Make Your Numbers Makes Cents

For some reason, many people believe that math prevents them from being financially intelligent. Math is NOT the issue. Bookkeeping is a logical system, and you have to understand what you are looking at, and that is how a bookkeeper can help you make sense of your business in your financials. Meet with a bookkeeper: www.calendly.com/coeurbridge Obtain your full copy of the book, OWN YOUR NUMBERS...

When a new client or a referral partner asks what you do, do you have a clean answer ready to send? This episode walks through the one-page handout I use for my own bookkeeping business — who we are, how we got started, and the ways we help. Mine is a simple black-and-white PDF I email when someone inquires; no printing, no design budget, nothing fancy. You can take it as a template and build your...

The cheapest, most reliable marketing for a service business isn't ads — it's people who send you clients. This is how you build a steady stream of them, on purpose. Start with your natural referral partners: people who already work with your ideal client but don't do what you do. For a bookkeeper, that's CPAs, enrolled agents, tax pros, financial planners, and solo CFOs — they all have clients wh...

The most daunting part of starting a business isn't the idea — it's finding the first client. This is the overview: where your people actually are, and how to reach them. It depends on what you're building. A retail shop has foot traffic; a virtual service business has to go find its people on purpose. So the first question is always the same — where do the people who want what you sell already ga...

Getting a federal EIN — your employer identification number — is one of the first setup steps, and it's free straight from the IRS. The real question most new owners have is just whether they need one, and how to do it without paying a service to do it for them. You're required to have one the moment you run payroll. But even as a sole proprietor with no employees, two reasons make it worth gettin...

To start a business in Washington State, you will reserve your business name with the Secretary of State. For those of you starting a business in another state, Google your Secretary of State site. Likely, the process will be similar. Otherwise, contact us or another bookkeeping or CPA company to help you! If you need assistance, book time here: calendly.com/coeurbridge Video of this podcast episo...

If you run an LLC, an S-corp, or you're a sole proprietor, the IRS wants its share as you earn it — not in one lump in April. Wait until then to catch up and they'll penalize you anyway. So you pay quarterly, in estimates. Here's the rough method. Take your net income for the quarter — your bottom-line P&L — and multiply it by your tax rate. Not sure what your rate is? Pull last year's 1040; i...

When starting a business, which legal form of business should you choose? You can always change this choice, so listen today and use this as a jumping-off point for making this initial decision about your own business. This is not legal advice; for that, you would need to consult a lawyer or speak with insurance providers. However, you will have a good place to start! Do you learn better on video?...

Any business needs to consider marketing, contracting, tools, and operations in building a company. This is an overview of these areas, which will dive into each of the separate categories in much more detail. Downloads: https://coeurbridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Sample-Cash-Flow-Forecast.xlsx https://coeurbridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SCORE-Startup-Business-Plan-Template.docx http...

How long could a business survive if the money stopped coming in tomorrow? Worth asking about any company you're studying — and urgent about your own. COVID made it real for many owners, and most have never actually run the numbers. There's a simple way to find it — the same way you'd size up a personal emergency fund. Take a month of operating expenses, then the cash on hand that isn't already sp...

Can't I pay them on a 1099? Most owners ask it, because payroll is a hassle and contractors seem simpler. But get it wrong and the IRS comes looking for the FICA and income tax you should have withheld. The IRS weighs three things: behavior (do you control how the work gets done?), finances (who provides the tools, and does this person sell the same service to other companies?), and relationship (...

Most small businesses that fail will fail due to cash flow. Here's one of the most common ways it happens — and it's avoidable. When you invoice a client, you collect sales tax. In Washington, business and occupancy tax, too. That money lands in your checking account, but it was never yours to spend — it belongs to the state. Leave it sitting in your operating account, and you'll spend it without...

Hi everyone, in this episode, we discuss the final step in best practices regarding 1099s and how to file them. Depending on your software, you may have to fill these out manually or use a service like Tax1099.com, or you can file them electronically through your accounting software. If you want to take a Best Practices 1099 course with our training partner, Springboard, go to courses.springboard-...

In this episode, we discuss the second best practices step in handling 1099's as a small business. Here, we discuss updating vendor records and how they map appropriately to 1099 reporting. Also, our partners at Springboard have a 1099 best practices class that you can take for 50% off if you go to courses.springboard-learning.com and use the code 1099HALF on checkout. Also, if you are a small bus...

The whole 1099 process gets easier if you fix one thing at the front: get a W-9 from every vendor before you pay them. Make it a condition of working with you — a condition of getting paid — and people hand it over without a fight. A 1099 covers anyone you pay who isn't on payroll. Most big vendors — Zoom, Adobe, your payroll company — are C-corps you won't file a 1099 for, but get the W-9 on file...

Hosted by Julie Bonner. Bookkeeping and financial help for business owners — https://coeurbridge.com

Bookkeeper, accountant, CPA, CFO, wealth manager — starting out, it's not obvious which one you actually need, or when. This episode sorts it out by where you are in your business's life cycle. At startup, you need a solid bookkeeper to set up your books, get you enrolled with the tax agencies, and keep you compliant — and probably a CPA for tax strategy. As you grow, a part-time CFO earns its kee...

You had a profitable year — the P&L says so — and there's nothing in the bank. How? Because profit and cash are not the same thing, and almost nobody gets taught the difference. Profit is a timing story. You can book revenue before the cash shows up — invoice a customer on net-30, and the sale lands this month while the money lands next. It runs the other way too: sell a $100 gift card, and yo...

If you're thinking about starting a business, one of the best free research tools is sitting on the SEC's website: the 10-K of a public company that already does what you want to do. Say you want to open a coffee shop. Pull Starbucks' 10-K and read it like a detective — search the document one word at a time and see what each turns up. Search "product," and you learn exactly what they sell, and wh...

Whether you're researching an industry before you start, sizing up a company you might invest in, or just want to understand the numbers where you work — financial analysis starts in the same place: knowing where to look. Say you're interested in the coffee business. You can learn a lot from a company that already does it well. Work for one. Be a customer and pay attention. And read the financials...

You don't have to take a CEO's word for how a company is doing. You don't have to take your financial advisor's word either. The whole point of learning financial analysis is to read the numbers yourself and make up your own mind. This is the introduction — the map of what reading a company's financials actually involves. Start with what the company sells; if you can't understand that, it's a flag...

Financial statements look like a foreign language until someone shows you the trick: they're just your own money, scaled up. That's the whole on-ramp to financial intelligence. A profit-and-loss statement is a household budget — money coming in, the cost of running the place, what's left at the bottom. A company calls the leftover "net profit"; you call it discretionary income; same shape. A balan...