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
If you’ve ever come back from a few days off to 17 “quick questions” from your team, then your firm probably has a workflow problem. Figuring out what the biggest gap actually is, though, can be a challenge for even the most masterful sleuths.
Sometimes it’s you (a.k.a. the owner or someone else on the leadership team), because no one else is empowered to make decisions. Sometimes it’s a process that lives entirely in someone’s head, so it only works when that one person is at their desk. And sometimes it’s the missing handoff between two people who both assumed the other had it covered.
We built a 2-minute assessment to help you figure out where the ball is dropping.
Answer 12 quick questions about how your firm actually runs (not how you wish it did), and you’ll get:
an accurate diagnosis of your biggest gap,
some motivational wisdom from our top Proudly Small featured firm owners, and
a step-by-step playbook for getting your workflows back on track (designed specifically for small firms, of course).
TBH, every firm probably has all of these gaps to some degree, but this assessment draws out the one costing you the most sleep right now (before it turns into a full-on fire drill in Q4).
👉 Take the Workflow Gap Assessment →
Community 🫶
Embrace your differences with Ovata Collective
If you’re a neurodivergent accountant, tax pro, or student who’s ever felt like you had to mask your way through your day-to-day, Ovata Collective could be a game-changer for you. It’s a warm, peer-led community built specifically for accounting folks who think and work differently, offering monthly roundtables, co-working sessions, accountability buddy groups, and an authentically supportive space to talk shop without pretending to be someone you’re not. No diagnosis required to join.
Plug into Canada’s premiere national network of bookkeepers
For our Canadian readers, CPB Canada is the country’s flagship professional community for bookkeeping leaders: part certification body, part peer network, part advocate for the profession. Members get access to CPD-eligible webinars, a national network of fellow bookkeepers, and a real seat at the table in shaping bookkeeping standards across Canada. It’s a nice way to build community and stay sharp beyond your own firm’s four walls.
H🔥t Today
BOI reporting requirements go bye-bye
On August 11, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) finalized a rule permanently ending the Corporate Transparency Act’s beneficial ownership information reporting requirement for U.S. companies and individuals, and the Treasury says it’s also deleting the ownership info already submitted by U.S. entities. Foreign companies still have reporting obligations, but for the vast majority of your small-business clients, this compliance headache is officially over. If BOI reminders have been baked into your onboarding checklists or you’ve been fielding any “do I still need to file this?” emails, you can finally cross it off your list (and it might be worth a quick note letting clients know they’re off the hook).
Your clients could be leaving Social Security money on the table
At a recent AICPA ENGAGE session, Social Security Advisors co-founder Matthew Allen broke down just how easy it is to miss serious money: married couples face more than 9,000 possible claiming paths, and the wrong one can cost $120,000 over a lifetime. A few flags you might consider passing to clients: surviving spouses can claim starting at age 60 (not 62), the lower earner in a couple should generally claim first, divorced clients married 10+ years may qualify to claim on an ex’s record, and families with a minor child at home can unlock extra monthly benefits. You don’t need to run the math yourself, but flagging this to clients approaching retirement (especially divorced or widowed ones) is an easy way to add advisory value this fall.
Swipe this workflow template
Swipe this Multiple Month Bookkeeping Clean Up Project template from Chris Potter.
Get more templates from firm owners like you in our community template library.
Meme
Relatable? 😆
Firm Spotl💡ght
How Advantage Insights brought Fortune-500 discipline to small business books with Month-End Close in Financial Cents
Before Mary Ferry started Advantage Insights, she spent nearly 35 years in corporate finance at companies like Conagra Foods and Foot Locker. When Conagra planned to move her role to Chicago in 2016, she took the severance instead and opened her own firm the following year, built on a simple idea: small business owners deserve the same financial discipline Fortune-500 teams take for granted.
For years, that discipline still ran on spreadsheets: exported transactions emailed to clients, 1099s tracked in a side file, and no reliable way to confirm reviews were actually happening. Since adopting Month-End Close in Financial Cents, Mary’s nine-person remote team has cut 1099 review time roughly in half across the ~85 entities they close every month, replaced a separate receipt-capture tool entirely, and given reviewers one simple place to confirm the work is done.
Events
📍 IRS Nationwide Tax Forum — September 1–3 (Orlando, FL)
Three days, 40+ seminars, and actual face time with IRS subject-matter experts through the Case Resolution Program (appointment required). Sessions cover the latest federal tax law updates and IRS procedures, and you can earn up to 18 CE credits along the way. Show up Monday for the pre-forum sessions on practice management and work-life balance, courtesy of NAEA, NATP, NSA, and other partner associations. Standard registration ($329) runs through August 18, after which it jumps to $409—so don’t sit on this one too long.
👉 Learn more →
📍 IRS Nationwide Tax Forum — September 15–17 (San Diego, CA)
Can’t make Orlando? The Tax Forum swings through San Diego two weeks later at the Town & Country Resort, with the same lineup of federal tax law updates, IRS procedure sessions, and CE credits (up to 18). Standard registration is $329 through September 1, after which it climbs to $409. And be sure to book your hotel early, since the Tax Forum room block tends to fill up fast.
👉 Learn more →
📍CPB IGNITE Conference — September 22–25 (Montreal, QC)
Certified Professional Bookkeepers of Canada’s premier annual event lands in Montreal this year, bringing bookkeepers, accountants, and finance pros from across the country together for four days of sessions, a bustling trade show floor, and networking that actually leads somewhere. If you’re north of the border and looking for a software-agnostic gathering built specifically for Canadian bookkeeping pros, this is it.
👉 Learn more →
Noteworthy
Financial Cents cracks the prestigious Inc. 5000 list
Cue the party poppers! We’re officially No. 601 on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies, marking our second consecutive year on the list and our second Inc. recognition this year alone (following our spot on the Inc. Best Workplaces list back in June). Past honorees on this list include names like Microsoft and Patagonia, so we’re pretty darn proud to be in such great company. More than anything, it’s a sign that how we build FC matters just as much to us as what we build.
Much ado about nothing (er, we mean, AI)
Okay, maybe it’s not nothing, but we can probably all agree that AI has been pretty overhyped. If you’ve felt whiplash between “AI will replace accountants any day now” and “the AI tool I tried made everything worse,” you’re not alone. Even accountants using this stuff daily can’t always say with certainty that it’s actually helping. This guide (built with input from Jason Staats, Blake Oliver, and Andrew Lassise) skips the buzzwords and gets specific: which AI use cases are definitely paying off right now (things like client emails, workflow templates, document organization, and categorization help), where it still needs a human in the loop, and what we can realistically expect in the near future. If you’ve been on the fence about where to even start, this is a useful roadmap.
That’s all for now. See you in two weeks. 💚
The Workflow Gap Assessment, in theory, is a good tool, but none of the options apply to us. Does that mean we have no gaps?