Bookkeeping Made Simple

Bank feeds aren't reconciliation. Automatic downloads, transaction matching, bank rules, and AI can make bookkeeping much more efficient. But reconciliation is something different: it's the process of verifying your accounting records against independent evidence. In this episode of Books & Backbone, Donna explains what reconciliation actually is, what happens when the books don't...

Do you know your books are right — or have you simply been assuming they are? Hiring a bookkeeper should mean you don’t have to become an accounting expert. But completed books aren’t necessarily accurate books. In this episode of Books & Backbone, Donna walks through five signs that your financial records may deserve a closer look, including unusual bank balances, inaccurate accounts receivab...

Most business owners assume their financial reports are accurate because they exist. A P&L shows up. They read the bottom line. They accept it. What almost nobody asks — and what almost nobody has ever been told to ask — is whether the work behind it was done correctly. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris opens September with the concept that runs through the entire mont...

In July, Donna told the story of the business that couldn't be sold. This is the other story. The business that sells — that closes at a strong multiple, with a confident buyer, with a transition that goes well, and a seller who walks away having received full value for what they built. What separates that outcome from the one that ends in a stalled deal or a missed opportunity is not luck. It...

An earnout lets a buyer pay part of the purchase price after closing — based on whether the business continues to perform. Most sellers encounter them at the negotiating table without fully understanding what they're agreeing to. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris explains what earnouts actually are, when they protect the buyer at the seller's expense, when they can...

You don't have to be planning to sell your business to benefit from making it more valuable. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris walks through the five specific things that move a buyer from a 2x offer to a 4x offer — and why every one of them also makes the business better to run right now. Clean books maintained consistently. Recurring revenue. Documented systems. Team...

A viewer left a comment on one of Donna's YouTube shorts: his wife is a bookkeeper who thought she was going to make good money. She isn't. And now she's wondering if it's worth continuing. He's right. And he's wrong. Commodity bookkeeping — hourly transaction entry, competing on price — doesn't generate meaningful income. The math doesn't work. The market is under...

Feeling ready to hire and being financially ready to hire are two completely different things. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris gives you the specific framework for knowing — from the numbers — whether your business can actually support a new hire before you make the offer. She walks through the true cost of a hire (the salary is the floor, not the cost), the break-even c...

The profit and loss statement is the most important financial document in your business. Most business owners either skim it, misread it, or avoid it entirely — because nobody ever explained what it actually says. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris walks through the P&L in plain English. Section by section. With real numbers. Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Profit, O...

A buyer doesn't pay for your revenue. They don't pay for your reputation or your vision. They pay for what they can verify — from your books. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris breaks down exactly how small business valuation works from the buyer's perspective. She knows this territory from both sides — as a tax preparer and bookkeeper who has prepared financial...

The Qualified Business Income deduction allows S-Corp owners, LLC owners, and other pass-through business owners to deduct up to 20% of their qualified business income from their taxable income. It's been available since 2018. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made it permanent in July 2025. Most S-Corp owners still don't fully understand it. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donn...

Your highest-revenue client might be your least profitable one. Not because something went wrong. Because revenue and margin are not the same thing — and the indirect costs of serving a demanding, slow-paying, scope-creeping client almost never make it onto the invoice. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris walks through the client profitability analysis that changes how busin...

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law on July 4, 2025. It's the most significant small business tax legislation in nearly a decade. And most small business owners still don't know what's in it or what decisions they should be making because of it. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris breaks it down in plain English — no political commentary, no tax co...

Most business owners avoid the collections conversation. Not because they don't care about getting paid — because the conversation feels risky. What if it damages the relationship? What if the client is going through something? What if another week of silence resolves it on its own? It almost never does. And every week of silence turns a 30-day receivable into a 60-day one — and a 60-day one i...

Financial literacy doesn't mean knowing accounting. For a small business owner, it means something much more specific — and much more achievable. It's the ability to read your own numbers and act on what they tell you. Not to prepare them. Not to audit them. To read them, understand what they're saying, and make better decisions because of it. In this solo episode of Books & Backbo...

Checking your bank balance is not a cash flow strategy. It tells you where you are. It tells you nothing about where you're going. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris gives you the tool that replaces the bank balance check with actual visibility — the 13-week rolling cash flow forecast. What it is, how to build it in about an hour, what to watch for once it's running...

Before Donna Harris advises anything, she looks at five numbers. Not the whole profit and loss statement. Not a comprehensive financial analysis. Five specific numbers that take about ten minutes to find — and tell her more about what's actually going on in a business than anything else she could look at. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, she walks through all five: the revenue tre...

Profitable businesses run out of cash every day. Not struggling businesses. Profitable ones — with real clients, real revenue, real margins — that find themselves staring at a bank balance that doesn't match the success they feel like they're having. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris explains exactly why this happens. She starts with the story of a client who ran o...

Most business owners are operators. They show up, execute, and repeat. And there's nothing wrong with that — until the day they want to scale, step back, or sell. Because what an operator builds isn't a transferable business. It's a personal service delivery system that stops working the moment they stop showing up. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris breaks down...

Neil Juneja was in the room when cannabis was first legalized in Washington State. As founder and managing partner of Gleam Law, Neil represented the first cannabis licensees in Washington, was featured in Newsweek and Time Magazine, and has spent nearly 20 years navigating one of the most complicated regulatory environments in American business history. He's also handled partnership disputes...

July is done. Here's what it actually taught me. In this reflective solo episode, Donna Harris opens August by looking back at July — what landed, what surprised her, and what she's still thinking about. The $40K loan nobody mentioned. The tax refund episode that apparently made people uncomfortable. The Built to Last closer that pulled the whole month together. She also talks about what A...

July was about freedom. This episode is about what you build on it. In the month-closing episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris walks through the five specific markers of a business that is actually built to last — not built on a good month, not built on strong revenue, but built on a financial foundation solid enough to hold whatever comes next. Clean books maintained consistently. A profi...

Neil Juneja was in the room when cannabis was first legalized in Washington State. As founder and managing partner of Gleam Law, Neil represented the first cannabis licensees in Washington, was featured in Newsweek and Time Magazine, and has spent nearly 20 years navigating one of the most complicated regulatory environments in American business history. He's also handled partnership disputes...

Gaena Lu has been making almond milk for 13 years. It started with lactose intolerance and a holistic culinary school in Berkeley. It went through three rebrandings, a seven-day shelf life that made logistics nearly impossible, a move to refrigerated with 21 days, and eventually — two years ago — a leap to something nobody had done before: almond milk in a recyclable aluminum can. Shelf stable. No...

Most bookkeepers send a PDF and disappear. They categorize the transactions, reconcile the accounts, produce the reports, and deliver the file. Accurate. Compliant. And almost completely useless for actually running your business — because nobody explained what any of it means. The quarterly review is what changes that. It's a scheduled conversation — four times a year — where someone sits dow...