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.
Episodes
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 ...
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...
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 ac...
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 brandin...
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-We...
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...
One client. Half your revenue. Great relationship. Solid work. And then they get acquired, a vendor review happens, and they're gone in 90 days.
That's concentration risk. And it doesn't announce itself until it's already happening.
In this episode, Melissa breaks down the 50% client problem, where else concentration risk hides in your business, and four practical moves to start building resilience without blow...
The Emotional Side of Agency Finances
We're not opening a spreadsheet in this episode. We're talking about feelings.
After years of sitting across from agency founders and looking at their numbers, one thing is clear: the math is almost never the problem. The feelings about the math — that's where everything gets stuck. The fear that you're not charging enough. The avoidance that keeps you from opening yo...
"I'm just not a numbers person."
If you've said that — or thought it — this episode is for you.
In Episode 3, Melissa Armstrong gets personal. As a CPA who has spent her career helping creative founders understand their finances, she still found herself believing she wasn't on top of her own business money. It took validation from her commercial banker and her business advisors befor...
What happens when your biggest client goes quiet? Panic — unless you know your numbers. Melissa opens with a real client story: a smart founder, a client that went radio silent, and the one question that changed everything: what is your daily burn rate?
Turns out, knowing that number is the difference between a business owner who can make strategic moves and one who's just hoping for the best.
No Se Habla...
I have watched agency owners pop bottles over crossing $1M in revenue, post about it, make it their entire personality for a quarter, and then call me six months later because they can't make payroll. In this episode, I'm breaking down why revenue is the most celebrated and most misunderstood number in your business, and what you should actually be paying attention to instead.
What We Cover
- Why crossing a r...
Season two is here, and yes, your finances are still a mess. But that's exactly why we're back. I'm Melissa Armstrong, fractional controller and the person who will tell you the financial truth your accountant was too polite to say out loud. This season we're going deep on the stuff that actually keeps founders up at night, from revenue that looks great but hides a fragile business, to the hidden cost of your...
Welcome to No Se Habla Taxes—the podcast where a CPA does her own bookkeeping and occasionally procrastinates just like the rest of you.
I’m Melissa Armstrong: fractional controller, solo practice owner, and financial translator for founders who’d rather binge Netflix than reconcile a bank statement.
And today’s episode? Ohhh boy. I have a confession...
✋🏼 The Confessio...
Welcome back to No Se Habla Taxes — the podcast where a CPA does her own bookkeeping... and finds financial skeletons in her closet.
I’m Melissa Armstrong: fractional controller, solo practice owner, and your favorite financial translator for founders who’d rather invest in growth than leak money on duplicate apps.
And today? I’m here with a confession that might sound famili...
🎙️ Episode: Bank Feeds Betrayal
Welcome to No Se Habla Taxes—the podcast where a CPA does her own bookkeeping and sometimes gets betrayed by QuickBooks itself.
I’m Melissa Armstrong, fractional controller, solo practice owner, and financial translator for founders who’d rather wrestle with client work than with their bank feeds.
And today’s confession?
I trus...
Welcome to No Se Habla Taxes, the podcast where I—a CPA and fractional controller—do my own bookkeeping and confess my way through the chaos so you don’t have to feel alone in yours.
In this episode, I get very real about budgeting—specifically, the emotional kind. Not the kind that lives in a pristine spreadsheet, but the one that has to account for things like impulse buys, last...
If you’ve ever found yourself transferring money from your business account to your personal one “just this once,” this episode is for you.
I get this question all the time—“How do I pay myself from my business the right way?” And honestly? It’s one of the most misunderstood parts of being a solopreneur.
In this episode of No Se Habla Taxes, I’m walkin...
In this episode of No Se Habla Taxes, I’m confessing something that every solo business owner has probably thought about: giving yourself a raise the moment new money hits the bank.
But before I could celebrate my new client wins with a little extra payout, I had to pump the brakes and take a hard look at what’s actually smart for my business right now.
We’re talking about:
In this episode of No Se Habla Taxes, I’m spilling the tea on how I set up my business so I never have to chase another invoice again. Yes, even as a solo CPA doing my own books.
I’m walking you through:
💸 Why every client—project-based or monthly—signs an agreement with autopay built in
📅 How predictable cash flow has saved my sanity (and maybe my rent)
�...
In this episode of No Se Habla Taxes, I’m sharing the billing fix I didn’t know I needed—until I hit a wall with clunky invoices, awkward follow-ups, and manually tacked-on credit card fees.
Fresh off the Bridging the Gap conference here in Denver (yes, I only pulled it off because it was local), I got exactly what I came for: tool recommendations from smart, scrappy peers who get it.&n...
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