Beansquad

The calendar reads mid-February and for franchise owners, that date carries weight. In only a few weeks, the window for a relatively smooth tax season begins to close. By March 1, many CPAs stop taking on new files and start preparing extensions.&nbsp;For franchisees and franchisors alike, mid-February is often the last real opportunity to turn a year of transactions into a clear financial picture.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegreenblatt/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=beansquad-last-call-clean-books-franchise-tax-season-2731466" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Mike Greenblatt</a>, vice president of operations and strategic growth at&nbsp;<a href="https://beansquad.com/services-franchise/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=beansquad-last-call-clean-books-franchise-tax-season-2731466" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">BeanSquad</a> — the financial services company that delivers outsourced bookkeeping and compliance support for franchises — said he sees the same pattern year after year. Waiting doesn’t just create stress; it can wind up being costly, too.<h2>The Hidden Costs of Waiting</h2>Some operators believe they can hand everything to their CPA at the end of the year and let them sort it out while preparing the return. Greenblatt said that approach often leads to higher bills and weaker results. When CPAs are buried during peak season, even routine cleanup work can come with premium hourly rates.“If you’re working directly with just your CPA, they revel in this opportunity to charge you their hourly rate and throw journal entries in so they can run a tax return for you that may not even be that accurate,” Greenblatt said. “If you don’t handle your bookkeeping on a monthly basis, even at worst quarterly, and you wait until the end of the year, you’re going to cost yourself an arm and a leg. A CPA can charge you hundreds of dollars an hour just to get your books cleaned up for the year. And that’s a lot more expensive than a monthly bookkeeping cost.”Accuracy tends to be an issue under such circumstances, too. Compressing 12 months of activity into a short window increases the likelihood of mistakes. If revenue isn’t properly categorized, a CPA may treat every deposit as income. That can mean paying taxes on money that’s not even actual profit.<h2>Systemwide Consequences</h2>In franchising, the impact of disorganized books doesn’t just stop at a single location. Weak or incomplete data can affect the system as a whole. Franchisors depend on accurate financial reporting, which helps build dependable Item 19 disclosures in the Franchise Disclosure Document while providing benchmarking information across the network.When regular financial submissions aren’t required, the franchisor may lack visibility into what’s actually happening on the ground. Greenblatt said some brands lean heavily into point-of-sale data, which may capture sales but fails to paint the full financial picture.“Item 19s are incredibly important to a franchise concept, right? If they have a proper Item 19, it allows them to sell more. But I talked to a lot of different concepts where they never required financial submission. Which means they may have been making a lot of assumptions,” Greenblatt said. “So, being disorganized can create a lot of ripple effects.”Without reliable data, measuring true profitability becomes more difficult. It can also stall growth. Plus, lenders typically require clean, reconciled profit-and-loss statements and balance sheets before even considering potential financing. If those documents aren’t in order, expansion plans may fall to the back burner.<h2>Bookkeeping vs. Tax Preparation</h2>Bookkeeping and tax preparation aren’t the same function, and the misunderstanding of these roles can create problems. Greenblatt said&nbsp;<a href="https://1851franchise.com/beansquad/info">BeanSquad’s</a> focus is on preparation: reconciling bank accounts, organizing balance sheets and properly categorizing profit-and-loss statements.That groundwork allows a CPA to step in with a cleaner financial package, but timing matters too. Even the most efficient cleanup team depends on the information an owner provides and the timeline in which it’s provided.“Last-minute cleanups are only as messy as the information presented to you,” Greenblatt said. “At the end of the year, we’re at the disposal of the access points our clients give us. However, there’s a much shorter deadline we can play with.”<h2>Using Data as a Compass</h2>For Greenblatt, the urgency around March isn’t just about meeting IRS deadlines. It’s about giving operators better visibility into their business before the year gets going. Too many franchise owners rely on bank account accounting: judging performance by whether there’s money in the account.Still, that mindset can be misleading. Without financial statements that are actually reliable, owners lose the ability to run a meaningful gap analysis, which can make it difficult to properly assess how actual results compare with expectations.“You don’t want to look up and say, ‘I’m making money and I have more than I did at the start of the year,’ and think that means you’re succeeding,” Greenblatt said. “If I’m supposed to be at a 22% bottom line and I’m at 4%, sure, technically, I made money. But I’m off by 18%! So, I should want to know why.”Cleaning up the books now allows operators to review seasonality, identify trends and adjust course for the months ahead, enhancing the odds of successfully scaling a business.“The financial facts give you the foresight to make proper decisions,” Greenblatt said. “It’s taking what’s happening operationally, what you see with your eyes, and what’s on paper. Then it’s putting them together to make operational decisions that truly impact your business.”To learn more about BeanSquad's bookkeeping services for franchises, please visit&nbsp;<a href="https://1851franchise.com/beansquad">https://1851franchise.com/beansquad</a>.

Tax Season Bookkeeping Tips for Franchisees | BeanSquad Advice

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BeanSquad VP Mike Greenblatt breaks down why disorganized financials do more than just stress out accountants; they actively drain profit through high cleanup fees and missed deductions.

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Last Call for Clean Books Before Tax Season: The Hidden Revenue Franchisees and Franchisors Lose When They Wait

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BeanSquad Kicks Off 2025 with Strong Q1 Momentum and Aggressive Growth Goals

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For&nbsp;<a href="https://scenthoundfranchising.com/">ScentHound</a> franchisee&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-bingham/">Betsy Bingham</a>, the early days of ownership came with a familiar problem for operators moving fast: the work behind the work. Between running a demanding corporate role and building a multi-unit franchise portfolio, bookkeeping quickly became the kind of task that never stayed small.“I would say having the time to do the work to get all the transactions in the right categories and making sure they were in the right places,” Bingham said of her biggest challenge before outsourcing. She started working with&nbsp;<a href="https://beansquad.com/">BeanSquad</a> early, not because she didn’t understand the numbers, but because she didn’t have the bandwidth to build them. “Even though I have an MBA with a concentration in finance and I know how to read financial statements, I don’t know how to build them,” she said.<h2>When Growth Outruns Bandwidth</h2>As her footprint expanded, the stakes around the numbers got higher. Bingham is building toward multiple locations, with openings coming one after another. When you’re moving that fast, clean books aren’t optional — they’re what keep day-to-day decisions anchored in reality.<a href="https://1851franchise.com/beansquad/info">BeanSquad</a> didn’t just lighten the workload. It took the constant anxiety out of the monthly close and gave her a steadier cadence to run the business.&nbsp;“I don’t have to look ahead with dread at the end of the month, where I would have to manage a mountain of transactions because I wasn’t good at keeping up on them day to day,” she said. “I have peace of mind that I don’t have to think about it anymore.”<h2>Turning Reports Into Real Accountability</h2>With steadier reporting came better visibility into performance — especially around labor, one of the biggest levers in unit economics. Bingham said BeanSquad built custom QuickBooks reporting that made a key KPI usable in real time.“I have KPIs for my managers that they are accountable for, and one of them is the revenue-to-labor ratio,” she said. “They were able to set up a custom report that very clearly helps me understand where I’m doing at that gross-profit level.”Those statements now play directly into how she manages her teams. “We have a monthly operating review process with all of my managers,” she said. “I bring the financial statements in there and transparently they see it all.”<h2>Off the “Naughty List”</h2>Compliance support has been another quiet win, especially in the back-and-forth that can strain a franchisee’s relationship with the franchisor.“They’ve taken away the nagging emails I used to get about ProfitKeeper tasks to do,” Bingham said. “They’ve gotten me off the naughty list at corporate by taking care of those things.”<h2>Scaling Without Losing Visibility</h2>Her advice to other franchisees is direct: outsource — but stay engaged.“Really do it. It is well worth the investment,” she said. “You can’t just outsource and be hands off the wheel as a franchise owner. You have to be involved.”For Bingham, that mix — clean books, fewer compliance headaches and clearer insight into unit-level performance — is what makes growth feel manageable. It’s not just less work. It’s better work, supported by numbers she trusts.To learn more about BeanSquad's bookkeeping services for franchises, please visit&nbsp;<a href="https://1851franchise.com/beansquad">https://1851franchise.com/beansquad</a>.

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BeanSquad Gave This ScentHound Franchisee the Financial Clarity to Scale With Confidence

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Last Call for Clean Books Before Tax Season: The Hidden Revenue Franchisees and Franchisors Lose When They Wait

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