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 28 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Melissa Armstrong, CPA hosts No Se Habla Taxes®, a business show with 28 episodes published.

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  Episode #27

  The Pricing Problem That Quietly Kills Profitable Businesses

  Sep 23, 202614 minS2

  Send Me Your Questions! This time there's no client in the story. It's mine. In my first year of practice, I did what a lot of agency owners do: I ditched hourly billing for flat monthly fees. Good instinct. Bad execution. I set my rates based on gut and, honestly, fear. My pipeline filled up, the calendar got full, and from the outside business looked great. Then I went to hire support and found there was no margin to pay for it. I'd undercharged every single client. In this episode, I walk through the service pricing strategy I wish I'd used from day one. It's the math that shows whether your agency's profit margins are real or whether a full roster is quietly covering up a pricing problem. In this episode: Why hourly billing punishes efficiency and hides unprofitable engagements Why switching to flat fees or retainers doesn't fix pricing on its own The two numbers you need before you quote anyone: realistic delivery hours and your fully loaded hourly cost How to calculate gross margin per engagement, and why a thin margin means you're running a subsidy, not a client relationship Why your underperforming clients are often the ones you love working with How to build consulting pricing from delivery cost up, with a margin floor and a buffer for scope creep Why you should revisit pricing on a schedule, not just when something hurts Your homework: Pick one client or project and track your actual hours on it for the next few weeks. Not your estimate, your real time. I use Rize, which tracks time automatically in the background so I never have to stop and start a timer. 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 #25

  The Financial Control Framework Every Scaling Business Needs

  Aug 26, 202614 minS2

  Send Me Your Questions! One person requesting a payment, approving it, and reconciling the account it came out of — that's not delegation, that's a blind spot. In this episode, Melissa breaks down the "2% rule" (aka separation of duties) using a real client story: a $4,200 payment that looked like fraud, wasn't, but exposed a gap that could have cost a lot more. What's inside this episode: The real story of a $4,200 payment that sent a founder into a spiral — and what it actually turned out to be The "2% rule": why no single person should be able to request, approve, and reconcile a payment Why this gap tends to show up right when founders start delegating (usually between 5–15 employees) How to set up an approval threshold in tools you probably already use, like QuickBooks Online or Ramp Why financial controls are about protecting your team, not suspecting them The exact two-hour fix one founder put in place — and the one question you can ask yourself this week to find your own gap This episode is for you if: You've handed off bill pay, invoicing, or vendor management to someone on your team — and haven't thought about who's checking that work. 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 #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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