About Sam Neal, CPA
I help digital and creative agenceis gain clear financial and operational insight so they can make better decisions about pricing, staffing, and growth. As a Certified Public Accountant who has worked with 100+ small businesses, I’ve seen how unclear financial data leads to lower margins, mispriced projects, and wasted time, and how the right insight can fix these problems.
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I am an expert in QuickBooks Online and Xero, but I am not a traditional bookkeeper. I work directly with business owners as a hands-on partner. My role is to turn financial data into simple, useful insight, including project-level profitability, team utilization, and overall firm performance.
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Clear communication is a core part of my work. You work with me directly—not a team or layers of staff. I explain what is happening in your business, why it matters, and what you should do next. My goal is to give you the clarity and confidence to make better decisions every day.
Where I can help
Blind to your most profitable projects?
Many project-based firms generate revenue without clear visibility into which projects actually produce profit. Without tracking real delivery costs—time, labor mix, scope changes, and overhead—teams can’t tell which engagements fuel growth and which quietly erode margins. By analyzing profitability at the project level, you gain clarity into what truly pays off, allowing you to focus on high-margin work, improve pricing and scoping, increase overall profitability, and grow your firm with confidence instead of guesswork.
Unsure when to hire?
Many agency owners feel overworked but aren’t sure when it makes sense to hire. The key is understanding your team’s capacity and utilization — how much of their available time is spent on profitable, billable work versus non-billable tasks. By analyzing the time required to complete each service, which services generate the most profit, and your team’s current utilization rates, you can pinpoint the exact moment when adding staff will increase profits instead of costs. This approach removes guesswork, keeps workloads manageable, and ensures your business grows sustainably without overextending your team.
Working harder, not seeing more money?
Business owners often feel like they’re running nonstop, yet profits don’t reflect the effort. The problem often isn’t how hard they’re working — it’s which work they’re doing. By tracking profitability at the service and client level, you can identify exactly which services and clients generate the most profit and which are quietly draining time and resources. With this insight, you can make smarter decisions: prioritize high-margin services, adjust or eliminate low-margin offerings, and focus on clients that truly contribute to your bottom line. This approach ensures that your hard work translates into real financial growth, not just longer hours, and gives you the confidence to make strategic choices that maximize profitability.
Worried you won’t have enough cash for payroll?
Most agency owners live with the constant stress of wondering if there will be enough cash to cover payroll and other essential expenses. The problem often isn’t a lack of revenue — it’s a lack of clarity on when money is coming in and going out. By implementing detailed cash flow tracking and forecasting, you can see exactly how payments, invoices, and expenses align over time. This allows you to plan for slower periods, anticipate shortfalls, and make informed decisions about spending, hiring, or investing in growth. With this visibility, payroll and other critical obligations are no longer a source of panic, and you can run your business confidently, knowing that cash flow is under control.
Nervous to share your financials?
It is common for agency owners to hesitate when asked to share their financials because they’re not confident the numbers can withstand scrutiny. We solve this by delivering audit-ready financials, where every balance sheet account is fully supported by third-party documentation and regular reconciliations. Each balance is tied back to external sources—ensuring accuracy, consistency, and completeness across your financial statements. This means you can confidently share your numbers with investors, lenders, or potential buyers without worrying about errors, unanswered questions, or last-minute adjustments that could undermine trust or reduce your business’s valuation. Audit-ready financials give you credibility, clarity, and confidence at every stage of growth.