Fight for your financial future for your small business

Hi Reader,

Fun Fact: Ground Hog Day data shows that predicting the weather based on a rodent is LESS accurate than making a random guess... so don't always trust what you hear.

I owe a HUGE shoutout on a pretty incredible partner:

A few months ago, one of my long-time clients was going through due diligence on a sale (in closed- wohooo!) and right before the final decision the client received a MASSIVE (~$432K) tax bill from the state of California.

I looked at it, and I knew it was a bogus number but a very real notice and we needed to act fast.

I'm not the hero of the story, Greg Reed from Smartbooks is the true hero. I quickly called him, we chatted and reviewed 2021 to confirmed that we knew no franchise tax was owed that year (the year CA was claiming we needed to pay for). He was able to work his magic and we decided with investors and legal that the right oath was to file the franchise tax at $800+ penalties for a total of $1200, not $432,000.

In a matter of hours, an issue of "what do we do with a $432K bill ?" went to a "resolved and paid tax of $1200." Now I'd really like to track down the CA people that sent it and explain that $0 was owed that year, but we'll take the win. and the credit all goes to Greg.

This story to me, highlights the biggest difference having the right financial team in place for your business. Myself, as a fractional CFO can't do everything, but I do know who the people are who can get you what you need in a pinch and get the right systems and strategy in place so issues are resolved quickly and don't become deal killers.

Let's get this newsletter started!

📋 What's inside

💤Quality Sleep and Quality Margins Check-in
🎬 Our latest YouTube video
📝 On the blog
🏆 How to work with us
🛠️ Finance Fight Club's Resource Toolkit
❤️ Natalie's Favorite Things
🔄 In case you missed it on the blog

💤 Quality Sleep and 💸 Quality Margins Check-in!

I announced in December my theme for 2026: Sleep + Margins.

To keep in front and center, I'm making it an entire section of the newsletter. Thanks for following along!

SLEEP:

In January I learned to let things go... it's been so helpful and relaxing and giving up control where I already have none.

This month I'm focusing on little steps I can take to improve the QUALITY of sleep. The big win for me has been: Turning off the WIFI when my husband and I go to bed. Makes. HUGE difference.

We live on acreage so our neighbors WIFI doesn't reach us, I don't know if this makes a difference if you live in a city, but I can tell when it's been left on vs off in how I wake up in the morning.

When we're trying to improve our businesses, often it's the smallest change that can make the biggest difference. Be on the lookout for how you can make a small incremental change that has impact on your overall goal. and let me know what that is, sent me a reply to this email and I'll include it in our next newsletter.

MARGINS:

Margins are hard. The biggest reason is that you can fake margins.

Yup I said it, Margins are what you make them and you can change as needed. What do you think a public company 10-K is? The real story? Ha! no it's what they want the shareholders to see.

Let's chat about Cost of Goods Sold for a second to see what I mean. If you are required to report GAAP financials, then COGS is pretty well defined, but even then you can change what goes into COGS. If you're a private company the choice is SOLEY yours what included in COGS. It's very easy to add or take away entire chunks of cost to raise or lower your gross margin to tell the story you want to tell.

The workaround here is: documented consistency.

Write down exactly what is and isn't included in Cost of Goods Sold and keep it that way. then you can get the real margin for your business and start to see results.

With new clients, we focus heavily on reviewing what is and isn't in COGS so we can get a true picture of the gross margin.

🎬 Finance Fight Club on YouTube

Ready for practical CFO wisdom in bite-sized videos? Discover simple tactics for profit, pay, and clarity in our new series—built for business owners who want results without jargon.