Summit CFO

Call Directions Website

Summit CFO Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Summit CFO, Financial Consultant, Nashville, TN.

How much cash should a home service business keep for the slow season? 🏠💰 Here’s the simple 3-step cash cushion formula ...
10/15/2026

How much cash should a home service business keep for the slow season? 🏠💰 Here’s the simple 3-step cash cushion formula I use with my clients.

Every home service business has a slow season, and in those months revenue drops while your fixed costs don’t. 📉 The gap between those two lines is what a cash reserve pays for, so you never have to scramble for a loan or skip your own paycheck.

Step 1: Add up your monthly fixed costs. 🧾 That’s what you pay even in a month with zero jobs: core payroll, vehicles and equipment, rent or office, insurance, software and phones. In our example, that adds up to $20,000 a month. (Example numbers. Use your own!)

Step 2: Choose how many months to cover. 📆
✅ 3 months if you have steady work year-round
✅ 4 to 5 months if you have a clear slow season
✅ 6 months if you have strong seasonality, or you’re about to hire, expand, or buy
The more your revenue swings, the deeper your cushion should be.

Step 3: Multiply. That’s your target. ✖️ $20K x 4 months = an $80K cash cushion. 🎯

Build it in your busy months: $80K ÷ 6 busy months = about $13.3K set aside each month. Move it to a separate account the day revenue lands. Out of sight, out of the operating budget. 🔒

A cash reserve turns the slow season into a plan. 🧠

Not sure what your fixed costs really are, or how many months of cash your business needs? That’s the number we work out together. Link in bio to talk. 👇

Save this post for the next time you’re planning your budget. 📌

10/13/2026

Entrepreneur mindset: when your business gets hard, where do you look first? 👀

Most small business owners blame the economy. We blame clients. We blame AI. We blame just about everything except the one thing we can actually change. 🪞

In my conversation with Nacho Guzmán, founder of Latin Brand, he shared his best advice for anyone who needs to reinvent their business: focus on the internal factors, not the external ones. Looking inward isn’t about beating yourself up. It’s a healthy way to ask, “What can I change?” 💡

As business owners, we can’t control the market, the headlines, or the next tech disruption. But we can control our pricing, our numbers, our decisions, and how we show up every day. 🔑

That shift changes more than your results. It changes your attitude, and it gives control back to you as the owner. 💪

It’s also how I work with my clients as a fractional CFO: we stop worrying about what’s out of our hands and use financial clarity to act on what’s in them. 📊

Hear the full conversation, “From Near-Death Business Moments to Long-Term Success,” on the C-Suite Secrets podcast. Link in bio. 🎧

Wherever I travel, I end up noticing the same thing: someone is keeping the lights on. 💡The electrician who keeps the ho...
10/10/2026

Wherever I travel, I end up noticing the same thing: someone is keeping the lights on. 💡

The electrician who keeps the hotel running. The plumber behind the hot water at a mountain cabin. The mechanic who gets a stranded car moving again. [Swap in whatever matches the photo.]

Most of us never stop to think about these people. But I do, because I spend my days working with owners of businesses exactly like these.

And here’s what I’ve learned: the skill that keeps a place running is rarely the same skill that keeps a business healthy. These owners are incredible at their trade. They show up early, they solve the problem nobody else can, and their customers trust them. What most of them were never taught is how to read their numbers.

So they end up making big decisions on gut feeling. Hire or wait? Buy the truck or hold off? Raise prices or stay quiet? Sometimes the gut is right. But when you can’t see your numbers, every decision feels like a risk, and the business starts to feel heavier than it should.

That’s not a talent problem. It’s a “nobody showed me” problem. And it’s fixable. 🔧

You don’t need to become an accountant. You just need someone to help you see what’s already there, so you can make decisions with clarity instead of crossing your fingers.

If you know an owner who keeps their corner of the world running, tag them below. They deserve a little recognition today. 🙌

The worst thing you can do in a business isn’t making a bad call. It’s losing faith in yourself. 💭That’s one of the mome...
10/09/2026

The worst thing you can do in a business isn’t making a bad call. It’s losing faith in yourself. 💭

That’s one of the moments from my conversation with Nacho Guzman on “From Near-Death Business Moments to Long-Term Success” that stuck with me most. He pointed out that the real danger zone starts when you stop believing in yourself, because if you don’t, it’s hard to expect anyone else to. 🙌

Here’s the part I want every business owner to hear: if finances aren’t your thing, you don’t have to be the expert. But you do have to stay in the room. 🔑

Surround yourself with people who are great at it. Build a team you trust. Ask questions and learn the basics. What you shouldn’t do is hand over complete control and look away. Nacho shared that even people with huge earning power have been burned by doing exactly that. 😔

Trust is important, and so are controls. Staying involved doesn’t mean you don’t trust your team. It’s how you protect the business you’ve worked so hard to build. 💪

You don’t have to do it all yourself, but it is still your responsibility. 📊

Watch the full episode with Nacho Guzman, link in bio. 👇

Markup is NOT margin. 🚨 These two numbers get confused all the time, and the mix-up quietly eats into profit on every si...
10/07/2026

Markup is NOT margin. 🚨 These two numbers get confused all the time, and the mix-up quietly eats into profit on every single job.

Here’s the math: markup is profit divided by cost (what you add on top). Margin is profit divided by price (what you actually keep). Same numbers, different base — and because price is always bigger than cost, your margin will always be smaller than your markup. 📐

Let’s make it real. Say a job costs you $1,000. You add 30% markup, so you charge $1,300. Feels like you’re keeping 30%, right? Do the math on margin ($300 ÷ $1,300) and you’re actually at 23%. You planned for 30. You kept 23. On every single job. 💸

Zoom out and it gets clearer: out of every dollar you charge, 77 cents goes to cost and only 23 cents is profit — and that 23 cents still has to cover your office, insurance, vehicles, and your own paycheck. 🏠🚐

So if you actually want to keep 30%, here’s the fix: divide, don’t add. Price = cost ÷ (1 − target margin). On that same $1,000 job, that’s $1,000 ÷ 0.70 = $1,429. A 43% markup on cost — and $429 in profit instead of $300, on the exact same job. ✅

Save this cheat sheet for next time you’re quoting:
To keep 20% margin → mark up 25%
To keep 25% margin → mark up 33%
To keep 30% margin → mark up 43%
To keep 40% margin → mark up 67%
To keep 50% margin → mark up 100%

Not sure what margin your home service business actually needs to cover overhead and pay you? That’s a number we can find together. 🔢

Link in bio to talk. 👇

10/02/2026

Here’s a number that should scare you: 40%. 😳

I just wrapped up an accounting review for a business where more than 40% of its top-line revenue had been quietly pulled out by someone who should have never had that kind of access. Not a hacker. Not some elaborate scheme. Just someone who realized, over time, that nobody was really watching.

That’s the part that gets me most about small business fraud: it rarely starts big. It starts small, because it’s easy, and because the person doing it figures they won’t get caught. 🚩

So if you run a trades business — plumbing, electrical, HVAC, anything in between — here are 5 things worth putting in place to protect your money. Counting down, because number one is the one every single owner needs to be doing personally.

5️⃣ Separate who enters bills from who pays them. If one person can add a vendor, enter the bill, AND send the money, that’s too much control sitting with one set of hands.

4️⃣ Ditch the shared company credit cards. Give each person their own card, set spending limits, require receipts. You should always be able to answer: who spent it, where, and why.

3️⃣ Never let payroll run on autopilot. Review it before it leaves your account. Watch for strange overtime, surprise bonuses, pay rate changes, or names you don’t even recognize. And lock down who can actually change pay rates or direct deposit info.

2️⃣ Keep an eye on refunds, credits, voids, and discounts. Fraud doesn’t always look like someone writing themselves a check — sometimes it’s collecting from a customer, then quietly altering the invoice afterward.

1️⃣ And the big one: spend 15 minutes a week looking at your own money. Doesn’t matter if you have a bookkeeper, accountant, controller, or CFO — it’s still your money. Log in yourself. Check the big payments, scan the cards, glance at payroll. If something looks off, ask. 🔍

You don’t need to do your own books. But you do need to know where your money is going.

Trust is great. Trust with real financial controls is even better. 💪

“Your books are clean. But can you actually answer “”can we afford it?”” 🤔Here’s the difference nobody explains clearly:...
09/30/2026

“Your books are clean. But can you actually answer “”can we afford it?”” 🤔

Here’s the difference nobody explains clearly: a bookkeeper looks in the rearview mirror. A fractional CFO looks through the windshield.

One records what happened. Clean books, accurate history, answers to “”what did we spend?”” The other plans what happens next: cash forecasts, strategy, answers to “”what should we do?”” You need both — the question is when bookkeeping stops being enough. 📊

Here are 3 signs it’s time to add a fractional CFO to your team:

1️⃣ Your books are clean, but you still can’t answer “”can we afford it?”” Accurate history doesn’t make the next decision for you. When every big move feels like a gut call — hire another tech or buy the second truck? — you need someone modeling the options before you commit.

2️⃣ You’re making six-figure decisions on gut feel. Clean books tell you what happened. They don’t tell you what to do next.

3️⃣ You’re the only one who knows the numbers. “”Every money question in this company ends up on my desk.”” If you’re the finance department, you’re also the bottleneck. A thought partner shares the load and builds the system, so the business stops depending on your memory. 🧠

Recognized two out of three? Keep your bookkeeper. Add the person who helps you decide what the numbers mean — part-time, without a full-time CFO salary. 💪

Link in bio to talk. 👇
”

09/29/2026

We treat your business like it’s our own 💼

It’s something I say a lot, but today in my conversation with Renee Miller, founder of The Miller Group I really understood why it matters.

When you work with a client and truly invest in their business like it’s your own, something shifts. You want to see them succeed. You spend time on it. You think about it even outside of work hours. And that’s when the relationship stops being just “hey, what are my numbers?” or “how’s my campaign doing?” — it becomes something else. A different kind of connection. 🤝

Those are the clients who stick around. The ones who don’t churn every six months chasing the next deal. Because they feel like someone is invested in their success, not just collecting a fee.

Renee explained something that really stuck with me: personalization isn’t putting your customer’s first name in an email. It’s actually paying attention — to what people need, how they feel, and what they’re not saying but you can see if you’re looking closely. ✨

And as small business owners, we know what it means to give more than people see. So when we find people who do the same on the other side, that relationship is worth its weight in gold. 🙌

Watch the full episode with Renee Miller — link in bio. 👇

“Culture and data don’t usually get mentioned in the same sentence — but they should. 📊In this conversation, John C. Sco...
09/25/2026

“Culture and data don’t usually get mentioned in the same sentence — but they should. 📊

In this conversation, John C. Scott John Scott and I talked about how business leaders can use data, cash flow forecasting, and culture together to build something that lasts — instead of a business that only works when you’re the one holding it together.

If you’re scaling a team right now, this one’s worth revisiting.

🎧 Full episode link in bio.
”

09/22/2026

Is your competition using the same software as you?🤔
That’s the question that stuck with me from today’s conversation with Ghazenfer Mansoor, founder of Technology Rivers and author of Beyond the Download.
Because the answer, almost always, is yes.

We all use a CRM, we all have some kind of management software, we’re all chasing the same tool that’s supposed to set us apart… But if your competition is using the exact same thing you are, that tool isn’t differentiating you from anything. You’re both competing with the same weapon. ⚔️

Ghazenfer breaks this down in a way that really stuck with me: it’s not about throwing away your CRM and building something from scratch. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. It’s about your workflows — how you interact with your business, how you generate results with the tools you already have. 🔧

Your competition can copy the software. They can have the same Salesforce, the same HubSpot. But they can’t copy how you use it. That specific process, that way of working, is yours. ✨
At a moment when AI is multiplying business value for those who use it well, this distinction matters more than ever. 🤖

Watch the full episode with Ghazenfer Mansoor Ghazenfer Mansoor — link in bio 🚀

Address

Nashville, TN

Telephone

+16156225725

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Summit CFO posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category