but also the time. How is your time management going for the year? What is your stress level? You also have to take some time to look at your profit margin and your revenue.

Growing your business is every entrepreneur’s dream and oftentimes we talk about the successes, but not the hurdles that we overcome to get there. These hurdles are what we call growing pains. Many clients come to me with three top issues in their business when they're trying to grow and scale out of the startup phase. I want to go over those three and also give you some solutions for those three things as well.

Clients regularly come to me and say that they haven't touched their books for a while and that they know they need to get these things up to date, and I always ask them why they think that they put it off. I usually get one of three answers, and I'm going to go over those with you and help you to navigate through how we can fix them.

I will start by saying that some of these plans I highly recommend, others I do not, and some I will ask you to avoid at all costs. QuickBooks Online has really transformed the way that bookkeeping is done for small businesses, and it's made it simpler for clients to really get a grasp on their bookkeeping and financials for their business.

For starters, you may hear this called several different things such as a P&L, an income statement, even a statement of operations. A Profit and Loss Statement is a summary of revenue (income) and your expenses over a certain period of time. So, you may run a P&L Statement for the month or the quarter, or for the full year when you’re filing income taxes. It is just a summary of all those revenues and expenses broken down into different categories.

I'm not sure about you guys, but this past week has been one of the craziest weeks of the year for me and I cannot stress enough the importance of being proactive instead of reactive in your business. I wouldn’t have survived the week otherwise! Let’s talk about why it’s so important to know your numbers, and what exactly I mean by that. Knowing your numbers is knowing the financial story of your business. Let’s talk about why that’s important.

My goal is to help entrepreneurs pay fewer taxes, and also enjoy their businesses. You went into business for yourself to enjoy life, not to work harder. I'm very passionate about being available to you and giving the advice to help you make the most of your business. I believe that our country is what it is today because of small businesses, and one of my favorite things to do in my industry is to strategize on your taxes. Check out my secret sauce for paying less in taxes: tax planning.

This is important to talk about because we're getting our tax returns back, maybe you’ve got a little extra money coming in, and this topic not only applies to personal expenses - but also for business. Typically, I'm only talking about business things but today, you can really use these tips and tricks to impact your spending on a personal and business level.

There are a lot of terms that are tossed around in the accounting industry. You hear profit/loss, you hear balance sheet, and the third little report that a lot of bookkeepers and even accountants don't use on a regular (but you should!) is your cash flow statement. That is the MOST important thing to keep track of in a small business! So, I want to tell you a little bit about what cash flow is and how it affects your business.

I’ve been hearing a lot lately that accounting is an overwhelming topic and you just don't know where to begin. Maybe you're a new business, maybe you're a business who's been in it for a little while, but you haven't been doing your books properly. Now you've been seeing some of my tips and strategies and you're thinking “Oh crap, I need to get started. I need to get these things done (and done accurately), but where do I start?” I’m here to break it down for you in three points.

Today's blog is all about pricing. This is a biggie because in order to make money, your pricing has to be right so that your profits are there. If your pricing is too low it’s detrimental to your profit and that is why you are in business - to make profits. So I'm here to help you give you some strategies on profits so that hopefully you can decrease your stress, which normally comes with business finances, and in turn increase your profits.

Sometimes, when clients bring their information to me for taxes they just went straight from “I want to be a business owner” to making money, and they didn't follow the steps in between. That can cause some havoc for your business, so I want to make sure that you are prepared and have everything that you need.

I'm not sure about you, but I don't like to pay Uncle Sam any more than I'm legally required to, and the way I make sure of that is to ensure I'm claiming all my legal deductions. Here are seven commonly overlooked deductions to make sure you save as much as possible!