No Se Habla Taxes®

Welcome to No Se Habla Taxes ®—the podcast for creative agency owners who are done guessing about their numbers and ready to actually understand them. I'm Melissa Armstrong, CPA and fractional controller, and I will tell you the financial truth your accountant was too polite to say out loud. Every episode, we get into the real operational finance stuff: cash flow chaos, pricing mistakes, hiring decisions, and the messy money moments that nobody talks about but every founder lives through. If you're running a marketing or creative agency in the $500K to $5M range and your revenue looks great on paper but something still feels off, this show is for you. No fluff. No spreadsheet worship. No finance speak for the sake of it. Just plain English answers to the questions keeping you up at night. Because the numbers don't lie. Let's go find out what yours are saying.

No Se Habla Taxes® is a business podcast hosted by Melissa Armstrong, CPA, with 25 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Melissa Armstrong, CPA hosts No Se Habla Taxes®, a business show with 25 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #24

  Why Financial Systems Break Every Time Your Business Grows

  Aug 5, 202614 minS2

  Send Me Your Questions! Ever feel like you're doing everything the same way you always have — and it's just not working anymore? That's not a you problem. That's a growth problem. In this episode, Melissa breaks down why financial systems stop working as agencies scale, where the cracks tend to show up first, and what kind of financial infrastructure you actually need at each stage of the business. WHAT WE COVER - Why the habits that worked at $300K can't hold the weight of a $1M+ operation - The three inflection points where agency finances tend to break - A plain-English framework for what your financial setup should look like at $500K, $500K–$2M, and beyond $2M - Why most founders are running bigger operations on smaller infrastructure — and what to do about it THIS WEEK'S HOMEWORK Pick one financial decision you made last month that you wish you'd had better information for. What information would have helped? Do you have a way to get it right now? One decision. One gap. That's the exercise. No Se Habla Taxes is the podcast for creative agency owners who want to understand the financial side of their business — without drowning in spreadsheets. Hosted by CPA and fractional controller Melissa Armstrong, each episode unpacks real operational finance questions through candid stories and practical insight. Subscribe to the newsletter at steadyhandaccounting.com for episode recaps and financial insights delivered straight to your inbox. Not sure if your business is healthy or just busy? No Se Habla Confusion is a $500 financial assessment for creative agencies on QBO doing $300K–$3M. I dig into your numbers, find the gaps, and tell you exactly where you stand. Email info@steadyhandaccounting.com — subject line: No Se Habla Confusion. Let's connect! LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armstrongmelissacpa/ Website: https://steadyhandaccounting.com/

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  Episode #23

  Financial Roles Demystified: Bookkeeper vs Controller vs. CFO

  Jul 22, 202615 minS2

  Send Me Your Questions! Hiring the wrong financial support is expensive. And it happens constantly — because nobody ever clearly explains what these roles actually do. In this episode, Melissa breaks down the real difference between a bookkeeper, a controller, and a CFO, when you actually need each one, and how to know if you've been asking the wrong person the wrong questions. WHAT WE COVER - What a bookkeeper actually does (and what they're not supposed to do) - What a controller does that a bookkeeper can't - When a CFO makes sense — and when it doesn't - The evolution of financial leadership as your agency grows - Why most founders in the $300K–$3M range need a controller, not a CFO THIS WEEK'S HOMEWORK Write down the last three financial questions you asked and couldn't get a clear answer to. Then ask yourself: who was I asking? Was it a controller question going to a bookkeeper? That list will tell you more about what kind of financial support you need than any job description ever will. No Se Habla Taxes is the podcast for creative agency owners who want to understand the financial side of their business — without drowning in spreadsheets. Hosted by CPA and fractional controller Melissa Armstrong, each episode unpacks real operational finance questions through candid stories and practical insight. Subscribe to the newsletter at steadyhandaccounting.com for episode recaps and financial insights delivered straight to your inbox. Not sure if your business is healthy or just busy? No Se Habla Confusion is a $500 financial assessment for creative agencies on QBO doing $300K–$3M. I dig into your numbers, find the gaps, and tell you exactly where you stand. Email info@steadyhandaccounting.com — subject line: No Se Habla Confusion. Let's connect! LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armstrongmelissacpa/ Website: https://steadyhandaccounting.com/

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  Episode #22

  SaaS Sprawl: Why Subscription Tools Quietly Kill Profit

  Jul 8, 202613 minS2

  Send Me Your Questions! If your agency has grown beyond just you, there is a good chance you are paying for software nobody uses. Three project management tools. Duplicate platforms. A subscription tied to someone who left a year ago. All of it quietly billing, every month, because autopay does not care whether anyone opened the app. In this episode, Melissa walks through a real financial assessment at a twelve-person branding agency where recurring software subscriptions had grown to fourteen hundred dollars a month, almost seventeen thousand dollars a year, without anyone noticing. She breaks down how SaaS sprawl happens in team environments, why it compounds as your headcount grows, and what a practical system for controlling it actually looks like. This is not about cutting tools you need. It is about knowing what you are paying for and making sure someone owns it. IN THIS EPISODE How SaaS sprawl accumulates in agencies where multiple people make purchasing decisions. Why autopay and annual renewals keep subscription costs invisible. What happens to software subscriptions when employees leave (and why it is worse than you think). The client project tool trap: subscriptions that outlive the engagement. A four-step system to audit, assign ownership, control new purchases, and build offboarding into your process. HOMEWORK Pull the last twelve months of transactions from every bank account and business credit card your team uses. List every recurring subscription. Write down who owns it and whether it is actively being used. Cancel anything without a clear owner and a clear purpose. Do it this week. No Se Habla Taxes is the podcast for creative agency owners who want to understand the financial side of their business — without drowning in spreadsheets. Hosted by CPA and fractional controller Melissa Armstrong, each episode unpacks real operational finance questions through candid stories and practical insight. Subscribe to the newsletter at steadyhandaccounting.com for episode recaps and financial insights delivered straight to your inbox. Not sure if your business is healthy or just busy? No Se Habla Confusion is a $500 financial assessment for creative agencies on QBO doing $300K–$3M. I dig into your numbers, find the gaps, and tell you exactly where you stand. Email info@steadyhandaccounting.com — subject line: No Se Habla Confusion. Let's connect! LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armstrongmelissacpa/ Website: https://steadyhandaccounting.com/

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  Episode #22

  The Financial Operations Cadence: The System That Keeps Cash Flow Organized

  Jun 24, 202611 minS2

  Send Me Your Questions! Every agency owner has had a version of this Monday morning: invoices in the inbox, a subcontractor asking when they’re getting paid, a late notice you forgot about, and a vague sense that you’re one missed bill away from a vendor situation. It’s not a cash problem. It’s a systems problem. In this episode, Melissa walks through the financial operations cadence — a simple Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday payment cycle that eliminates the chaos, reduces cash flow surprises, and creates the internal discipline you need to eventually delegate your finances to someone else. Three days. Three steps. One process that actually works. In This Episode Why paying bills ‘when you remember’ is a systems failure, not a personal one The Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday payment cadence: record, approve, pay How to stop using your brain as a filing cabinet for due dates and vendor relationships Why a consistent cadence is the first step toward delegating your finances A simple homework assignment to get your own cadence started this week Homework Assign your three payment days this week. Put them in your calendar. For the first week, just do the recording step — get your outstanding invoices into one place. You don’t have to build the whole system today. You just have to start it. No Se Habla Taxes is the podcast for creative agency owners who want to understand the financial side of their business — without drowning in spreadsheets. Hosted by CPA and fractional controller Melissa Armstrong, each episode unpacks real operational finance questions through candid stories and practical insight. Subscribe to the newsletter at steadyhandaccounting.com for episode recaps and financial insights delivered straight to your inbox. Not sure if your business is healthy or just busy? No Se Habla Confusion is a $500 financial assessment for creative agencies on QBO doing $300K–$3M. I dig into your numbers, find the gaps, and tell you exactly where you stand. Email info@steadyhandaccounting.com — subject line: No Se Habla Confusion. Let's connect! LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armstrongmelissacpa/ Website: https://steadyhandaccounting.com/

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  Episode #21

  The Financial Awareness Checklist Every Founder Should Do Quarterly

  Jun 10, 202612 minS2

  Send Me Your Questions! Most agency founders aren't avoiding their finances because they don't care. They're avoiding them because nobody ever told them what to actually look for. In this episode, Melissa walks through the five numbers every creative agency owner should be reviewing every quarter — and why 45 minutes, four times a year, is the difference between catching problems early and finding out when it's expensive. What's covered in this episode: Why "things seem fine" is not the same as things being fine Gross margin by client and project — where quiet erosion actually lives AR aging and why cash flow problems in agencies are almost always a collection issue first Burn rate and runway — and what your number should be telling you Revenue concentration and the 30-35% threshold worth paying attention to Utilization rate, the industry benchmark for creative agencies, and what it reveals about hiring and pricing The five numbers: Gross margin by client or project Accounts receivable aging Burn rate and runway Revenue concentration Utilization rate No Se Habla Taxes is the podcast for creative agency owners who want to understand the financial side of their business — without drowning in spreadsheets. Hosted by CPA and fractional controller Melissa Armstrong, each episode unpacks real operational finance questions through candid stories and practical insight. Subscribe to the newsletter at steadyhandaccounting.com for episode recaps and financial insights delivered straight to your inbox. Not sure if your business is healthy or just busy? No Se Habla Confusion is a $500 financial assessment for creative agencies on QBO doing $300K–$3M. I dig into your numbers, find the gaps, and tell you exactly where you stand. Email info@steadyhandaccounting.com — subject line: No Se Habla Confusion. Let's connect! LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armstrongmelissacpa/ Website: https://steadyhandaccounting.com/

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