From the Desk of Bean Counter Bookkeeping
Tips, insights, and financial clarity for small business owners in Asheville, NC and beyond.
Small Business | Asheville Business | Behind the Books | Counting the Beans
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Why Are You Actually Doing This?
One of the most important questions I ask a business owner has nothing to do with revenue, expenses, or margins. It’s simpler than that, and most people have never actually been asked it out loud. Why are you doing this? Not in a philosophical, find-your-purpose kind of way. I mean it practically. What is this…
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Uncertainty Is Expensive — Even When Nothing Goes Wrong
TL;DR: If you’ve been sitting on a decision — a hire, a price increase, a purchase — not because the answer is no, but because you’re just not sure, the real problem usually isn’t the decision. It’s that you don’t trust your numbers enough to move. That hesitation has a real cost, even though it…
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What’s Your Hourly Rate Inside Your Own Business?
I wrote a post recently about what DIY bookkeeping actually costs you in time. It got me thinking about a related question — one that’s a little more uncomfortable, and honestly, a little more revealing. If you’ve already built past the solopreneur stage — you’ve got a team, people who help run things day to…
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Are You Paying Yourself Correctly?
Here’s a question I ask a lot of business owners, and it’s amazing how often it stops them cold: how much did you pay yourself last month? Not “how much did the business make.” How much actually landed in your own pocket, on purpose, in a way you could explain if someone asked. Most people…
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The Loan Trap: Why You Look Profitable on Paper and Feel Broke
Your bank account feels tight this month. Tighter than it should, honestly, given how busy things have been. So you pull up your P&L expecting bad news. Instead, it says you made $8,000. That’s the moment things get confusing. If you made $8,000, why does it feel like you’re scraping by? Which number is telling…
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The Software Isn’t the Point. The Person Reading It Is.
I use software every day that pulls numbers, builds reports, and makes my job faster than it would’ve been ten years ago. I’m genuinely grateful for that. I’m not the bookkeeper who thinks technology is the enemy. But somewhere along the way, a lot of business owners started assuming the software is the service. That…
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That Number on Your Balance Sheet Isn’t What You Think
You’re looking at your balance sheet and you see it. Owner Distributions. $42,000. And your brain immediately goes: wait. Do I owe taxes on that? Here’s what I want you to know: for most small businesses — LLCs, S-Corps, partnerships — distributions are not taxable income. Why that number isn’t a red flag That money…
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Why Asheville’s Tourism Season Is a Cash Flow Trap (and How to Plan Around It)
If your business lives and dies by the tourist calendar, you already know the rhythm without needing me to explain it. Spring brings the first wave. Summer is full send. Leaf season is the payday everyone waits all year for. And then winter shows up, and the calendar you were relying on goes quiet. Here’s…
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The Real Cost of DIY Bookkeeping
You didn’t start your business to become a bookkeeper. Nobody does. You started it because you’re good at something else. Maybe it’s baking, or design, or contracting, or running the best little shop on your block. Bookkeeping was never the plan. It just showed up one day, uninvited, and it hasn’t left. So you do…
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Why I Left the Corporate CFO World to Work with Small Businesses
I was a top performer. Every firm I worked at, every company I served as CFO — they were never shy about telling me that. I had the title, the salary, the stability, and the team. By every external measure, I had built exactly the kind of career you work toward for fifteen-plus years. And…
Bean Counter Bookkeeping 