GoFi8ure

After 25 years in this industry,
You can tell pretty quickly which camp a business falls into.

There's Camp #1.

We know how they earn their revenue,
Their cost of sales,
And what they own and what they owe.
We manage their payroll, their GST, and their cash flow.

Tax is never a surprise and prices going up isn't a drama.
Our meetings are about what's next - not dwelling on the past.

Then, there's Camp #2.

Their bank account goes up, so they spend it.
GST doesn't get paid.
Tax obligations get ignored.
And when we deliver the news, somehow we're the problem.

The difference between these two businesses isn't always size or industry,
Or how long they've been operating.

It almost always comes down to how they treat their finances:
Like a tool, or a tap.

We've all got a lot on right now.

Clients, staff, you - everyone's going through things.

A sick parent, a struggling relationship, a teenager doing something scary

- All kinds of grief that arrives unannounced.

And while in the middle of all of that,

It'll only take a single email to set you off.

Before you react,

Take a breath.

You don't always know what the person on the other side is carrying

- And they don't know what you're carrying either.

I'm not suggesting you let things slide or avoid the hard conversations

- That's the last thing you should do!

But there's a difference between holding a direct conversations and burning bridges.

One moves things forward and protects your sanity.

The other just leaves a mess - on both sides.

Human infidelity and accounting fraud share a lot of the same warning signs: secrecy, unexplained gaps, stories that don't quite reconcile, and an unusual interest in deleting evidence. Humanity really does love reinventing the same mistakes in different departments.

The Accounting "Affair" Warning Signs

If your books are showing these symptoms, they deserve attention:

Reconciliations are consistently delayed.
Adjusting journal entries appear at month-end without clear support.
One person controls everything (receipts, payments, bookkeeping, reconciliations).
Vendor payments increase without a clear business reason.
Cash shortages become "timing differences."
Supporting documents are always "somewhere else."
Financial reports arrive late or change after being issued.

What To Do About It

Unlike marriage counseling, accounting has the advantage of arithmetic.

Reconcile accounts monthly.
Separate duties whenever possible.
Require documentation for significant transactions.
Review exception reports and unusual entries.
Conduct periodic independent audits or reviews.
Create a culture where questions are normal, not personal attacks.
Investigate anomalies early rather than hoping they'll disappear.

The underlying lesson is the same: healthy relationships and healthy accounting systems both survive on transparency, accountability, and regular check-ins.

Also, if someone says, "Don't worry about it," while refusing to show you the receipts, whether it's a spouse or a ledger, that sentence has historically launched thousands of investigations.

Financial literacy isn't a business skill.
It's a life skill.

Look at all my posts over the years and thats the juice I'm drinking and sharing.

Proud to be a nominee
Ignition thank you

2026

Four questions.

That's all you need to understand your business:

How does it make money?
How does it spend money?
What does it own?
What does it owe?

If you can answer those four questions, even roughly,

You are ahead of a lot of business owners I speak to.

Most people can answer the first one,

Very few can confidently answer the last three.

And that gap is where the surprises live.

Like the tax bill you didn't see coming,

The cash flow crunch that hits out of nowhere,

Or the loan application that falls over.

Trust me, you don't need a finance degree to get it all down.

You just need a basic understanding of your own business, and ten minutes a day to stay across it.

I recently completed an exercise that asked me to write my own eulogy.

Not exactly the sort of homework that screams "fun Thursday afternoon."

The exercise asked questions like:

What will you be remembered for?

What did you stand for?

What mark did you leave on the world?

As I worked through it, something unexpected happened.

I realised that very little of what I hope people remember has anything to do with accounting.

Not tax returns.

Not software.

Not compliance.

Not financial statements.

What I hope people remember is that I helped people.

That I helped business owners gain confidence.

That I made numbers less intimidating.

That I challenged people to think differently.

That I shared what I knew.

That I left the accounting profession a little better than I found it.

For more than 20 years, I've believed accounting was never really about numbers.

The numbers simply tell the story.

The real work is helping people understand what those numbers mean and giving them the confidence to act.

Writing my eulogy forced me to ask a simple question:

If the things I hope to be remembered for matter most, am I spending enough time doing them today?

That's a question worth sitting with.

Because in the end, nobody's eulogy starts with:

"She was exceptional at bank reconciliations."

And thank goodness for that.

A reminder I needed recently:

Your body will eventually demand the rest your calendar refuses to allow.

We often treat exhaustion as evidence of commitment.

But burnout isn't a badge of honour.

It's a warning sign.

After reflecting on the loss of someone close, I was reminded how easy it is to keep pushing, postponing rest until "after this deadline" or "after this busy season."

The work will always be there.

The question is whether you'll still have the energy, health, and perspective to enjoy what you're working so hard to build.

Rest isn't the reward for productivity.

It's one of the things that makes productivity possible.

Some people object to things like it's a sport.

You send them an answer,

They find something wrong with it.

You explain the process,

They want to debate the process.

You do something thoughtful to save them time.

They complain about how you did it.

It's the same energy as some 1-star reviews I've seen for the Great Pyramids,

Where people actually complained about "too much sand" or how they "don't like triangles".

Point is, there are people out there who will find something to argue about regardless of what you deliver.

And you know what?

That's not your problem to solve.

Because your job is to do excellent work for the people who value it,

Not to spend your energy justifying your existence to people who've already decided to be dissatisfied.