Small Business & Nonprofit Finance Blog

This is Part 2 of 4 in the Nonprofit Year-End Series, a guide to closing out your fiscal year, filing your 990, and walking into audit season prepared. The October Resignation That Changed Everything It was a Tuesday in late October when the finance manager sent the executive director a two-sentence email. She had taken a new position. Her last day was in two weeks. No transition plan. No process documentation. No handoff notes. Just a resignation and a countdown. When I got

This is Part 1 of 4 in the Nonprofit Year-End Series, a guide to closing out your fiscal year, filing your 990, and walking into audit season prepared. The Funder Meeting That Changed Everything A few years ago, I got a call from a client who had just left a meeting with a program officer at a foundation she had been working hard to build a relationship with. She was shaken. The meeting had started normally enough. They were discussing her organization's programs, outcomes, a

This is Part 4 of 4 in the Tax Season Survival Series, a guide to getting your small business finances ready for tax season without the scramble. The March Phone Call A few years ago, one of my CPA friends called me in the middle of March with a favor to ask. A mutual client had just dropped off his QuickBooks file, and she needed me to look at it before she could even start his return. "Jasmine," she said, "there are 800 unreviewed transactions. The balance sheet doesn't rec

This is Part 3 of 4 in the Tax Season Survival Series, a guide to getting your small business finances ready for tax season without the scramble. The Call That Changed How I Explain Taxes to Every Client The call came on a Tuesday morning in May. "Jasmine, I got a letter from the IRS. It says I owe $52,000 plus a $4,200 penalty. Is this real?" It was real. My client had his best year in business. A full $180,000 in net income. He had worked harder than ever, landed new client

By Jasmine Thompson, Stellar Consulting Inc. Let me tell you about a client I worked with a few years ago. She came to me three years into running her business. Sharp, successful, organized. The kind of business owner who kept excellent records, filed on time, and felt confident she had her finances under control. My job was her bookkeeping — keeping her records clean, her books current, and her financial picture accurate throughout the year. At her annual tax meeting, her CP

By Jasmine Thompson | Stellar Consulting Inc. Every November I get a version of the same call. It usually starts with some variation of: "Jasmine, I need to get my books ready for taxes. How bad is it?" Sometimes the answer is manageable. Sometimes it isn't. Last November, a client called me convinced things were "pretty much fine." She ran a small service business, had a steady revenue stream, and figured a little cleanup was all she needed. When I got into her books, the pi

By Jasmine Thompson | Stellar Consulting Inc. A client called me after receiving an email from a program officer she'd had a great relationship with for years. The email was about $4,200 of expenses she'd charged to a federal grant that the grant language didn't cover. She'd been a good steward of that grant in every other way, she just hadn't caught this one detail. Here's what happened, and more importantly, how we made sure it never happened again. The Call I Never Want Yo

By Jasmine Thompson | Stellar Consulting Inc. One of the first things I ask a new nonprofit client is: "Do you receive any federal funding?" If the answer is yes, the next question is: "Has anyone walked you through 2 CFR 200?" In almost every case, the answer is no, even from organizations that have been receiving federal grants for years. That always stops me in my tracks. Not because I'm surprised anymore, but because I know what that gap can cost an organization, in audit

By Jasmine Thompson | Stellar Consulting Inc. A client came to me after she had to let her first employee go after four months. She'd made the hire at what felt like the right moment, revenue was up, she was overwhelmed, and she needed help. But three months in, the cash wasn't there. She did everything right except check three numbers first. Hiring your first employee is one of the most significant financial decisions a small business owner makes, and one of the most emotion

By Jasmine Thompson, Stellar Consulting Inc. In the same month, I had two very different conversations about how owner's actually pay themselves. One client hadn't paid herself in three months. Another had been paying himself every week, more than the business could really sustain. Both situations were problems. Neither owner had meant for it to happen. Owner pay is one of the most personal, and most financially significant, decisions a small business owner makes. And it's on

By Jasmine Thompson | Stellar Consulting Inc. Over 20+ years of working with small business owners, I've collected a list of the beliefs that cost people the most money, not because anyone was careless, but because no one ever told them otherwise. Let me fix that. Every one of the myths below is something I've heard from real clients, smart, capable people who were working with incomplete information. None of these beliefs are your fault. Most of them came from well-meaning a

By Jasmine Thompson, Stellar Consulting Inc A few years ago a client called me on a Thursday afternoon. "Jasmine, I don't understand, we had our best month ever in September, but I'm looking at my bank account right now and I don't know how I'm making payroll on Friday." Here's what was actually happening. The Thursday Phone Call My client owned a catering and entertainment business here in Los Angeles. September had been incredible, multiple large events, a packed schedule,

By Jasmine Thompson | Stellar Consulting Inc The first thing I do when a new client gives me access to their QuickBooks is run a report I call the "chaos check." In 20+ years I've done this hundreds of times. What I'm about to share is what I almost always find and what it means for your business. I want to be clear before we go further: none of this is a reflection of your intelligence or your dedication to your business. The clients I work with are smart, hardworking people

By Jasmine Thompson | Stellar Consulting Inc Running a nonprofit or community-based organization today requires a level of financial sophistication that most organizations weren't built for and that funders increasingly expect. The mission is what drives you. The compliance is what keeps you funded. And somewhere in between, the financial management of the organization often becomes the thing that keeps executive directors and finance staff up at night. I've spent over 20 yea

By Jasmine Thompson | Stellar Consulting Inc There's a version of financial support that most small business owners know about: the bookkeeper. The person (or software) that records what happened — every sale, every expense, every payroll run — and keeps the records clean. And that matters. Clean records are the foundation of everything. But there's another level of financial support that most small business owners don't even know they can access — and it's the one that actua

The most financially confident small business owners I've worked with don't all have the most complex systems. They don't all have the biggest budgets or the fanciest software. What they have in common is this: they check in with their numbers every single month. Not at tax time. Not when something feels off. Not when the bank balance dips and there's a sinking feeling in the stomach. Every. Single. Month. And the check-in doesn't take long.

Let's be honest about something. Most small business owners don't struggle with bookkeeping because they're not smart or capable. They struggle because no one ever gave them a simple, practical system to follow — one that works in real life, week after week, not just during tax season panic. That's exactly why I created the Small Business Bookkeeping Bundle. It's not a course. It's not complicated software training. It's a ready-to-use toolkit — checklists, trackers, and plan

Running a small business in today's environment is not for the faint of heart. Between rising costs, inconsistent cash flow, the pressure of tax compliance, and the constant juggle of doing everything yourself — the financial side of business ownership can feel like it's working against you, even when things are technically going well. If you've been feeling the weight of it lately, I want you to know: what you're experiencing is real, it's common, and there's a path through

By Jasmine Thompson, Stellar Consulting Inc Every tax season, clients ask me some version of the same question: "What's the one thing I can do to stay on top of my books?" My answer has not changed in 20+ years: follow the checklist. Running a business means wearing a lot of hats. You're answering calls, responding to emails, managing your team, keeping clients happy, and trying to grow. Bookkeeping is the thing that keeps sliding to the bottom of the list — not because it's