Jonathan Reich 
Evaluating the “best value” in startup accounting software requires a reassessment of how founders and finance operators calculate cost. In the early stages of building a company, it is incredibly tempting to navigate to a software provider’s pricing page, sort from lowest to highest, and select the platform with the cheapest monthly subscription fee (a … Read more
The transition from a signed term sheet to a functioning, private equity-backed finance department is the most critical operational hurdle in the investment lifecycle. In the middle market, acquirers frequently purchase companies that possess phenomenal products or services but operate with severely underdeveloped financial infrastructure. The target company’s financial reality on Day 1 typically consists … Read more
Kimblewick Group sits in the operator-led finance advisory lane. It’s positioned around foundational finance, strategic finance, and transaction advisory, with services that include accounting oversight, budgeting, reporting, financial modeling, KPI tracking, fundraising support, sell-side M&A, buy-side M&A, and investor relations. Basically, they can help you run your business if you don’t know how to best … Read more
Selling your business is one of the hardest decisions you’ll ever make. But to private equity firms who are buying your cash flow, it’s not much more than a transaction. So even if you’ve poured your heart and soul into your life’s work, if your financials are messy, undocumented, or rely on informal startup-era accounting, … Read more
Switching accounting software sounds simple at first — until you remember what lives inside the old system: your chart of accounts, customer list, vendor list, transaction history, bank reconciliations, open invoices, unpaid bills… the list goes on and on. That’s why I see most business owners stay in the wrong accounting system too long. It’s … Read more
I didn’t switch from QuickBooks Online because it was bad software. That’s oversimplifying it, and it’s not true anyway. QBO works, works well, and is overall a great software. It’s ubiquitous for a reason, after all. Besides, QBO did a lot for us. It held the books together, handled the basics, and gave us the … Read more
Payment processing for digital products can get messy faster than you might think. A shoe store can prove delivery with just a tracking number, whereas a digital template seller has to prove that a download link worked, an email was sent, or a customer accessed the file. This means that a course creator might have … Read more
Most merchants don’t really think about their chargeback ratio until someone else brings it up, and unfortunately, that someone else is usually the payment processor. Maybe you get an email saying your account is being reviewed. Maybe your processor warns you that your dispute activity is trending too high (usually around the 1% mark). Or … Read more
Start Tax Planning Before the Buyer Shows Up Most founders start thinking about taxes after the letter of intent shows up, and I think that is totally backwards. By the time a buyer is serious, the tax levers may already be locked in. Your entity structure is what it is. Your books either support the … Read more
Most merchants learn about chargebacks the hard way. A customer disputes a charge, and suddenly the money is pulled from their merchant account. A fee shows up, and your processor sends a notice with a strict deadline. You look at the reason code, the transaction record, the shipping details, and the emails, trying to figure … Read more
Rippling is great when it comes to handling the people side of the business: payroll, benefits, onboarding, device management, employee data, contractor payments, and a growing list of finance workflows. But Rippling has its shortcomings as a general ledger or accounting system. Why is this important? It matters because payroll does not stop at paying … Read more
SaaS accounting looks simple from the outside. You sell software, customers pay monthly or annually, and revenue comes in through Stripe, ACH, credit card, or invoice. You’ll have payroll, contractors, hosting costs, software subscriptions, sales commissions, and maybe a few vendors, but on paper, it seems cleaner than a restaurant or even a retail business … Read more
I’m a CPA, so I tend to look at merchant fees the same way I look at any other line item on a P&L: not as a fixed cost, but as a cost that can be measured, challenged, and improved! Too many business owners treat credit card processing like rent and they assume it is … Read more
Payout speed is an important metric to judge payment processors by, but there’s more to it than just # of hours. As a CPA, I care more about what that speed does to working capital, payroll timing, vendor payments, margin, and how much cleanup your accounting team (ME!) may have to do after the fact. … Read more
When a finance partner gets acquired, clients start doing math. Not panic math, but practical math. They start to ask themselves questions like, will my main contact stay? Will pricing change? Will the new parent push a bigger-firm service model? Will my business still be the kind of client they built around, or am I … Read more
If you’re shopping for a Pilot alternative, you’re probably not looking for “bookkeeping but from someone else.” You’re looking for a finance partner that can help you close the books, forecast cash, clean up tax pain, support lenders or investors, and give you better answers than a dashboard ever could. After all, a good outsourced … Read more