Resources for You
5 Signs Your Consulting Firm’s Financial Systems Can’t Keep Up With Growth
It’s Tuesday afternoon, and the finance lead at a growing consulting firm is toggling between five browser tabs. A project manager needs updated billables. The managing partner wants this quarter’s burn rate. A client just flagged a duplicate invoice. The numbers are...
Stop the Spreadsheet Spiral: The Fast Track to Automated Bookkeeping
Jennifer closes her laptop with a frustrated sigh. It's Saturday morning, and she's just spent three hours updating five different Excel spreadsheets to prepare Monday's financial reports for her HR consulting firm. The irony isn't lost on her—she advises companies on...
8 Admin Tasks You Can Automate This Quarter to Reclaim 15–20 Hours a Month
Elena closed her laptop with a frustrated sigh. It was 9 PM on Sunday, and she'd just spent two hours categorizing last week's expenses for her management consulting firm. In the next room, her family was watching a movie together—the kind of simple evening she'd been...
Zero-Guess Budgeting: Building Rolling Forecasts for Service Firms
Marcus closed his laptop with a frustrated sigh. It was March, and he was staring at the annual budget he'd carefully crafted for his IT consulting firm back in December. The document may have been a work of science fiction. He'd projected steady monthly revenue of...
How to Maximize ROI on Your Financial Management Investments
Sarah stared at the proposal in front of her, calculator in hand. The financial management system would cost her consulting firm $800 monthly. That seemed like a substantial amount of money for a 15-person operation that was already profitable. But then she started...
From 10 to 100 Clients: How Financial Complexity Multiplies (And What to Do About It)
Marcus thought he had this whole consulting thing figured out. His environmental consulting firm had grown from 3 to 15 clients over two years, and everything felt manageable. Sure, he spent Sunday evenings organizing invoices and tracking payments, but that seemed...
The Real ROI of Financial Automation for Consulting Firms: $36K–$72K Back Per Year
It's Sunday night. Again. The laptop screen casts a blue glow across your dining room table as you categorize last week's expenses, reconcile accounts, and prepare invoices. Your family's movie night continues in the next room without you. Sound familiar? I spoke with...
Preparing Your Consulting Firm’s Financial Systems for Growth
The desk lamp casts a lonely glow across scattered receipts and expense reports. It's 9 PM, and instead of preparing tomorrow's client presentation, you're wrestling with reconciliations. Sound familiar? This was Sarah's reality. Her environmental consulting firm had...
Why Flexibility Matters in Financial Solutions for Growing Consulting Firms
Marcus checks his phone during a client break, and his stomach drops. Three urgent messages from his office manager about payroll complications. Two emails from contractors asking about delayed payments. And one text from his biggest client requesting a detailed...
The SBA Search – Keeping 70%+ of The Equity as Chris Williams Did.
There are so many different paths to buying a small business. How big do you buy? How long do you search? Do you raise capital for your search? Partner or go at it alone? How many investors? Often, the most common choice is this – self funded vs. traditional search...
Best Visualization Tools for Financial Consulting Firms
A desk lamp casts a lonely light on its scattered receipts and expense reports. It is 9 PM, and Marcus, the owner of a thriving environmental consulting firm, is fighting reconciliations instead of preparing for tomorrow's client presentation. Even though his client...
Where We Are in The Consulting World and Where Are We Going
Fellow entrepreneurs, the world is changing — fast. For most of the owners of consulting firms out there, the answer to when your firm needs to change as well is probably " long ago." The consulting market has shifted underneath you as you've been wrangling projects...
How to Generate Financial Reports and Analysis for Consultants That Drive Business Growth
Actionable financial reports transform raw data into strategic insights that drive consulting firm growth. In this article, you'll discover how to create and leverage financial reports that reveal profitability patterns, optimize resource allocation, and support...
5 Payroll Mistakes Small Consulting Companies Make and How to Avoid Payroll Errors
There was palpable tension in the office. Sarah had spent the morning preparing for a big presentation to a major client, only to now face a line of disgruntled employees waiting outside her office door. Three more team members noticed they were overpaid — missing...
Shifting from Manual to Automated Financial Systems
"I need to get back to you on that." Putting her largest client on hold, Sarah's voice felt tighter. They requested last quarter's billing breakdown, and she had no clue where to find it. As she rifled through desk drawers and clicked through endless spreadsheets, her...
Are You Risking Penalties? Small Consulting Business: A Tax Compliance Guide
That feeling is when you see the IRS logo in the envelope in your mailbox. Your heart skips a beat. Your mouth goes dry. Before you even open it, your mind cycles through every tax decision you've made in the past year. Is it a routine notice? An audit request? A...
QuickBooks, Xero, or FreshBooks? The Best Accounting Software for Consulting Firms in 2026
Picture Alex, founder of a growing environmental consulting firm, comparing bookkeeping software options on her laptop. "I know I need something better than spreadsheets," she mutters, "but how do I choose between all these options?" Choosing the right bookkeeping...
5 Financial Admin Tasks Eating Up Your Time (and How to Fix Them)
The desk lamp casts a lonely glow across scattered receipts, expense reports and an inbox that’s even more cluttered. It's 9 PM, and instead of preparing tomorrow's client presentation, you're wrestling with reconciliations and other accounting items way beyond your...
The Hidden Costs of Poor Cash Flow Management in Consulting Businesses
Marcus checks his phone during a client meeting break, and his stomach tightens. There are three overdue invoice reminders from his contractors, two urgent messages from his office manager about upcoming payroll, and an email from his biggest client requesting a...
How Automation Saves Time for Consulting Firms
Your desk lamp casts a lonely glow as your inbox is scattered with receipts and expense reports. It's 9 PM, and instead of preparing tomorrow's client presentation, you're wrestling with reconciliations. Sound familiar? I spoke with Sarah, a management consultant who...
One Year at System Six
Over Labor Day weekend, as a busy summer came to a close for System Six and for Blair and me personally, I was lucky to have some quiet time to sit back and reflect on my first year at System Six. I realized what an exciting, challenging at times, and certainly...
System Six Retreat Recap!
Annual Retreat for Our Remote Team In late July, over 30 System Six team members and their partners gathered in Denver for several days of good old fun together! We all arrived on Friday at the beautiful Omni Interlocken Hotel, where the team spent the weekend...
Not outsourcing payroll? Here’s what you’re missing.
Modern payroll is complex, covering everything from taxes to benefits to managing a variety of employees and contractors. As your remote finance team, we employ a robust tech-stack of cloud-accounting tools to streamline these exact payroll processes for you....
3 Essential Rhythms for Resiliency
“Once upon a time, there were three little pigs…” You probably remember this well-known and oft-repeated story from childhood storybooks and cartoons. The three pigs each have a vision and mission - to build a house; a house resilient enough to weather the notorious...
Creating Scalable Processes
Imagine for a moment that you own a pizza restaurant and have employed a talented team of chefs - but you fail to give them a step-by-step, process-driven pizza recipe to follow. What kind of product would your restaurant be delivering to your clients? The fact is,...
How to Retain Your Team through the Great Resignation
Attracting great talent is a key strategy to building a resilient business. Retaining that talent is equally important. The Great Resignation has opened our eyes to the importance of creating environments where employees can thrive. People aren't only looking for...
Tips for Attracting Top Talent
The first pillar of building a resilient business is having a clear Strategy as defined in your mission, vision, and values. While you can have a stellar vision and business model, they are essentially worthless without the right people to come alongside you to make...
4 Steps to Crafting a Foundational Mission Statement
This past week, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink released his annual letter to investors. As a leader of one of the largest global investment firms, his words are powerful, poignant, and directive. He wrote, "It's never been more essential for CEOs to have a consistent voice,...
How to Build a Resilient Business
Whether you're a brand new start-up, still dreaming and working from your kitchen table, or a more established, multi-million-dollar company with years of experience under your belt, resiliency is a quality you need to grow a successful business. The Merriam-Webster...
Getting Ready for Year End: Charitable Giving
It’s a fact that close to a third of annual charitable giving happens in December and that nearly 12% of all giving happens in the last three days of the year. (Source: neonone.com.) December is THE month for charitable giving. As we enter the height of the holiday...
Getting Ready for Year End: Strategizing Q4 Revenue & Expenses
A good fourth quarter just might be the most important win of your business year, because it demonstrates that you know how to implement the right strategies to succeed when and where it counts. Reviewing this year’s financial records, as well as the goals you made at...
Getting Ready for Year End: 1099 Prep
Businesses employ independent contractors all the time, in multiple capacities. Perhaps you hired a freelance designer to create marketing materials for your business this year, or maybe you brought in an independent consultant to develop strategies to improve your...
Conference Takeaways
In October, I attended two different accounting conferences back-to-back - the first industry events we’ve been able to attend in the last 18 months! Meeting, networking and learning from so many great industry partners and experts was quite invigorating. Importantly,...
Getting Ready for Year End: Secure or Switch CPAs
One of our least favorite tasks is having to make changes in our critical professional relationships. Whether it's shopping around for a new dentist, doctor, or accountant, the search and subsequent transfer of years of paperwork and documentation can be overwhelming....
Getting Ready for the End of the Year: Personal Expenses
Is it just us, or does time seem to accelerate as we move into the fall season? It’s like the time between summer ending and the beginning of the holiday season turns into a busy blur, and before we know it, we find ourselves at the end of the year in a mad rush to...
The Accounting Leaders Podcast
Last month, System Six founder, Jeremy Allen, was featured as the inaugural guest for Accounting Leaders Podcast. Hosted by Karbon Founder & Director Stuart McLeod, the Accounting Leaders Podcast curates the best resources in the industry through conversations with accounting’s most significant innovators.
