Bookkeeping Made Simple

Donna Harris
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Entrepreneurship

How do you use bookkeeping and accounting to grow your business? Are your reports such that you have no idea what they mean? When you need to crunch numbers, do you die a little inside? This podcast is meant to help entrepreneurs become powerful business leaders. We believe that excellence and entrepreneurship is the ultimate rebellion.

  1. 4h ago

    How to Know When You're Ready to Hire | Books & Backbone

    Feeling ready to hire and being financially ready to hire are two completely different things. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris gives you the specific framework for knowing — from the numbers — whether your business can actually support a new hire before you make the offer. She walks through the true cost of a hire (the salary is the floor, not the cost), the break-even calculation that tells you what your monthly revenue needs to consistently clear with the new hire in place, the 90-day cash flow model that tells you whether you can actually fund the payroll, and the one question that separates a confident hiring decision from an expensive bet on future revenue. She also covers the contractor option — why testing capacity before committing to a full salary is often the right sequence for a growing business — and what to do if the model shows you're not quite ready yet. The numbers know whether you're ready. Make sure you do too before you make the offer. Donna Harris, MBA, MAccCEO, Bookkeeping Made Simple LLCmysimplebookkeeping.com | 801-692-0032

  2. 16h ago

    How to Read a Profit and Loss Statement If You're Not an Accountant | Books & Backbone

    The profit and loss statement is the most important financial document in your business. Most business owners either skim it, misread it, or avoid it entirely — because nobody ever explained what it actually says. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris walks through the P&L in plain English. Section by section. With real numbers. Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Profit, Operating Expenses, Operating Income, Net Income — what each section is, what it's telling you, and what to look at every month in about ten minutes. She also gives you a practical monthly reading process that doesn't require accounting knowledge — just the willingness to open the report and ask a few specific questions about what you find. Financial literacy doesn't come from studying. It comes from looking at your own numbers. This episode shows you how. Donna Harris, MBA, MAccCEO, Bookkeeping Made Simple LLCmysimplebookkeeping.com | 801-692-0032

  3. 2d ago

    What a Buyer Will Pay for Your Business — and What They Won't | Books & Backbone

    A buyer doesn't pay for your revenue. They don't pay for your reputation or your vision. They pay for what they can verify — from your books. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris breaks down exactly how small business valuation works from the buyer's perspective. She knows this territory from both sides — as a tax preparer and bookkeeper who has prepared financial records for business sales, and as an active acquirer of bookkeeping and accounting firms who is doing due diligence right now. She covers what SDE is and why it's the only number that matters in a purchase negotiation, why the multiple is a measure of risk and what moves you from 2x to 4x, what buyers find in due diligence when books weren't prepared for scrutiny, and why the timeline problem — cleaning up your books the year you want to sell — is the most expensive mistake an exiting business owner can make. Three years of clean records. Recurring revenue. Documented systems. Team depth. Financial clarity. These are the five things that move the multiple. This episode tells you how to build them. Donna Harris, MBA, MAccCEO, Bookkeeping Made Simple LLCmysimplebookkeeping.com | 801-692-0032

  4. 2d ago

    The QBI Deduction Is Permanent — And Most S-Corp Owners Still Don't Understand It | Books & Backbone

    The Qualified Business Income deduction allows S-Corp owners, LLC owners, and other pass-through business owners to deduct up to 20% of their qualified business income from their taxable income. It's been available since 2018. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made it permanent in July 2025. Most S-Corp owners still don't fully understand it. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris — MBA, MAcc, and tax preparer — breaks down the QBI deduction completely. What it is, who qualifies, how the calculation works above the income thresholds, why the W-2 salary an S-Corp owner pays themselves directly affects the deduction, and why four out of five business owners she encounters aren't capturing it correctly. She also covers the four things to do before December 31 to make sure you're getting the full deduction you're entitled to — including why none of it works without clean, accurate, current books. The deduction is there. Make sure you're getting it. Donna Harris, MBA, MAccCEO, Bookkeeping Made Simple LLCmysimplebookkeeping.com | 801-692-0032

  5. 5d ago

    Why Your Highest-Revenue Client Might Be Your Least Profitable | Books & Backbone

    Your highest-revenue client might be your least profitable one. Not because something went wrong. Because revenue and margin are not the same thing — and the indirect costs of serving a demanding, slow-paying, scope-creeping client almost never make it onto the invoice. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris walks through the client profitability analysis that changes how business owners think about growth. She breaks down the three types of clients every business has — the genuinely profitable, the marginally profitable but worth keeping, and the quietly costly — and gives you a simple, one-hour process for figuring out which category each of your clients falls into. Then she talks about what to do with what you find. How to reprice, rescope, or quietly exit a relationship that isn't working financially — without confrontation, without drama, and without losing the clients worth keeping. The businesses that scale well know what their best clients look like. This episode helps you find out. Donna Harris, MBA, MAccCEO, Bookkeeping Made Simple LLCmysimplebookkeeping.com | 801-692-0032

  6. 6d ago

    What the One Big Beautiful Bill Means for Your Small Business | Books & Backbone

    The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law on July 4, 2025. It's the most significant small business tax legislation in nearly a decade. And most small business owners still don't know what's in it or what decisions they should be making because of it. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris breaks it down in plain English — no political commentary, no tax code jargon. Just what passed, what it means for pass-through business owners, and what to do before December 31. The QBI deduction — the 20% deduction for S-Corps, LLCs, partnerships, and sole proprietors — is now permanent. Bonus depreciation is back at 100% for qualifying property placed in service after January 19, 2025. Section 179 has been expanded to $2.5 million. These are real, meaningful tax saving opportunities available right now. Whether you capture them depends on whether you know about them — and whether your books are clean enough to support the calculations. Donna Harris, MBA, MAccCEO, Bookkeeping Made Simple LLCmysimplebookkeeping.com | 801-692-0032

  7. Aug 12

    How to Collect Receivables Without Damaging Client Relationships | Books & Backbone

    Most business owners avoid the collections conversation. Not because they don't care about getting paid — because the conversation feels risky. What if it damages the relationship? What if the client is going through something? What if another week of silence resolves it on its own? It almost never does. And every week of silence turns a 30-day receivable into a 60-day one — and a 60-day one into a write-off. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris gives you the complete collections process — step by step, with specific language for every stage. The 30-day email. The 45-day follow-up. The 60-day phone call. The formal notice at 90 days. And the decision you have to make when it goes past that. She also covers the accounts receivable aging report — the most important cash flow tool most business owners aren't looking at — and three things that prevent most receivables problems before they start. The money is already earned. It's sitting in your receivables column instead of your bank account. This episode tells you how to move it. Donna Harris, MBA, MAccCEO, Bookkeeping Made Simple LLCmysimplebookkeeping.com | 801-692-0032

  8. Aug 11

    What Financial Literacy Actually Means for a Business Owner | Books & Backbone

    Financial literacy doesn't mean knowing accounting. For a small business owner, it means something much more specific — and much more achievable. It's the ability to read your own numbers and act on what they tell you. Not to prepare them. Not to audit them. To read them, understand what they're saying, and make better decisions because of it. In this solo episode of Books & Backbone, Donna Harris breaks down what financial literacy actually is for a business owner, what it costs when you don't have it, and what specifically changes when you do. The hiring decisions made on data instead of hope. The prices set on margin instead of guesswork. The banker conversations held with confidence instead of anxiety. She also talks about how financial literacy actually develops — not through a course or a curriculum, but through one good conversation with someone who explains your numbers in plain English. And what happens in that moment when the reports stop feeling like a verdict and start feeling like a tool. Three specific things to do this week to start building it. One conversation to have that changes everything. Donna Harris, MBA, MAccCEO, Bookkeeping Made Simple LLCmysimplebookkeeping.com | 801-692-0032

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About

How do you use bookkeeping and accounting to grow your business? Are your reports such that you have no idea what they mean? When you need to crunch numbers, do you die a little inside? This podcast is meant to help entrepreneurs become powerful business leaders. We believe that excellence and entrepreneurship is the ultimate rebellion.

Information

  • Creator
    Donna Harris
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    165
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Donna Harris
  • Show Website
    Bookkeeping Made Simple