Issue #49 - The Best Thing You Can Do This Summer Is Break Up
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Welcome to “Get Work Done,” where we discuss the complexities of efficiently running accounting and bookkeeping firms. This newsletter is brought to you by Financial Cents and delivered to your inbox every 2 weeks.
Small Change, Big Results
You made it. Tax season is finally fading from your memory, and you can hear yourself think for the first time in months. So here’s a question to ponder during these precious few months of calm: which of your clients would you not sign again if they walked in today?
We’re betting you already know the answer. It’s probably the one who haggled endlessly over pricing before they’d even seen your work. Or the one whose constant “quick questions” can eat up an entire day. Or maybe the one whose check always clears, but your team can’t stand.
Well, summer is the season when you finally have the time and energy to do something about it.
To get you pumped up, we put together a piece on this exact topic for the debut issue of Two Cents Magazine. (Oh, right, we also launched a magazine—more on that later! 🤓)
This article is bursting with firsthand wisdom from firm owners who’ve been there. A few examples of things they learned the hard way:
Red flags never disappoint. If something feels off on the discovery call, you can pretty much bet it’ll still be there once the engagement letter is signed.
The discovery call is a two-way interview. The best firm owners screen prospects as carefully as their prospects screen them—and position themselves as the one doing the choosing.
Firing a bad client is a strategic decision, not a failure. One owner chose to walk away from $340K in potential revenue to protect his firm’s culture, and he called it one of the best moves he ever made.
You don’t get better at saying no by avoiding it. You get better by doing it. As one owner put it, the first wrong client took him a year to let go. Eventually he got it down to two weeks.
The throughline? Firms with healthy businesses tend to be picky about who they work with. And the summer lull is the perfect time to run your own “yes, no, and maybe” exercise with your current client roster before the fall rush forces the decision for you.
👉 Read “The Art of Saying No” in Two Cents Magazine →
Community 🫶
Strategic Finance Summit: 2 Days of Training From 9 Top Finance Practitioners
Our friend Josh Aharonoff from Your CFO Guy has been working on this behind the scenes for months, and the details are finally set: on July 14 and 15, he is hosting the Strategic Finance Summit. Two days. Nine speakers. 100% virtual. Completely free. (The amount of value he’s giving away is pretty mindblowing!)
The lineup includes Nicolas Boucher, Paul Barnhurst, Chris Reilly, Christian Wattig, Carl Seidman, Michael King, Mark Proctor, Ben Murray, and Josh himself. Over 2 million combined LinkedIn followers on one stage. Seven disciplines, from financial modeling to board reporting. Every session comes with the actual models, templates, and frameworks you can put to work that same week. We hope to see you there!
The CFO Project: Free CPE-Eligible Advisory Webinar
Your clients have clean books, timely reports, and taxes filed on time. So why are so many of them still stressed about cash flow? Next Thursday, June 18, our partners at The CFO Project are hosting a free 1-hour session: “Lead Your Clients to a Successful Business: Why Better Reports Won’t Get Them There,” hosted by their CEO, Dyanna Salcedo. It’s a practical look at the difference between reporting on cash flow and actively leading a client toward a healthier business—and where advisory work could add recurring revenue to your own practice. NASBA-approved CPE (1.0 hour), live Q&A, and a 48-hour replay if you can’t make it live.
NSBCPA Annual Day of Giving
The National Society of Black CPAs is running its annual Day of Giving campaign through June 18, raising money for its Future CPA Accelerator Programs—which provide mentorship, accountability, and prep resources for aspiring CPAs working toward the credential, often as the first in their families to do so. With the profession staring down a serious pipeline shortage, the work of widening the door matters to all of us. If you’re able to give or share, it’s a great cause to get behind!
H🔥t Today
New Report: The Future of Accounting is Human-centric
AICPA & CIMA dropped a big new report this week at ENGAGE 2026: Rise2040, built from input across more than 25 countries and 6,000 professionals. The headline takeaway is reassuring: as automation swallows routine compliance work, the human role won’t shrink. In fact, it becomes more important than ever as accounting professionals shift their focus to higher-value services like advisory and scenario planning. The report actually points to institutional inertia—not AI—as the bigger threat to the future of accounting. So, if you want to set your firm up for long-term success, now is the time to start shifting your focus and repositioning your value to clients.
The Consolidation Wave isn’t Slowing Down
The first week of June alone brought a stack of deals: Ascend picked up Ohio’s William Vaughan Co., Aprio announced its second acquisition of the week with Waldron H. Rand in Massachusetts, and five New England state societies merged into a single regional body. Private-equity-backed roll-ups continue to reshape the mid-market. The “so what” for small firms: as the big players consolidate, your independence and personal client relationships become a key differentiator—provided you’re loud about it.
AICPA Presses the IRS on a Million-dollar Question
The AICPA has asked the Treasury and the IRS to issue guidance on Section 4960—the provision (amended by the OBBBA) that imposes a 21% excise tax on tax-exempt organizations for compensation above $1 million to covered employees. Among its requests: transition relief for fiscal-year nonprofits. If you serve nonprofit clients, this is one to keep on your radar as guidance develops.
Swipe this workflow template
Swipe this Client Disengagement Template from Lori Hawkins
Get more templates from firm owners like you in our community template library.
Meme
Relatable? 😆 (But seriously, if you missed last week’s pricing panel, peep the recap here.)
Firm Spotl💡ght
How Tied Out Books Turned Bookkeeping Into a Naval Expedition
Tamra Helton didn’t set out to gamify bookkeeping. But when she launched Tied Out Books in Atascadero, California, she decided that if she was going to build something from scratch, it wasn’t going to be boring. So she created an entire operating system around a nautical theme: her clients are captains, her team members are sailors, the functional areas of bookkeeping are islands, and every engagement is a voyage. Then, she gamified it: sailors earn diamonds (a.k.a. bonuses) for accurate, on-time work. Clients who respond to document requests within two to three business days earn a smooth sailing credit (delivered as a mailed paper check).
A big part of Tamra’s operational story is how she’s leveraged Financial Cents to get her firm’s workflows out of her head. Tired of being the bottleneck, she spent months documenting every workflow, SOP, and process inside Financial Cents—complete with video walkthroughs—so her team doesn’t have to loop her into every decision. “A bad workflow can ruin your business very quickly,” she says. “I wish I would have gotten my processes and workflows set up properly in the right system first.”
Check out Tamra’s full story in Two Cents Magazine →
Events
📍 How We Got Our Name Out There: Marketing for Firms that Hate Marketing — TODAY: Thursday, June 11 (Virtual Webinar, 2:00–3:00 PM ET)
If pricing is the conversation most firm owners avoid, marketing is a close second. Today’s Proudly Small webinar session brings together real firm owners to share how they built their reputation and filled their pipeline without a marketing team or a big budget. There’s still time to register (and even if you can’t make it live, register anyway to get the recording).
📍 Running Lean and Loving It: Operations, Tech, & the Art of Doing More with Less — Thursday, June 18 (Virtual Webinar, 2:00–3:00 PM ET)
The fourth and final session of our Proudly Small series is all about operating like a much bigger shop without the operations team or IT department to match. Five firm owners get real about what a typical week looks like, the one tool or process change that moved the needle most on their capacity, and what they’d automate first if they were starting over. Moderated by Financial Cents CEO Shahram Zarshenas. Free, recorded, and 60 minutes.
📍 Scaling New Heights 2026 — June 15–17 (Orlando)
Woodard’s flagship conference for accounting and bookkeeping professionals—heavy on practical workflow, technology, and firm-growth content. Especially good for owners building or scaling QuickBooks-centric firms, with deep tracks on advisory and team development.
📍 IRS Nationwide Tax Forum — Summer 2026 (Multiple Cities)
Registration is open for the IRS’s annual three-day forums built specifically for tax pros, featuring 40+ seminars on federal tax law updates, IRS procedures, and emerging issues, with up to 18 CE credits available. The early-bird rate ($275) runs through June 15, so if it’s on your list, now’s the time to lock it in.
Noteworthy
Introducing Two Cents: The Only Magazine Made for Small Bookkeeping & Accounting Firms
ICYMI: There’s a new publication in the accounting world, and it was made specifically for firms like yours. Two Cents Magazine is Financial Cents’ new editorial venture dedicated to the stories, strategies, and realities of running a small and growing accounting or bookkeeping firm. The inaugural issue is the Proudly Small edition, featuring 13 in-depth profiles of 13 firm owners—real people, real challenges, real outcomes. This publication is rooted in original storytelling and unbiased reporting—no ads masquerading as news here. Check it out now (but fair warning, these stories might make you a bit misty-eyed 🥹).
Happy summer reading! 😎 See you in two weeks. 💚