Small Business & Nonprofit Finance Blog

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.

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