CEO Numbers Network with Danielle Hayden

Strong profit can still end in an April tax bill you didn't plan for. The fix starts this quarter, and several of these moves take effect January 1.

Building on 7 Tax Moves Your CPA Can't Make for You in Q4, I break down small business tax planning for owners paying self-employment tax on growing profit. The S corp election comes with three clear signs: $75,000 to $100,000 in net profit for more than two years, consistent owner pay, and fully separate business and personal finances. Current S corp owners get a reasonable compensation benchmark, payroll through a provider like Gusto, and an accountable plan for quarterly reimbursements. Other strategies include putting your kids on payroll at a reasonable wage, the Augusta Rule's 14-day home rental, safe harbor estimated payments, a 25% monthly tax reserve, and a checklist covering 529 plans, HSAs, and retirement contributions.

In this episode of CEO Numbers Network, I explain why prepaying expenses only shifts your tax bill and why recorded profit makes your business worth more to a buyer, lender, or partner.

You will learn how to stay compliant with the IRS and prepared for what you actually owe.

If you have ever reached December unsure what you'll owe, this episode shows you how to know the number before it's due.

👉 Discover how our tax team at KSA Tax Partners can help you time your S corp election and estimated payments: here

Key Takeaways

00:34 Paying Your Kids Tax Strategy

03:12 How the Augusta Rule Works

04:20 When to Become an S Corp

06:13 S Corp Reasonable Compensation Explained

08:05 Avoiding the Surprise Tax Bill

09:41 Year End Tax Planning Checklist

11:41 Why Prepaying Expenses Doesn't Help

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen next

👉 7 Tax Moves Your CPA Can't Make for You in Q4

👉 The 2027 Budget Reset, Part 3: The 5 Habits That Move You Into CEO Stage

An accurate tax return reports on a year you can no longer change. The tax moves you can still act on happen this quarter, and every one of them is a CEO decision.

In part 1 of my Q4 tax planning series for small business owners, I break down tax filing vs. tax planning and the four roles on a business money team: bookkeeper, tax accountant, CFO, and CEO. My year-end tax checklist covers W-9 collection under the new $2,000 1099 reporting threshold, the IRS contractor vs. employee test, S corp health insurance on your W-2, HSA contributions, and retirement plans including the Solo 401(k), SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA, and defined benefit plan. Deduction rules include the IRS ordinary and necessary test for business expenses, mileage vs. actual vehicle expenses, the home office deduction, and 100% bonus depreciation under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Part 2 tackles putting your kids on payroll, avoiding a surprise tax bill, and the structural decision that can be your biggest financial move of the year.

In this episode of CEO Numbers Network, I apply the boardroom accountability standard from my corporate CFO career to small business tax strategy. You will learn how to separate a legitimate business deduction from chasing write-offs.

If you have ever left every tax call to your CPA, this episode shows you which ones belong to you.

👉 Discover how our Tax services can help you plan your year-end tax moves with your cash flow in mind: here https://ksataxpartners.com/

Key Takeaways

0:00 Intro to Proactive Tax Planning

1:45 The CEO's Role in Tax Strategy

2:55 Building Your Money Team

6:31 CEO Financial Review Rhythm

9:47 Understanding Ordinary and Necessary Expenses

12:36 Q4 Strategy and Compliance

15:49 Health Insurance and Retirement Contributions

19:53 Vehicle, Home Office and Equipment

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen next

👉 The 2027 Budget Reset, Part 1 of 3: Start With the Right Mindset

👉 The 2027 Budget Reset, Part 2 of 3: Start With Your Pay

You built a budget at the start of the year. A few months later, it was sitting in a folder nobody opened. That's a habit problem, and habits can be built.

In this episode of CEO Numbers Network, I close out my three-part 2027 budget reset series with the five habits that turn a small business budget from a one-time spreadsheet into a system you use all year. I walk through the budgeting habits our team uses with clients: a monthly budget review that compares your plan to actual results, remembering the goals behind your budget, checking your financials before you commit to spending, building a contingency fund from a set percentage of revenue, and bringing your team into the budget. I also share a client story where a live reforecast let our team confirm within days that she could afford a large conference, plus the 48-hour rule I follow before any new business spending. The result is a budget you can rely on for spending decisions throughout 2027.

You will learn how to catch a revenue shortfall before it turns into a crisis, and how to tell whether you can afford a new investment mid-year.

If you have ever built a budget and stopped looking at it a few months in, this episode gives you the habits to keep it working through year-end.

👉 Discover how our CFO services can keep your 2027 budget on track all year: here

Key Takeaways:

0:00 Intro to Budgeting Habits

1:57 Reviewing Your Budget Monthly

3:10 Remembering Your Original Goals

4:06 Checking Finances Before Spending

5:06 Building a Contingency Fund

5:36 Involving Your Team

6:38 Recap and Conclusion

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen next:

👉 The 2027 Budget Reset, Part 1 of 3: Start With the Right Mindset 👉 The 2027 Budget Reset, Part 2 of 3: Start With Your Pay

A copied template or aspirational numbers can sink a business budget by February. This one starts with your own pay and your own history.

In part two of my 2027 Budget Reset series on CEO Numbers Network, I walk through year-end budget planning for small business owners and why a CEO budgets to invest while an owner in survival mode budgets to avoid running out of money. I start with owner's pay and three personal numbers to set first: what you want to pay yourself, what you need to feel secure, and what would make you feel free. Then I show how to define your business season from past growth and create a spending plan from your monthly profit and loss statement for the last 12 months. You'll leave with clear action steps and a budget template for 2027.

You will learn how to set realistic revenue growth goals and decide what your spending plan should fund or trim to protect profit margin.

If you have ever set a budget and stopped using it, this episode gives you a plan built around your goals.

👉 Discover how our CFO services can help you build a 2027 budget around your goals: here

Key Takeaways

0:00 Introduction to Business Budgeting

1:34 Defining Your Personal Numbers

3:50 Assessing Your Business Season

4:47 Building Your Spending Plan

7:27 Action Steps and Resources

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen next

👉 The 2027 Budget Reset, Part 1 of 3: Start With the Right Mindset

👉 The 3-Part IRS Test for Every Contractor on Your Team

Every budget I've seen fail over the last 11 years failed for the same reason. It was built like a diet, and a diet only lasts so long.

In part one of this three-part small business budgeting series, I cover the budget mindset reset that comes before annual budget planning. I explain why restrictive budgets built around cutting expenses fall apart, and how cutting software, contractors, and support shifts work back onto the CEO and raises the risk of burnout. I share a client case study where a year of flat revenue traced back to underspending on advertising, marketing campaigns, conferences, and PR, and how a growth-focused budget brought momentum back within a few months. I also introduce the goal-oriented budget approach our team uses with clients, including how to set business goals for the year ahead, why owner pay belongs in the budget, and the question that separates reactive spending from strategic spending.

Listen to this episode of CEO Numbers Network before you touch next year's numbers. Then pull your last 12 months of financials and note which growth areas have gone without investment. That list is your starting point for part two.

👉 Discover how our CFO services can help you build your 2027 budget: here

Key Takeaways

0:00 Why traditional budgets fail

2:35 Case study on underspending

4:44 Aligning your budget with goals

5:34 Shifting to a CEO mindset

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen next

👉 Why Your Contractor's W-9 Can't Wait Until January

👉 The 3-Part IRS Test for Every Contractor on Your Team

A signed contractor agreement only protects you if the way you work with that person matches it. The IRS has a clear test for this, and it's better to run it now than to find out during an audit.

In this episode of CEO Numbers Network, I walk through the IRS three-part test for deciding whether someone on your team is a contractor or an employee. The three factors are behavioral control, financial control, and the working relationship.

Getting the classification wrong can mean back payroll taxes and back benefits, plus penalties and interest. Since we're heading into the fourth quarter, this is also the time to plan for moving team members onto payroll as of January 1.

You will learn how to test each working relationship against the three factors and how payroll taxes change for you and your team when a contractor moves onto payroll.

If you have ever wondered whether someone on your team should be a contractor or an employee, this episode gives you a clear way to decide before year-end.

👉 Discover how our bookkeeping services can help you make team decisions with confidence: here

Key Takeaways

0:00 Intro

2:21 The Three-Part IRS Test

4:31 The Auditor Test and Next Steps

7:35 Tax Impacts and Payroll Changes

9:02 Recap and Final Advice

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen next

👉 Why Your Contractor's W-9 Can't Wait Until January

👉 3 Questions That Separate a CEO From a Business Owner

Waiting until tax season to think about contractor paperwork is exactly what makes it so stressful. Every January, my team fields the same kind of call: a business owner needs a contractor's Social Security number, and that contractor already stopped answering.

Find out what changed with 1099 reporting for 2026, including the new dollar threshold that determines when a contractor needs one. I break down what actually counts as a contractor for tax purposes, what a W-9 collects, and why the timing of gathering it matters more than most business owners realize. By the end, you'll know exactly what to check and request now, well before the January deadline.

This is one of the few tasks where being early costs you nothing and being late costs you real money.

👉 Discover how our tax team can help you get ahead of IRS deadlines: ksataxpartners.com

Key Takeaways

00:00 The January 1099 Scramble

00:43 Contractors and 1099 Series

02:26 New 2026 Contractor Threshold

03:09 What a W9 Collects

04:52 When to Request a W9

06:21 Building Your 1099 List

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen Next

👉 The 30-Day Burnout Diagnosis Every CEO Needs to Run

👉 3 Questions That Separate a CEO From a Business Owner

Revenue and team size get the attention, but neither tells you if you're running your business like a CEO. It comes down to three specific numbers, and whether you know them without guessing.

In this episode of CEO Numbers Network, I get into three questions I ask every CEO about her own numbers: her year to date profit and profit percentage, what her business owns compared to what it owes, and whether her cash reserves are enough. I also cover three bookkeeping errors our team sees during onboarding that throw off each answer: draws coded as payroll or duplicated revenue, old loans still sitting on the balance sheet years after they were paid off, and point of sale systems that double record a sale with QuickBooks. I explain why a clean QuickBooks dashboard or a quick AI summary can't replace an actual review of your books.

You will learn to recognize the errors that distort your numbers, and how to make decisions from data instead of a gut feeling.

If you've ever felt confident about your numbers until someone asked a specific question, this episode shows you where that confidence was coming from.

👉 Find out if your books are accurate here.

Key Takeaways

0:00 Introduction to the CEO Test

1:25 Question One: Year-to-Date Profit

3:02 Question Two: Assets Versus Liabilities

4:31 Question Three: Cash Reserves

7:11 The Dangers of AI and Misleading Data

8:47 How to Get Accurate Books

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen Next

👉 The 30-Day Burnout Diagnosis Every CEO Needs to Run

👉 How to Know If You Can Afford to Hire Your First Employee

A team member once asked me how we help clients who show up to their financial review calls completely burnt out. My answer surprised even me, and it led to a 30-day exercise I now recommend to every business owner I work with.

In this episode of CEO Numbers Network, I talk about why burnout gets misdiagnosed so often in business ownership, and I walk through a real client example of growth mode colliding with family obligations. I also push back on trending labels like burnout and soft girl era, and I share five specific strategies for reframing pressure into something you actually have control over, starting with a 30-day energy audit.

You will learn how to tell the difference between real exhaustion and simply being in a demanding season of your business, how to delegate what was never yours to carry in the first place, and how to make decisions from intention instead of guilt. If you have ever labeled yourself as burnt out without actually checking what was going on underneath it, this episode will give you a clearer way to look at it.

👉 Discover how our CFO services can help you build a plan around the season you're actually in: here.

Key Takeaways

00:47 Burnout Isn't a Badge

10:14 Step 1: Run Your Energy Audit

11:00 Step 2: Delegate What Isn't Yours

11:54 Step 3: Build a Real Budget

12:24 Step 4: Do the Mindset Work

13:00 Step 5: Act Like the CEO

Resources

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen Next

👉 How to Know If You Can Afford to Hire Your First Employee

👉 The 4 Step CEO Reset Method for a Stronger Fourth Quarter

Your profit and loss statement can look fine, and your stomach can still drop when you think about hiring. I know that feeling, because it's exactly where I was the night I hired my first employee.

I walk through the three methods I use to decide if a business can afford to hire: the look back method, the averages method, and the look forward budgeting method. I cover how profit and cash flow can tell two different stories, how much cash to have saved before hiring, and the real costs of bringing on a new employee beyond the paycheck.

In this episode of CEO Numbers Network, I share exactly how to make that call with real numbers. You will learn what to look at before you hire, how to protect your cash flow, and how to move forward with confidence instead of guessing.

If you have ever looked at a healthy profit number and still felt too scared to hire, this episode gives you the math to decide with confidence.

👉 Discover how our CFO services can help you build a hiring budget you can trust: here

Key Takeaways

00:00 Why You Should Hire Help

00:44 Danielle's First Hire Story

03:10 Method One: The Look Back

04:20 Method Two: Calculate Your Cash

06:54 Method Three: Build Your Budget

09:00 How Much Cash To Save

11:30 The Real Cost Of Hiring

12:22 Final Encouragement To Hire Confidently

Resources

📊 Download the free hiring worksheet from this episode.

💰 Build your own 12 month budget with the free template.

📈 Book a strategy call with Danielle's team at Kickstart: here

👉 Check your books here

👉 Visit the Kickstart website

👉 Follow us on Instagram

Listen Next

👉 The 4 Step CEO Reset Method for a Stronger Fourth Quarter 👉 Can AI Actually Replace Your Bookkeeper?