Beyond the Bottom Line

The team has no room for more work, and business owners are more ready than ever to switch firms or finally look at the R&D tax credit. That is the contradiction of the weeks between the September 15 and October 15 deadlines. Miguel Alexander Centeno sits down with Ashton Chanana to talk about how he balances sales against team capacity during the busiest stretch of the year, including a recen...

Testing the Untestable: Building Happy Path with Noah Bortz Long before he was automating enterprise software testing, Noah Borts was selling herbal cigarettes in high school, building a catering-scheduling platform that launched three months before COVID, and learning, the hard way, what it means to find a problem that's actually big enough to build a company around. On this episode of Beyon...

In this episode of Under the Hood, Daniela turns the interview around and puts Miguel in the hot seat. They get into what burnout actually looks like for him, not too much work, but doing the wrong things at the wrong time of day, and how structuring his schedule around his own energy, rather than just pushing through, changed how he leads the team. Miguel also reflects on a prediction that didn&a...

Every founder's inbox is drowning in AI-generated outreach. So where's left to actually reach people? In this episode, Miguel talks with Sharon Melzer, co-founder of Venue Hopper, a targeted event marketing company that connects tech companies to communities in New York City. Sharon is also a content creator and marketer currently finishing her degree at NYU, sharing her take on entrepre...

Behind the Bookkeeping In this Under the Hood minisode, Miguel sits down with Renee and Maria, two of the people quietly keeping the firm's client work running behind the scenes. Renee, who's stepping from client success and project management into an operations role, and Maria, an accountant managing the full accounting cycle for clients, talk through what a real day looks like, from Re...

Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit Most business owners plan a launch, run it, and move on to the next thing, without ever asking their team what worked and what didn't. Randy Miller learned a different way in the U.S. Air Force, where every mission ended with a "debrief," and rank didn't matter once the discussion started. In this episode, Miguel sits down with Randy Miller,...

Lessons and the Future This time, Daniela flips the script and interviews Miguel and he doesn't get to dodge anything. She starts with a question every partnership faces: what happens when the two of you disagree on a live client call? Miguel walks through how he handles it (hint: the client never sees the disagreement). From there, things get more personal — the last time Miguel actually bur...

What happens when a self-taught 14-year-old hacker from the Dominican Republic grows up to rebuild the payments infrastructure for an entire industry? On this episode of Beyond the Bottom Line , Miguel sits down with Rodrigo Romero, founder and CEO of Aloha, a Miami-based fintech company building the banking and payments infrastructure powering the future of travel across the Americas. Rodrigo&apo...

Building a Business Partnership: Miguel & Daniela's Origin Story What does it actually take to merge two firms into one? In this minisode, Miguel sits down with his business partner, Daniela Menache, to talk about the real story behind how their partnership came together — nerves, negotiations, and all. Before they were partners, Daniela was running a full-service firm on her own, persona...

If your business can't run without you for a month, it's not a business yet, it's a job. In this episode, Miguel sits down with Christine "Chrissy" McDannell, serial entrepreneur, author, and founder of Magnolia Firm, a boutique M&A brokerage known for handling digital business exits from start to finish. Chrissy has personally built and exited 10 startups and now help...

We get asked a lot of questions at Centurion Firm questions like, "If I can't pay my taxes, do I even need to file?" or "Isn't transferring money to myself the same as payroll?" Most clients feel a little embarrassed to ask these questions out loud, so in this minisode, Miguel's partner, Daniela Menache, decided to answer them anyway. There are no stupid question...

What if the "raise" that was supposed to keep you happy was actually the moment you realized you needed to leave? In this episode, Miguel Alexander Centeno joins Alex Roman, host of Humans in Accounting, for a wide-ranging conversation about the real path from Big Four tax to founding Centurion Firm. It's a rare chance to hear Miguel on the other side of the mic, answering the kinds...

Most business owners think they need a CFO. What they actually need is a controller. In this episode of Beyond the Bottom Line, Miguel Centeno sits down with Nikole Mackenzie, founder of Momentum Accounting, to unpack why so many growing businesses hire the wrong financial help at the wrong time, and what actually causes a business to look profitable on paper while running out of cash in the bank....

Most people think resilience means toughing it out. Ashton has learned it's actually about not making a bad moment worse. In this minisode, Miguel sits down with Ashton to learn the habits that keep him steady under pressure, from how he structures his day around his own energy to the boundaries that protect his focus, to the mental process he runs before responding to an angry client instead...

Most business owners think cybersecurity is about hackers in hoodies breaking through firewalls. The reality is far simpler, and far scarier: your biggest security risk is your own people. In this episode, Miguel sits down with Matt Mulcahy, founder of Miami Cyber, to unpack what cybersecurity actually looks like for small and mid-sized businesses in the age of AI. Matt shares how a $25 million wi...

We're bringing this one back because the conversation is more relevant than ever, AI search isn't slowing down, and neither is the impact on your business visibility. Many business owners are watching their website traffic drop without understanding why. Miguel experienced this firsthand when Tax Hack's blog traffic plummeted from 88,000 to 3,000 unique visitors. The culprit? AI ove...

Most founders learn leadership through business books, mentors, or painful trial and error. Miguel learned some of his most important leadership lessons at the dinner table. In this minisode, Miguel reflects on how raising kids, especially through the messiest, most humbling moments, quietly shaped the way he leads his team. The same instinct that makes a founder dangerous at work, the certainty t...

Most entrepreneurs are great at building systems for their business. Calendars, processes, accountability, all of it. But very few build systems for being present. Miguel has been an entrepreneur and a father since he was 17, and one of the hardest lessons he's learned isn't about scaling a firm, it's about learning to actually show up for the moments happening right in front of him...

Why do so many AI initiatives fail despite the massive investment and excitement surrounding artificial intelligence? In this episode, Miguel sits down with Art   Shectman , Founder and CEO of Elephant Ventures , to discuss how businesses can move beyond AI experimentation and start creating real operational impact. An MIT-trained engineer and technology leader with more than 20 years of experienc...

In this special edition of Beyond the Bottom Line , Miguel breaks down the most important tax and strategy updates shaping how business owners should plan right now. For the first time in several years, businesses are operating in a more stable tax environment without constant retroactive changes reshaping prior filings. With clarity from recent legislation, the focus now shifts from reacting to p...

In this minisode of Under the Hood , Miguel and Ashton discuss one of the firm’s core values: Harmony in Life, Success at Work . They break down why building a successful company isn’t about maximizing hours worked, but about managing energy, creating space to recharge, and giving people the flexibility to fully show up both personally and professionally. From four-day workweeks and Flex Fridays t...

In this episode of Beyond the Bottom Line , Miguel sits down with Jenn Cordova, founder and creative director of Jenn Cordova Design , to talk about what it really takes to build a brand that stands out and actually sells. Jenn shares her journey from working in-house design roles to building her own creative studio, driven by the need for more creativity, challenge, and ownership over her work. W...

In this episode of Under the Hood , Miguel and Ashton go behind the scenes of what it actually took to get through this year’s 4/15 deadline. From scaling the team and integrating a new acquisition to making tough calls on client fit, they break down how the firm operated at its highest capacity yet. They talk through the decision to intentionally “churn” clients, how they structured service tiers...

Most businesses know they need better systems. The problem is figuring out what to build, where to start, and how to make sure it actually drives results instead of creating more complexity. In this episode, Miguel sits down with Pablo, Co-Founder of CodingIT, and Chester McLaughlin, Engineering Manager at CodingIT, to break down what it really takes to build custom software that supports growth....

A lot of business owners spend time trying to get everything right before they make a move. The plan, the structure, the tools, the details. But in reality, most of the progress comes from starting, learning as you go, and adjusting along the way. In this episode, Miguel sits down with Zohaib “Zo” Peti to talk through his path from early hustles to building and scaling multiple businesses. He shar...