Why Did We Start This?

Handing an employee the company card without clear limits is not trust. It is leaving everyone to guess. I am showing you why Ramp has become one of my favorite tools for teams that need better control over spending, travel, receipts, subscriptions, and bill pay. Jonathan and I walk through virtual cards for recurring tools, category restrictions that stop out-of-policy purchases, receipt capture, per diem limits, and approval workflows that put a second set of eyes on bills. I also explain who should use Ramp, why it is better suited to a team with bookkeeping support than a solo owner managing their own books, and how it compares with BILL Spend & Expense. If your business is growing and card spending feels harder to track every month, this is the system conversation to have before the next surprise charge hits.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:I use clear card policies and limits to remove temptation and give employees useful boundaries.I can assign virtual cards to specific subscriptions so I can control budgets and shut off unwanted charges.I make receipt capture immediate because a missing receipt is much harder to recover later.I use a second reviewer for bills to help catch duplicate payments, mistakes, and potential fraud.I treat Ramp as a stronger fit for teams with bookkeeping or accounting support than for a solo owner managing everything alone.

A young real estate agency owner posted that he has gone almost three years without a day off. He just closed the biggest deal of his career, and the win put him in bed unable to get up, too guilty and too paranoid to take a vacation even though he has enough money to last two years. The question I keep coming back to, and a mentor asked me this years ago, is what is enough. If you already had the revenue you picture in your head, would you still get up and work nine to five? Jonathan and I took a month in Oklahoma this summer and worked two days a week, and the first days off were the hardest, because the worry comes with you. So my advice to him is the one nobody gives. Stay in bed today. Then use part of the day to design the week you actually wanted when you started.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Decide what enough actually looks like as a number, because a business with no finish line will keep taking your weekends no matter what it earns.Ask whether you would still work nine to five if you already had the income you picture, and pay attention to what your answer says.A big win does not end burnout, and sometimes closing one is the thing that finally exposes it.Rest does not arrive when the calendar clears. It comes from deciding ahead of time which days are not work days, and then defending them.The first days off are the hardest, because the worry travels with you, and that is a reason to keep going rather than to cancel the rest.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Two days ago QuickBooks payroll pulled twenty five thousand dollars out of a business owner's operating account, for payroll taxes she had already paid herself. QuickBooks moved everyone from partial payroll to full this quarter, so they started remitting on her behalf, and she never caught the notice because QuickBooks sends so many emails that we all stop reading them. She called support and was told there was nothing they could do. That money now sits at the IRS as a credit she will burn off over the next two months, and she did not have that kind of margin. I love QuickBooks for the general ledger and we use it every day, but it was built for accountants and not for you, and payroll is the piece I will not put a client on. The fix costs nothing. Open a second bank account that holds only payroll, and whoever runs your payroll can reach that money and nothing else.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Open a second bank account that holds only payroll, so a payroll company with your bank details can reach that money and nothing else.Fund it two days before the run, once you know the exact amount, and your operating account stays out of reach.The same account trick works on a major supplier with ACH terms, who can otherwise pull whatever their system says you owe.Ask your accountant to set your payroll up, because in our experience the support you get through a firm is not the support you get calling on your own.If you are leaving a payroll company, go at the end of a quarter, so one company owns that quarter's 941 and the next one owns the quarter after.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

It is Wednesday, so we spun the wheel and pulled six pieces of advice off the internet to see what survives contact with a real business. Almost none of it did. Sleep when you're dead, which is a lovely idea until you meet me on eight hours. Once you have an LLC your personal assets are protected no matter what, which stops being true the moment you run personal money through the business and hand a court a reason to disregard the LLC you never treated as separate. Never use your own money, just max out business credit cards, because debt is cheaper than equity. That is not even a sentence. Always pay yourself last, which we have opinions about. A one dollar S Corp salary, which you are welcome to try before you call me. And more software will fix your operations, which it will not, because software laid over a broken process just gives you a broken process with a subscription.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:An LLC is a legal entity and not a tax entity, and running personal money through it is how the corporate veil gets pierced.If you elect S Corp status the IRS expects a reasonable salary, and reasonable means roughly what you would pay someone else to do your job.The moment to consider an S Corp is when the business can actually pay you that reasonable salary, not before.Put your own pay into the monthly business expenses, so the number you look at is what the business truly costs to run.Write the SOP before you buy the software, because an SOP is just a list of how you do something and it will show you whether software helps at all.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

A guy posted on Reddit asking whether it is normal that some months he profits and some months he does not pay himself. We ended up calling him Bob, because Reddit does not hand you a name. Four years in, consistently profitable, right up until he hired an employee to run Facebook ads and an Upwork contractor for email marketing. Now he alternates between profit and loss, skips his own paycheck, and is thinking about getting a job to cover the business. Read that back slowly. He would go get a job so the person he hired to make Facebook ads can keep hers. There are two separate problems inside his one sentence. Profit and cash are not the same thing, and your profit and loss statement does not show your debt payments, so whether you got paid is not the test of whether the month was profitable. And marketing is not your first hire. It is nowhere near your first hire.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Getting paid is not the test of whether the month was profitable, because your profit and loss statement does not include your debt payments.If you are spending more on marketing and making less, more marketing is not the answer to that. The numbers are.Learn enough about the work you hire out to judge whether it is being done well, or you can neither keep that person honestly nor fire them fairly.Marketing is the third rung on Dan Martell's replacement ladder, not the first, so hiring it early usually means you skipped the two hires that would have actually bought back your time.Whatever you could hide about your money habits as an employee gets magnified when you own the business, because you brought the same habits with you.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Expensify says it is for solo owners all the way up to enterprises, and that is the part we disagree with most. It is not for solo owners. I used it years ago at the church and it genuinely changed my life, because it was the first app that let me photograph a receipt instead of keeping a spreadsheet and carrying paper around. But it is built for a company with an accounting department or a business manager who can babysit it. It runs on submitted reports, so an employee can spend all month and you see nothing until the report lands. Once an export hits QuickBooks you cannot pull it back, so one wrong hundred line report means hunting and deleting every entry by hand. And your accountant cannot see any of it unless every employee adds them as a co-pilot. Three stars. If you love your points card, keep it for your own purchases and put your team on something easier.The tool we point people to instead is Bill Spend and Expense, which we covered in Episode 18: The link below is an affiliate link. We use Bill Spend and Expense in our own business and we would recommend it either way, but if you sign up through that link we may earn a commission at no cost to you.Get $500 with Bill Spend and ExpenseBook a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Expensify runs on submitted reports, so you have no visibility into employee spend until the report lands, which can be a month after the money is already gone.Once an expense exports to QuickBooks it cannot be pulled back, so one wrong hundred line report means deleting every entry by hand.The merchant field does not match QuickBooks vendors, so somebody still has to sit and reconcile Walmart against Walmart.Your accountant cannot see anything inside Expensify unless each employee adds them as a co-pilot, which is its own chase with field crews.If you want the points on your own card, keep Expensify for that one card and put your employees on a platform that issues its own.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Mindset is a buzzword right now, and I know it makes a lot of Christians nervous. It made me nervous a couple of years ago too, so today I want to rub some cats the wrong way. We grew up being taught that if you open my checkbook you can tell where my heart is. Nobody ever taught us how to think about money, only how to spend it. Then we had dinner with friends this week and one of them apologized for having a guest house, and I told her to stop. I do not care if you have ten Lamborghinis in a ten car garage. Deuteronomy 8:18 says God gives you the power to create wealth, and that is not the same as raining down manna, which was provision for a single day. One of my friends puts it this way: money in the hands of good people does good things. So why not you?Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Christians are taught how they spend money and almost never how they think about it, and that gap is where the guilt lives.Deuteronomy 8:18 says God gives you the power to create wealth, which is a different thing from raining down manna for a single day.If you resent the client while you are doing the work, your price is wrong.Wearing "I charge a lot less than those other people" as a badge is a money mindset problem, not a virtue.Spend time around people whose level of wealth makes you slightly uncomfortable, then ask them how they did it.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

A couple here in North Texas just got federal prison time for taking $4.2 million from more than forty families across six counties and leaving custom homes unfinished. What got me is that this is the second couple in our area in a few months, and I do not think either of them started out as a con artist. They got in over their head. The line from the court records tells you exactly how it happened: they commingled every client's installment payments in one operating account and used one family's deposit to pay the subcontractors on somebody else's job. Jonathan has seen the books behind that pattern more times than he can count, and he walks through what should have been there instead. Job costing. A written draw schedule the client sees up front. A separate bank account for every project, which Texas law already expects of you. If you are not a contractor, the takeaway still lands, because their social media looked incredible the entire time.One correction from the recording: we said six and a half years each. It is six and a half years for him and one month for her, plus three years of supervised release, and the judge staggered them so their four children are not without both parents at the same time. The $4.2 million, the forty plus victims, the six counties and the $2.8 million in restitution are all correct.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Taking a deposit from one client to pay for another client's job is the mechanism behind almost every contractor fraud case, and it starts long before anyone decides to steal.Texas already requires contractors to account for each project's funds separately, and almost no general contractor's books actually do it.A job costing tool, a written draw schedule and a separate bank account per project turn that risk into a system you can show anyone.A bid that comes in dramatically under everyone else's is a warning, not a bargain.What a business posts on social media tells you nothing about whether it can pay its subcontractors.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Somebody tells me my CPA is handling my financial strategy, and I nearly always have to say: almost certainly not. Unless you have signed a CFO engagement with them, what you are buying is tax preparation once a year, and if April is the only time you talk to them, it is already too late to do anything strategic. Bookkeeping, CFO strategy, tax preparation and tax planning are four separate services, and paying for one does not get you the others. So ask for a meeting to walk through your return. You know your business well enough to say that does not look right, and lately I have read a lot of returns where somebody should have. That is one of four we spun the wheel on today, along with the client I turned down at my own dinner table, and no, you cannot write off your clothing haul.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Turning away a paying client will not sink your business, and the ones who feel wrong on the first call usually are.A red flag at onboarding is real information: chronically late, unable to work the technology, or telling you outright about income they do not report.If you want it done right you delegate it, because eighty percent done by someone else beats a hundred percent that never gets done at all.Clothing is only deductible if you would not wear it anywhere else, so branded uniforms count and your haul does not.Bookkeeping, CFO strategy, tax preparation and tax planning are four separate services, and paying for one does not get you the others.Ask your tax preparer to walk you through your return, because you know your business well enough to catch what a rushed preparer missed.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

A Bluevine report came out in February that I cannot stop thinking about. They asked 785 small business owners about the reality of running one, and three in four said the trade off was worth it. But 56 percent hit cash flow trouble earlier and harder than they planned for, and only 4 percent regret it at all. So there is a chunk of people who got hit and would still do it again, and those are the gritty ones. Then a woman in one of my Facebook groups posted that she could not make payroll this month, and a thousand people answered her. Here is what I would have told her, free. Get a line of credit set up while things are good, because the bank makes it easy then. And when the emergency passes, sit down and find out what your profit margin actually is, because more revenue will not fix a broken one.Source: Bluevine, "The Reality of Owning a Small Business", February 2026, a survey of 785 US small business owners.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Set up a line of credit while your business is healthy and you do not need it, because that is the only time it is easy to get.More revenue will not fix a broken profit margin, it just runs the same broken margin at a larger scale.Your numbers will tell you more than your feelings will, and a year that feels tight is often a year that is growing.Put your business on a growth curve the way a pediatrician puts a baby on one, because falling off the curve is the earliest signal you will get.Mixed personal and business expenses, plus books that are not clean, plus a cash flow problem is the combination that puts a business days away from closing.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

We came to you live from the Settled conference on Friday, and I have been sitting with one thing Jason said ever since. Luke says give and it will be given to you, poured into your lap. But you only have a lap when you are sitting down. Standing up there is nowhere for the overflow to go, so every time somebody needs something you are pulling it straight out of your own cup. That is where resentment comes from. I have felt it, resenting the client who asked the fifteenth question this week, and underneath it is fear of losing them or of what they think of me. Sitting down is not laziness. It is releasing control. Then my one thing for the week, which is Enrique, a dry cleaner I met at a networking event who is completely convinced his is the best. You can find bookkeeping elsewhere. Why would you?Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:You only have a lap when you are sitting down, so a posture of releasing control is what makes room for anything to overflow to the people around you.Sitting down is not laziness, it is the difference between receiving something and white knuckling it into existence.Resentment is a signal, not a character flaw, and it usually means you have been pouring out of your own cup instead of out of the overflow.Under most of that resentment is scarcity: fear of losing a client, losing an employee, or being judged, all of it dressed up as trying to prove your worth.Be like Enrique. If you are not convinced yours is the best, nobody in the room will be either.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Get $500 with Bill Spend and ExpenseSpend your first $500 on the card and they pay it back to you. We are affiliates, and we use it ourselves.Today is Software Saturday and we are talking about Bill Spend and Expense, which we joined back when it was Divvy and still use every week. I will say it upfront: we are affiliates. I would also never recommend something I do not use myself. What I really want to get into is the business credit card side of it. Every business needs one, and no, running everything on your business debit card is not the same thing, because the fraud protection and the spending power just do not exist on debit. But this is not a card you carry a balance on. Credit cards are for expenses you pay off every month. They are not capital funding, so do not put equipment on one. Then the parts I love: photograph any receipt over seventy five dollars and it syncs straight to QuickBooks, a separate virtual card for every subscription, and a real budget for every employee. Jonathan pushed back when I called that control. He is right. It is empowerment.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Every business needs a business credit card, because the fraud protection and spending power that come with credit simply do not exist on a debit card.A credit card is for expenses you pay off every month, not for funding equipment, so finance the equipment separately.Keep documentation for anything over seventy five dollars, because that is the line above which the IRS can ask you to support the expense.Give each employee their own card with a set budget instead of passing yours around, and put every subscription on its own virtual card so one compromised number does not take down all of them.If you have a partner or employees the rule is a receipt for every dime, and removing the temptation to steal is a way of loving the people who work for you.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Happy Freedom Friday. Penny and Jonathan are recording this one from a coffee shop on the road to the Settled conference in Grapevine, which is exactly the kind of Freedom Friday they built the business for: being able to be at a conference on a Thursday night and a Friday. Nobody set the out of office. The conversation starts with something they picked up the night before, trust God with the results of your life, and Penny turns it into a live question for Jonathan. What if we stopped setting goals like sign twenty new clients this month and started setting them like go to this many events, shake this many hands, have this many conversations, and then released the results. Then Penny tells on herself. She raised a client's price by eighty dollars a month and the client left for someone cheaper, and it took her a while to get over it, and she still runs into that person at networking events. What she does with that is the point of the episode. Maybe they did not leave over the eighty dollars. Maybe they just did not like her, and that is allowed. Either way you do not get to let it imprint on you, and you do not get your image from a past client. From there they make the case for spending real money on yourself. Penny went to a fractional CFO conference alone last summer, talked herself into feeling disqualified on the way in, and walked out knowing she could have taught some of the sessions. The biggest thing conferences give you is not the content, it is finding out you are not the only one. And on iron sharpening iron, Jonathan points out the part everyone skips: the reason it sharpens is friction. Something has to rub you the wrong way. Set aside a budget for yourself and your leadership team, because your business cannot go any further than you can.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Trust God with the results, not just in general. You still show up and do the work he called you to do. You release what happens after.Try setting goals around the inputs you actually control. Not sign twenty clients, but go to this many events and have this many conversations, and let the results be results.Somebody leaving because you raised your price is not a verdict on you. Penny lost a client over eighty dollars a month and had to decide not to let it become a label she carried into every room after that.You do not get your image from past clients. Shake it off. The people you are called to will end up in your life and the ones you are not will walk out, and sometimes that is a mercy.Investing in yourself is not indulgent, it is a line item. Conferences, books, education, for you and for your leadership team, because your business cannot go any further than you can.The real return on a conference is finding out you are not alone. Penny went to a CFO conference convinced she was underqualified and left knowing she could have taught it.Iron sharpens iron because of the friction. If something rubs you the wrong way, sit with it before you decide it was wrong.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

On Tuesday we told the story of an owner who overpaid the IRS by about forty five thousand dollars because nobody was checking the work. Today is the follow up we promised: the questions to ask before you hand your books to anyone. Penny has roughly fifteen of them, and every one comes from something she has walked into. Will I get reports every single month, and by what date. Can I see the reconciliation reports themselves and not just a summary. Can you explain what these mean in plain English, and how does the profit and loss relate to the balance sheet. That last one matters more than it sounds, because if the person on the call cannot answer it, Penny says that is not a red flag, that is the end of the call. From there it gets into the parts most owners never think to ask about: exactly what access someone needs to your bank accounts and why read only is the only right answer, whether they carry errors and omissions and data breach insurance, whether they store your passwords and how, and whether anyone is talking to your tax preparer during the year instead of just in April. Along the way, the client whose bookkeeper emailed to say she was retiring and did not know how to fix what was wrong. Books where nothing had been done at all. And the owner who was with a CPA for twenty years and said Penny's team understood his business better in six months. If you want the whole list, they are giving it away, so DM Penny and she will send it.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:The bare minimum from anyone doing your books is a report every single month, with an agreed date. If you have never received one, that is your answer.Ask to see the reconciliation reports, not just a summary. You do not have to know how to read them. Asking says you intend to inspect the work, and that alone changes the relationship.Ask how the profit and loss relates to the balance sheet. Plenty of people doing this work only know how to clear a bank feed. If they cannot answer, end the call there.Read only access to your accounts is the right answer, and a good firm brings it up before you do. Too much access is how embezzlement happens, and some banks do not even offer the right permission level.Ask about the boring things nobody asks about: errors and omissions insurance, data breach cover, how your passwords are stored, and who is talking to your tax preparer between now and April.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

It is Wednesday, so the wheel is out and four business sayings go on trial. First one in, last one out gets thrown out fast: presence is not productivity, and Jonathan says plainly he does not want that culture for his team. Fake it till you make it gets rejected too, though not the way you would expect. Penny would rather faith it till she makes it, and she draws a clear line between doing something you have never done before and being dishonest about who you are. Then pricing, where they refuse to give a verdict on purpose, because every owner lowers their prices at the start and the real work is raising them until you start hearing no. Penny tells on herself about her first ten thousand dollar proposal, where the client never blinked and the only person who needed convincing was her. And then the one that matters most. Your gut is a liar, because your gut does not know the data. Penny had a client call convinced the Holy Spirit was leading her somewhere, and asked what the numbers said. Her answer is worth the whole episode: I will always tell you what the numbers look like, and I will never contradict the Holy Spirit. You are not stepping out in faith if you do not know what you are jumping off of.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Presence is not productivity. Being first in and last out is not a badge of honor, for you or for the people who work for you, and it quietly builds a culture that rewards hours instead of results.There is a difference between confidence and faking it. Saying yes to something you have never done and then figuring it out is stepping into uncomfortable. Pretending to be something you are not is a different thing entirely.You will start your pricing lower than where you end up, and that is fine. Raise it with each new client until you start hearing no, and raise it every year regardless.The person you have to convince about your price is usually you, not the client. Penny's first ten thousand dollar proposal went through without a blink.Faith and numbers are not opposites. Knowing exactly what you are jumping off of is what makes it a step of faith instead of a guess.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

"I can't afford a bookkeeper." Penny and Jonathan hear it constantly, so today they answer it with receipts instead of opinions. It starts with a client who was running Profit First correctly and then had a tax preparer count every transfer between accounts as income: roughly $90,000 of revenue reported as $280,000. On a conservative estimate, that is about $45,000 overpaid to the IRS, which raises the obvious question of whether you could have hired someone good for $45,000. From there it is one real story after another. $75,000 of overstated income found in the first thirty days. An $11,000 customer check sitting uncashed in a filing cabinet at a construction company. A $1,500 cleanup that turned up $60,000 of income that was never real. And a $600,000 startup loan a previous bookkeeper never recorded, which cost that owner a year of bonus depreciation. Penny also names the red flag most owners never think to check, and explains why so many of us will do our own books but would never dream of doing our own taxes. Then they close out with a new segment, Business Expense or Personal Expense, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. Not tax advice, and they say so on air.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:"I can't afford it" is usually the more expensive answer. In every story here, the cost of bad books was larger than the cost of good ones, and in the first case it was larger by about thirty times.Profit First works, but only if the transfers get booked as transfers. Money moving between your own accounts is not income, and both software and tax preparers get this wrong constantly.Reconciled does not mean correct. One set of books reconciled perfectly, to a book balance rather than a statement balance, while missing a $600,000 loan entirely.If your CPA or EA only asks you for a P&L and has no access to your books, treat that as a red flag. Somebody other than you needs to be looking at those numbers before they turn into a tax bill.The reason owners do their own books but not their own taxes is marketing, not difficulty. Accounting software spends heavily telling owners they can handle it themselves. No one runs that campaign for tax returns.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

It is Monday, which means we start before the inbox. Penny opens in Matthew 4, where the first thing the enemy goes after is not Jesus' power but his identity: "if you are the Son of God." Then Colossians 3, and a distinction worth sitting with, that chosen, holy and dearly loved are gifts you receive rather than things you earn. From there it gets practical fast. Penny has been at the homeschool table with a kid in tears over math saying "I'm not good at this," and she hears the grown-up version constantly from business owners: "I am not a numbers person." She is calling it what it is this morning. If you own a business, you are a numbers person, because money is made or lost in those numbers. Maybe you have never been shown them in a way that made sense, in charts instead of spreadsheets, or with someone willing to actually teach you. That is a different problem, and it is fixable. Make it your one thing this week.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways"I am not a numbers person" is a crutch, not a fact. If you own a business, you are a numbers person, because money is made or lost in those numbers.Not understanding your numbers is usually a delivery problem, not a you problem. Charts instead of spreadsheets, plain English instead of accounting language, or simply someone willing to teach you.Chosen, holy and dearly loved are gifts you receive, not standards you earn. Everything Colossians 3 asks you to put on comes after that, not before it.Your identity gets attacked hardest when you are doing something you have never done before, which for an owner is most weeks. Being unfamiliar with something is not evidence you were not built for it.Pick one thing each week that moves the business forward, and make it specific enough to finish. This week, understanding one number you have been avoiding is a good candidate.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

It's Software Saturday, and Penny is finally saying the thing out loud: QuickBooks was never built for you. Those commercials with the overwhelmed owner who signs up and suddenly has it all handled? That is the pet peeve. QuickBooks is genuinely good software, but it is accounting software made for accountants, and if you have opened it and felt lost, that is the product, not you. Jonathan is the proof, he loves software and it still intimidates him. They get into why QuickBooks Desktop is finished in 2026, why Intuit's AI still misses things any person would catch instantly, and the two honest reasons they keep using QuickBooks anyway. Then the part worth acting on: three features you should never run inside QuickBooks, and a five minute piece of homework that could mean you have been paying more income tax than you actually owe.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:If you are still on QuickBooks Desktop, move to Online. Intuit stopped updating Desktop, which means no security patches, and those files do eventually corrupt.QuickBooks is accounting software built for accountants. Feeling lost in it is not a personal failing, and no amount of interface polish changes what sits underneath.Open your undeposited funds account this week. It quietly duplicates income, and if there is a balance sitting there, you may be paying tax on money you never actually received.Do not run payroll, client payments, or vendor bill pay inside QuickBooks. Better tools exist for each, they integrate natively, and they usually cost the same or less.QuickBooks Online lets you see your own books. Desktop often means only your accountant can, and you deserve to be able to check the work you are paying for.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

It's Freedom Friday, and this one gets uncomfortably honest. Penny and Jonathan share their three wins of the week, and win number one is that they fired their marketing company. Roughly $20,000 spent across agencies in twelve months, about $18,000 with the last one, and exactly one client to show for it. They walk through the math that made the decision for them: a $125 lead that becomes $250 when 80% don't show up, then $375 to $500 once you count the ones who don't even own a business. As Penny puts it, it was a numbers decision, not a feelings decision. Then the good news: a new client, a $7 million company that came through a networking referral rather than any ad, where cleaning up last year's books turned up $190,000 of overstated income the owner was about to pay taxes on. There's also a spontaneous afternoon in Waco that has nothing to do with business and everything to do with the point of Freedom Friday.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:"It was a numbers decision, not a feelings decision." Run the real cost per closed client before you renew an agency. A $125 lead is $250 when 80% no show, and more once you strip out the ones who don't fit at all.Check your QuickBooks undeposited funds balance today. Receiving a payment and separately recording the deposit is the most common DIY bookkeeping mistake, and it quietly duplicates your income.Your CPA or EA is almost certainly not verifying that your books are correct. The engagement letter says they file based on what you gave them. Overstated income means paying tax on money that never hit your account.Revenue growth makes you more vulnerable to fraud, not less, because the owner can no longer personally see everything. Never give your bookkeeper check writing authority. Keep the trigger on your side.Buying software isn't the same as implementing it. A $7M company had 25 employees on Expensify that was never connected, so the owner was hand keying every transaction.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Today's question comes straight from Reddit: a brand-new founder with zero revenue was told by more than one accounting firm to elect S-Corp status right out of the gate — and he wasn't sure why Penny and Jonathan would tell him something different. Turns out an LLC is a legal entity and S-Corp is a tax election, and mixing those two up (plus a little fee-driven upselling from firms that charge more to file an S-Corp return) is exactly how new owners end up locked into payroll they can't actually afford. Penny breaks down why an LLC alone will never put money in your account, then she and Jonathan lay out the three things every new owner needs before they can really pay themselves: know your legal structure isn't your tax strategy, build a personal and business runway if you can, and decide your trigger for paying yourself off actual numbers, not vibes. If you've ever wondered when it's actually safe to start taking a paycheck from your own business, this is the episode.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:An LLC is a legal entity, not a tax structure — electing S-Corp status is a separate decision that shouldn't happen just because someone told you to.If more than one firm pushes you toward an S-Corp before you have revenue, ask why — S-Corp returns cost more to prepare, and that fee difference is sometimes the real reason for the advice.The IRS requires S-Corp owners to pay themselves a "reasonable salary" — don't elect that status until your business can actually support it.Build a 3–6 month personal runway and a 3–6 month business runway before you count on the business to cover your bills.Don't run on feelings — decide your trigger for paying yourself in advance (three consecutive profitable months is a good default) and let clean books make the call.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

It's Wednesday, which means it's time to spin the Wheel of Absolute Wisdom and put some TikTok "advice" on trial. First up: "your business is your baby" — true, and Penny and Jonathan lean all the way into the parenting comparison (yes, it still cries a lot, no, you don't get to sell it without a plan). Then things get spicy: "open an LLC and run all your personal expenses through it so they become tax-free business expenses" — a hard false, and Penny breaks down exactly why an LLC is a legal entity, not a tax structure, and why the IRS is not paying for your deodorant. They close it out with a real story from their own life — the G-Wagon depreciation myth, and what actually went into the car they bought instead. If you've ever taken financial advice from a stranger on the internet, this one's for you.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeawaysAn LLC is a legal entity, not a tax structure — it does nothing to your taxes until you elect S-Corp, C-Corp, or nonprofit status on top of it."It's a business expense" has a simple test: if you bought it before you owned the business and you'd still be buying it anyway, it's personal, not business.Vehicle tax strategies (like Section 179 depreciation) are real, but they're not a shortcut — weigh them against insurance, gas, and your actual tax situation with an advisor, not a TikTok caption.A good tax advisor should stress-test your idea, not just say yes — get someone you can actually call and talk scenarios through.Your business being "your baby" cuts both ways: it's fully your responsibility, but you're also allowed to build it to eventually hand off or sell, not carry it forever.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Today's Reddit post is a doozy: a 29-year-old COO trying to save his father's $16M logistics company — profitable on paper, but $300K behind on rent and delaying vendor payments just to make payroll. We break down exactly why "profitable on paper" so often doesn't mean money in the bank, what net income actually tells you (and what it doesn't), and the uncomfortable family dynamic at the center of it: a son with all the responsibility and none of the power, while dad still runs personal expenses through the business and refuses to sell assets to save it. Whether or not you're in a family business, this one's a masterclass in the difference between profit and cash flow — and why you can't fix one without fixing the other.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:"Profitable on paper" often just means nobody's actually looked at the paper — most business owners don't know their real numbers.Net income and cash in the bank are not the same thing — debt principal payments and owner draws live on the balance sheet, not the P&L.You need both cash-basis and accrual-basis views to actually know if you're profitable, especially past the $1M+ mark.Responsibility without authority is a recipe for resentment — if someone's running the business, they need the power to run it.Never let a business relationship cost you a family relationship. The business can be rebuilt; the relationship can't always be.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Before we look at a single email, invoice, or spreadsheet this week, we're starting right here — seeking God first. It's Monday Mindset, and today Penny tells the story of a pitch-black morning workout that turned into one of her favorite scriptures: John 1:5 — the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. We tie that straight into business: stop being afraid of what you'll find when you turn the light on your finances. Plus, we dig into Gary Keller's The One Thing and figure out the one focus that could make everything else in your business easier (or unnecessary) this week. Ours? Sales. What's yours?Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Every Monday, pause on God and your goals before diving into the work week.Fear of "turning on the light" in your finances is often worse than what you'll actually find.The One Thing by Gary Keller: figure out the single focus that makes everything else easier or unnecessary.This week's one thing for the show: 3 sales calls, close 1 of 3.DM us your own "one thing" this week — we'd love to hear it.The One Thing by Gary KellerThis show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

On Saturday's we review software and today, we’re diving into the magical world of Relay Bank, and trust me, it's like finding a unicorn in a field of donkeys. Seriously, if you’re a small business owner drowning in the chaos of financial systems, Relay is here to rescue you. It’s not just a bank; it’s a game-changer that automates the Profit First method, so you can actually keep your sanity while managing multiple accounts without pulling your hair out. We’re not here to bore accountants—sorry, not sorry—but to help you smooth out your financial grind with some slick software. So, if you're ready to stop guessing and start winning, buckle up because we’re about to spill the beans on why Relay might just be your new best buddy in business.Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:This podcast episode is all about helping tired business owners stop winging it and get real with their finances.We dive deep into the wonders of Relay Bank, the banking software that makes life way easier for small businesses.Relay Bank lets you open up to 20 checking accounts for free, which is like winning the financial lottery for business peeps.If you want to understand how to manage your finances without losing your mind, then this episode is totally for you.We share how Relay Bank uses the Profit First method to help you pay yourself and keep your business running smoothly.Don't even think about opening multiple accounts at a traditional bank; Relay Bank is where the cool kids are banking now.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

We've got a gem of a story today, folks, and it’s all about our girl Rosie. She came in hot with a serious bookkeeping mess that had her drowning in confusion and late tax filings, but don’t worry, we saved the day. We'll share how we turned her chaos into clarity and what freedom really looks like in the world of business. Plus, it’s Freedom Friday, so we’re all about celebrating the little wins too! Get ready to hear how Rosie went from stressing over her finances to feeling like a boss, because let’s face it, we all need a little laugh and some inspiration when the going gets tough. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a wild ride!Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:Freedom Fridays are all about celebrating wins, big or small, and sharing them.Rosie's story highlights the importance of having a reliable bookkeeper and CPA for success.Entrepreneurs need to separate personal and business finances to avoid confusion and chaos.Facing financial fears can feel daunting, but turning on the light reveals there’s no monster under the bed.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Caught in the whirlwind of social media fame and financial chaos, YouTuber WhistlinDiesel finds himself at the center of a storm with shocking revelations about tax evasion. Join us as we unpack this sensational story and give our take on the whole mess. If you’re a business owner navigating the murky waters of tax obligations or simply love a good tale of unexpected twists and turns, this episode is for you.In this engaging episode, we dive deep into the recent arrest of Cody Detweiler, better known as WhistlinDiesel, who is facing serious allegations following his flashy lifestyle showcased on YouTube. What led to his arrest, and how does it affect business owners everywhere?Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsThis show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels in business? We'll that's what we're doing on Wednesday's literally spinning the Wheel of Absolute Wisdom! Join us as we tackle the all-too-common myths that can derail even the most passionate entrepreneurs.Today, we're diving into the hilariously misguided notion that just building something will magically draw people in. Spoiler alert: it won’t. We’re all about helping those tired business owners ditch the guesswork and finally take control of their finances—because who doesn’t want to reclaim their paycheck and sanity? We’re spinning the Wheel of Absolute Wisdom today, which is basically our excuse to poke fun at some popular myths about working hard and hustling. So grab your coffee, or don’t—either way, let's chat about how working smarter, not harder, is the real key to success. Buckle up, folks, it’s gonna be a wild ride!Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsTakeaways:The myth that just building a website guarantees success is totally absurd; it doesn't work like that, folks.Grinding hard and working nonstop is a total myth; it just leads to burnout, not success.Contrary to popular belief, real productivity doesn't require an eight-hour workday, so stop clock-watching.Giving away your best stuff for free might seem smart, but it can backfire spectacularly in business.We need to remember that life is short, so enjoying it now is better than grinding for later.The idea that working harder equates to better results is a joke; sometimes resting leads to better productivity.This show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Today, we’re diving into the wild world of cash flow issues that can make even the most ambitious business owners wanna pull their hair out. We’ve got a real gem of a story from some 25-year-old dude who’s growing his industrial coatings biz faster than he can handle, but guess what? He’s drowning in cash flow problems. Yeah, he’s got clients and jobs lined up, but he’s waiting 30 days to get paid while scrambling to buy materials. Classic case of “I’m rich on paper but broke in real life,” right? We’ll break down what Sam (we're calling him that, because why not?) can do to keep his head above water and finally get some breathing room in his biz. So grab your snacks, kick back, and let’s figure out how to rescue this cash flow mess!Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsThis show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.

Let’s be real, starting a business can feel like a total circus, and that’s exactly what we tackle in this episode. We're diving into the struggles that so many entrepreneurs face—working double time just to keep their heads above water while neglecting their own financial needs. Penny also shares her own story of letting go of control and having some fun!Every Monday will be Monday Mindset. Before you dive into the endless emails and spreadsheets, it’s time to hit pause and focus on God and your goals. What’s the one thing you can nail down this week that’ll actually push your business forward?Book a Free Call with PennyConnect with us:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn1610 Financial SolutionsWe’re all about helping you tired business owners stop playing the guessing game and start building real financial systems. You know, the ones that actually let you take home a paycheck and maybe even reclaim a bit of your time. Join us every weekday (and Saturdays) at 8:30am for a daily reset before hitting the ground running.The One Thing question: "What's the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?"The One Thing by Gary KellerThis show is for general information and encouragement. It is not tax, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional about your particular situation before you make any decisions.