SMB FinanceOS
Get smarter about business finance in 5 minutes a week. Join 35k+ business owners and leaders learning financial statements and growing their business, for free.
STOP FIXING REPORTS AND START FIXING THE CYCLE (THE ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE OPERATING CYCLE)
Every business owner has a “we’re fine” story they tell themselves. The P&L looks okay. The bank balance is not terrible. Payroll clears. And then one weird week hits and it gets real fast. A chargeback. A delayed customer payment. A surprise tax bill. A key employee quits. Nothing “changed” on paper, but suddenly you are white knuckling cash. That is not bad luck. That is a system that is too thin. Today we’re talking about a business owner who found himself in a bad situation and the...
YOUR ACCOUNTING SYSTEM IS BROKEN WITHOUT THESE THREE DOCUMENTS
Most business owners don’t have a finance problem. They have a system problem. When close lives inside one person’s head, the numbers are only “true” as long as that person stays in the seat. And if you’ve ever looked at your financials and thought: “We’re profitable… so why does cash feel tight?” “Where did the money actually go?” “I know I should understand this better, but I don’t even know where to start.” …that is not a motivation problem. That is missing infrastructure. That’s exactly...
BANKING 101: HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT BANK (AND AVOID SURPRISES)
Today, we have a few different pieces. I'm trying to go back to the "section" approach so I can fill this email with even more value. Here’s what’s inside this week: THE QUICK HIT: a simple overdue AR follow-up playbook (what to do at 0–14, 31–60, 61–90, and 90+ days). DEEP DIVE: how to pick the right bank before you get surprised, plus the covenant trap that turns “good terms” into a problem. CFO CORNER: a few mistakes I see physical security owners repeat, and the simple fix behind each...
THE “OH CRAP” CHECKLIST: THE EMERGENCY CHECKLIST FOR A BUSINESS IN TROUBLE
THE “OH CRAP” CHECKLIST: THE EMERGENCY CHECKLIST FOR A BUSINESS IN TROUBLE read on the website | watch on YouTube Harrison didn’t wake up one day and decide to blow up the business. It started the way it always starts. A few wins. Some momentum. A little confidence. Then more deals. More moving parts. More decisions made fast, because things were “working.” Until they weren’t. In my podcast this week, Harrison tells the story of building a real estate business deal by deal. Money was coming...
THE HIDDEN BUSINESS MISTAKE THAT MAKES GROWTH DANGEROUS
THE HIDDEN BUSINESS MISTAKE THAT MAKES GROWTH DANGEROUS watch on YouTube | read on the website I mentioned last week that I was launching a podcast. That episode came out and you can listen to it (or watch it) on all of your normal podcast channels: Watch on YouTube Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify In that podcast, I spoke to Nick Anderson, CEO of OneAccord. When Nick took over the business, he knew he wanted to grow. But he didn’t start by rebranding or hiring a marketing agency....
IF YOUR FINANCIALS FEEL CHAOTIC, THIS IS PROBABLY WHY (CASH VS ACCRUAL ACCOUNTING)
Next week is a big week for me. We're launching a podcast. And this podcast isn't going to be like most other podcasts. It's going to be something different and new. Too many podcasts are stories of the founder. Those can be great, but they're not always applicable to operating a business day to day. With my new podcast, Through the Storm, we're going to be talking about a single moment within a business owner's life and how they navigated "the storm." The near bankruptcy, losing their...
YOUR BUSINESS ISN'T BROKE; YOUR CASH SYSTEM IS
Your Business Isn’t Broke. Your Cash System Is. I’m going to say something that will annoy some of you. If you’re constantly stressed about cash, it’s probably not because you need more sales. It’s because you’ve tolerated sloppy cash systems for too long. When I do sales calls for my business, Bison CFO, I hear the same answers about how they’re going to improve their business over and over again: more sales, better margins, cut expenses. But then, as we dig in, I find the same trends. We’re...
THE 5-MINUTE FINANCIAL HABIT THAT CAN TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS
THE 5-MINUTE FINANCIAL HABIT THAT CAN TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS watch on YouTube | read on the website Warren Buffett has famously said that he only needs to make a handful of truly good decisions over long stretches of time to generate extraordinary results. He’s talked about making one great decision every few fives that meaningfully compounds. The financial version of that is this: you don’t need 100 financial tweaks to transform your business. You just need one hour and one decision per...
WHY IS EVERYONE SO CONFUSED?
Earlier this week, I went to a conference and had conversations with a lot of different business owners. As I had these conversations, I was consistently blown away by this one thing: so many business owners still feel like they're running their business blind. I've mentioned a stat before that over 50% of business owners feel uncomfortable with their financials. In these conversations, that number felt like it was much, much higher. When I explained how we at Bison CFO could help business...
WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BUILD AN EXIT-READY BUSINESS
A few years back, I heard a story from a business owner who told me what turned out to be a horror story. This owner had planned to hold his business forever, but then sudden health issues came up, and he found himself in a situation where he had to sell his business quickly. Because he hadn't been planning on selling, he'd been operating loosely. Personal expenses ran through the company.The books weren’t buttoned up.Processes lived in his head, not in SOPs. None of that mattered day to day....
Get smarter about business finance in 5 minutes a week. Join 35k+ business owners and leaders learning financial statements and growing their business, for free.