Propel Bookkeeping Company LLC

10/06/2026

Your P&L says you made money. Your bank account disagrees.

Who's lying?

Usually neither.

You're just underbilled — the work's done, the invoice hasn't gone out, and you're financing the project with your own cash.

Or you're overbilled, and that "great month" was really next month's revenue arriving early. One bad stretch and the hole opens up.

$1M+ contractors live and die on this number, not on revenue.

If you can't answer "are we overbilled or underbilled?" in 10 seconds, run a WIP schedule.

MONTHLY.

Not quarterly. Monthly!

10/05/2026

Your best client might be your worst client!!

Not the one who pays late. The one who pays on time, every time — while quietly eating 40 partner hours a month at a rate that doesn't cover the cost.

Most $1M+ firms track revenue by attorney or by month.

Almost none track profit per matter.

And that's where the leak lives:

The "prestige" case, the flat-fee matter that took 3x the estimate, the client you keep because firing them feels wrong.

You don't need more clients.

You need to know which of your current ones are actually making you money.

Pull your top 10 matters by revenue this week.

Then pull the hours against each.

I promise the list will surprise you.

10/05/2026

10/05/2026

ATTORNEYS!!!!

Your trust account can reconcile perfectly — and still be wrong.

Yes, really.

The bank balance matches.

QuickBooks is reconciled.

Everything looks good.

But does the balance also match what you’re holding for each individual client?

That’s where trust accounting gets different.

A regular bank reconciliation isn’t enough.

Trust accounting requires a 3-way reconciliation between the bank, the books, and the individual client ledgers.

And this is exactly why I say:

Law firm accounting is a specialty.

Knowing QuickBooks is one thing.

Knowing how a law firm’s money is supposed to move — from retainers, to trust, to earned fees, to operating — is another.

If you own a law firm, your financial person should understand both.

10/01/2026

If you're only looking at your bank balance at the end of the month, you're missing the full picture.

Here are 3 quiet red flags that signal cash flow leaks in your business:

1. Accounts Receivable aging past 60 days without an enforcement policy.

2. Inconsistent gross margins across similar projects or services.

3. Unreconciled accounts that leave you guessing during tax season.

Spotting these early protects your profits. Want a professional review of your books? Send us a message today to get started!

09/30/2026

“My CPA charged me $6,800 for my taxes. Is that normal?”

That’s what a business owner asked me recently.

And here’s the thing — their business wasn’t overly complicated.

No complicated entity structure.
No massive investment portfolio.
Just a successful service business… with messy books.

Here’s what we found:

❌ Months of accounts that hadn’t been properly reconciled
❌ Expenses sitting in the wrong categories
❌ Personal and business transactions mixed together
❌ Missing documentation
❌ Financial reports they couldn’t rely on

By the time everything reached the CPA, they weren’t starting with clean financials.
They were starting with a mess they had to untangle.

📌 Their bookkeeping cost? Almost nothing.
📌 Their confidence in their numbers? Almost nothing.
📌 Their year-end tax bill for accounting work? Thousands more than they expected.

Cheap bookkeeping suddenly wasn’t so cheap.

So we fixed the foundation.

✅ Cleaned up the books
✅ Properly reconciled the accounts
✅ Created a consistent monthly bookkeeping process
✅ Put systems in place for receipts and documentation
✅ Built financials the owner — and their CPA — could actually rely on

Now, instead of waiting until tax time to find out something is wrong, they have accurate books throughout the year.

And more importantly, they can actually use their numbers to run their business.

💡 Bookkeeping isn’t “data entry.”

It’s the foundation for your taxes, your cash flow, your profitability — and nearly every financial decision you make as a business owner.

If your CPA is spending hours fixing your books before they can even prepare your return, the problem might not be what your CPA is charging.

It might be what they’re being handed.

09/30/2026

09/29/2026

Change orders are profit you already earned. Invoice them.

Every contractor over $1M has a drawer full of unbilled change orders — the "we'll just handle it" work that ate your margin on the last three jobs.

Here's the math that should sting: one $8,000 change order you never billed, on a job with a 10% margin, requires $80,000 in new revenue to replace. You did the work. You paid the labor. You just never asked.

The fix isn't awkward conversations. It's a one-page change order process: price it, sign it, bill it — before the work starts.

How many unbilled change orders are sitting in your office right now?

09/28/2026

Your realization rate is the leak you can't see.

You bill $350 an hour. Your collections look healthy. But pull a realization report and half the firm is collecting 82 cents on the dollar.

That's not a billing problem. It's a quiet profit problem — discounts, write-downs, and "just this once" adjustments that nobody tracks.

A firm at $1.2M revenue with an 82% realization rate is leaving roughly $216,000 on the table every year. Same clients. Same work. Just better discipline at the invoice.

Run your realization report this week. If it's under 90%, you don't have a revenue problem — you have a collection policy problem.

What's your firm's realization rate? Most owners have never looked.

09/22/2026

The most dangerous number in construction isn't your bid. It's the gap between when you pay and when you get paid.

Materials, subs, and payroll go out weekly. The draw shows up 30-60 days later. Most contractors survive that gap on instinct — and that's where profit quietly bleeds out.

The fix is job costing: knowing the true cost of every job, every change order, every week. Because the contractor who knows his numbers bids with confidence, and the one who doesn't is guessing with his margins.

Do you know which of your jobs actually made money last quarter? If you hesitated, that's your answer.

I help construction companies get clear on job profitability and cash flow. DM me if you want a second set of eyes on your numbers.