From the journal entry all the way to corporate finance vocabulary. Read them in any order.
46 fundamental journal entries every business should know — debits and credits, plain-English explanations, and the practitioner tips that keep the books clean.
16 pagesFREE
Next step → The CFO & Controller's Guide (492 pp) — the full controller's seat.
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Try the free tool → Journal Entry Helper — pick a transaction and watch the debits and credits build live.
91 ready-to-use AI prompts — for CPAs, attorneys, advisors, family offices, and small businesses by industry (retail, restaurants, dental, real estate, trades, salons, logistics, e-commerce). Copy a prompt, swap the brackets for your specifics, and go. Includes a Start Here set, plain-English safety notes where it matters, and the four-step on how to use them well. Plain English, no jargon.
37 pagesFREE
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Try the free tool → AI Prompt Helper — pick a category, find your task, copy the prompt in one click.
Chart of Accounts, how to read financial statements, the 8-step accounting cycle, 15 common bookkeeping mistakes, and the debits-and-credits cheat sheet.
15 pagesFREE
Next step → The CFO & Controller's Guide.
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TVM, capital budgeting, CAPM, WACC, capital structure, valuation, working capital — the corporate finance vocabulary every operator needs.
23 pagesFREE
Next step → First Principles of Master Investing.
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Read the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement like a practitioner. Five ratio families. Common-size and trend analysis. Quality of earnings basics.
20 pagesFREE
Next step → The CFO & Controller's Guide or the Business Buyer's Guide.
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Also free in → IFRS Edition (14 pp) — the four statements read IFRS-native, a fully worked ratio example with DuPont and a tear-off quick-reference card, a forensic red-flag checklist, EPS (IAS 33), reading the notes & segments (IFRS 8), and a GAAP↔IFRS differences table.
Go deeper (paid) → The US GAAP ↔ IFRS Bridge ($49) — 25 differences with worked entries, two reconciliations, and group reporting.
Pairs with → The Cash Flow Calculation Schedule (Excel) — see the highlighted tool below.
EXCEL TOOL · FREE
The indirect-method cash flow walk in a working spreadsheet. Gross balances + contra accounts (the way a 10-K actually presents it) — plug in your own balance sheet and the statement builds itself. The one tool that turns “why is cash down when sales are up?” into a number you can show the boss. Worth coming to the Institute just for this.
US: 4 tabs · IFRS: 9 tabsFREE
Next step → The CFO & Controller's Guide — the full controller's seat.
Download XLSX →
Also free in → IFRS (IAS 7) · Español · Deutsch · Français · Русский · Português — same engine, your language. The IFRS editions add IAS 7 schedules: group consolidation (with the FX-effect line), net-debt reconciliation, the direct method, and cash-equivalents/acquisitions.
See all editions →
How the schedule works →
Fresh QBO setup, Chart of Accounts decisions, bank feed workflows, the month-end close in QBO, and the ten most common pitfalls.
22 pagesFREE
Next step → The CFO & Controller's Guide.
Download PDF →
EXCEL TOOL · FREE
The cure for what QuickBooks won’t do: run more than one entity — a holdco and an opco, an LLC per property, a company per location — and QBO charges a separate subscription for each and still can’t show them together. Map each entity to one master chart once, paste fresh trial balances each month, and read back a consolidating schedule, consolidated balance sheet and income statement — intercompany loans, fees, and rent eliminated, with built-in checks that the group ties out. The portfolio view without a portfolio of subscriptions.
9 tabs · 3-entity worked exampleFREE
Next step → The CFO & Controller's Guide — the full controller's seat.
Download XLSX →
How the workbook works →
The §162 standard, vehicle / home office / meals / travel, depreciation and §179, retirement plans, owner comp, and the deductions that trip operators up.
26 pagesFREE
Next step → Tax Strategy Decoded.
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The six weeks that separate creators who file cleanly from the ones who scramble. Twelve close tasks, the exact handoff package your CPA needs, what to expect back, five common mistakes, an October-to-April timeline, and a sample CPA handoff email template.
~15 pagesFREE
Pairs with → Creator Hub & the CFO & Controller's Guide.
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Stripe, PayPal, YouTube AdSense, Patreon, Substack, Gumroad, Kick, and Ko-fi. How each reports (gross vs net), payout schedules, fee structures, 1099-K threshold, and the gross/fee journal entry template for each. Plus the 1099-K matching workflow that catches the double-count errors most bookkeepers make on Substack.
~18 pagesFREE
Pairs with → Year-End Close & CPA Handoff Reference (above).
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Before QuickBooks is the answer. For the creator earning $10k-$150k on a spreadsheet. Five discipline habits, a creator-specific chart of accounts, and a companion Excel workbook with revenue log, expense log, mileage log, monthly summary, quarterly-tax estimator, and YTD dashboard. Graduation triggers to QuickBooks defined.
~14 pages + .xlsxFREE
Next step → QuickBooks Setup Reference (above).
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Twenty-seven IRS forms a creator or small business is likely to touch, each with plain-English “what this is,” a trigger event, a “you or your CPA” indicator, and a link to the current-year version on IRS.gov. No hosted PDFs, so no stale-file risk. Includes a one-page cheat-sheet matrix.
~22 pagesFREE
Also as web index → irs-forms.html — fast-lookup HTML with direct IRS.gov links.
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The stripped-down QuickBooks Online setup for the one-person creator business. Fifteen accounts (not sixty), Simple Start tier ($30/mo, not Solopreneur), one afternoon to set up, fifteen minutes a week to run. Includes the weekly bank-feed workflow, a thirty-minute month-end close, and the upgrade triggers to Essentials or Plus.
~14 pagesFREE
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When it fits, when it doesn’t. The Power of the Pack applied to households below full-family-office scale — nine due-diligence questions, red flags, and a worked family example.
~30 pagesFREE
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