As the year begins to wind down, I know we all have one thing on our minds: MONEY. Whether we’re thinking about holiday spending, setting goals for 2024, making the most of the final month of the year, profit planning for more income in 2025, or identifying expenses for tax write-offs, money is definitely a top focus. I’m thrilled to introduce you to Geily. She’s the founder of Cutting Edge Financial Solutions and works with service-based businesses to improve their bottom lines through cash flow management and financial planning, focusing on reducing spending and maximizing take-home profits—which, let’s be honest, is what we all want.
As an experienced financial consultant and fractional CFO, Geily provides high-level financial expertise without the full-time commitment, helping entrepreneurs like us tackle profit and cash flow challenges with ease. She also guides us in implementing sustainable growth practices and prepares us to overcome financial hurdles.
In this episode, Geily shares three strategies to help us set up for a profitable 2025. That’s the main focus of our conversation, though I also took the opportunity to ask her about a few other things on my mind. If you’ve ever heard the “grasshopper and ant” analogy, well, I’m definitely a grasshopper. So if you’re like me and have been avoiding a deep dive into your numbers beyond revenue, expenses, and what you get to pay yourself, you’re going to love today’s episode—or maybe you won’t love it, but you’ll need it and appreciate it. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Listen on Apple | Listen on Spotify
Table of Contents
How Can We Set Ourselves up for a Strong and Profitable 2025?
Yes, absolutely. Q4 is the perfect time to ask these kinds of questions about profit planning—it’s just in the air right now! I actually have three main recommendations.
1. Have a Reality Check
The first is to have a “reality check.” By that, I mean you can’t know where you’re going until you pause to assess where you currently stand. Start by asking yourself some basic questions: How are my finances? How am I tracking my numbers? Am I doing it consistently or not at all? Is the business profitable? Questions like these give you a snapshot of your current situation. And depending on how quickly you can answer them, that alone might tell you something important. From this clarity, you can make informed decisions and set a clear path forward.
2. Make a Decision and Take Action
The second step, once you’ve had your reality check and identified where you are versus where you want to be, is to make a decision and take action. You need to decide if you’re going to go the DIY route or seek professional help. Some people are comfortable managing things themselves, while others realize they need more support—perhaps they have a bookkeeper and accountant but still feel stuck. In that case, seeking help from a financial consultant or fractional CFO could be beneficial.
If we keep taking the same steps, we’ll end up in the same place. With the new year approaching, it’s important to set goals and take different steps to reach them. So, after the reality check, it’s time to move forward with action. For those going the DIY route, there are many resources available. If you don’t have bookkeeping in place, start with accounting software for better record-keeping. Or, if a spreadsheet or app suits you, those are options too.
I even offer a free “Mastering Cashflow Guide,” which includes tools like an expense audit, cash flow tracking sheet, and expert recommendations for maximizing cash flow, reducing debt, and controlling expenses. This can be a helpful DIY starting point, providing a way to track your finances without relying solely on your bank balance and offering a clearer picture of what’s ahead.
3. Get Help
If you’re at a place where your books are in order, you have an accountant, and everything is running smoothly, but you still feel stuck—like you know where you’ve been financially, but not where you’re headed—then it might be time to seek outside help.
Today, it’s more accessible and affordable than ever to get this kind of support. You don’t need to bring someone on full-time. Instead, you can work with a fractional CFO, which is exactly what I do. This just means you get CFO-level guidance on a part-time basis. You could hire me on retainer for ongoing support each month, or even just schedule a one-time consult.
You’d be surprised at the clarity, direction, and energy even one session can give you, helping you gain the focus you need to move forward confidently in your business.
Before We Talk More About Profit Planning, What Is the Difference Between an Accountant and a Fractional CFO?
A fractional CFO, financial consultant, or financial advisor is someone who partners with you to help you look forward. They assist with managing your finances, setting goals, creating projections, and budgeting. Essentially, they’re there to guide you from point A to point B, all the way to where you want to go. In contrast, a bookkeeper’s role is more about maintaining records—they focus on past transactions, producing reports like profit and loss statements to show what you made and spent. This information is helpful, but it’s backward-looking.
Often, clients come to me saying they have a bookkeeper but aren’t sure how to use the information they’re given—that’s where a CFO’s role begins. An accountant or CPA, on the other hand, usually gets involved around tax time or mid-year for specific tax-related tasks. Their expertise lies in helping maximize deductions, handling tax filings, or advising on business structures like forming an S Corp.
While accountants may help identify ways to save on taxes moving forward, they don’t typically focus on long-term planning or mapping out how to reach your future goals. Each role—bookkeeper, accountant, CFO—has its own place in the financial world. When I step in as a fractional CFO, it’s often to help clients who have a bookkeeper and an accountant but still feel stuck, needing guidance on the bigger picture.
Why Should We Look Ahead In Our Business Finances? I Know For Me, I’m Guilty of “Bank Balance Accounting” or Even Hoarding Money When Times Are Good!
What you’re describing is that “feast or famine” mindset. It’s when you have a lot of money coming in and you feel like, “I’ve hit the jackpot; I can spend on anything I want,” or, on the flip side, you get an influx and think, “I need to save every penny.” Both reactions are common which is why I’m so passionate about profit planning.
One way to move away from that “bank balance accounting” mindset is by setting clear goals and creating a picture of what a successful year looks like. You define what you want to accomplish, then align your cash flow, bank accounts, and money coming in and going out with those goals.
This way, you’re moving beyond “bank balance accounting” and that feast-or-famine cycle, and you’re prioritizing your goals. So, when the end of the year comes, you can look back and say, “I followed through on the things I committed to,” whether that’s investments or other plans.
Part of this is also shifting your mindset from “this is just an expense” to “this is an investment.” That means you’re spending with the understanding that there’s an expected ROI—maybe doubling or tripling the initial investment. So, it’s about having a strategy that keeps you from just reacting to your bank balance and instead lets you make intentional, goal-focused decisions to support the future you want.
What are some common mistakes you see people make with their expenses and profit planning?
Yeah, often when we don’t set clear goals and have regular accountability check-ins, we end up spending on anything and everything. Or, as you mentioned, we start seeing every purchase as an “investment,” when it may not really be. It’s like there’s always “the next thing” to buy. I work with a lot of spenders—let’s just say there are many of them!
Personally, I’m a saver—that’s just my nature. But many of my clients are spenders, and that’s where I come in to help balance things out. What works well for us is keeping their goals front and center. When spending starts to spiral, I remind them, “Hey, remember, this is what you said was important to you. This is what we’re working toward.” And they usually respond, “You’re right; I remember now.” That focus helps curb mindless spending, which can easily become excessive.
One of the biggest causes of cash flow issues is not being aware of where things stand 30, 60, or 90 days out. Without a plan, it’s easy to fall back on bank balance accounting or spend on anything that comes along because the goals aren’t prioritized, and the bigger picture isn’t in mind.
Everything that I do with my clients is okay, the bigger picture in mind, we have a yearly plan. We have, we have quarterly, monthly, everything is with that big goal that you said you wanted to hit. Every expense, every decision, every financial decision, whether money in or money out, it’s really rendered through those plans and check-ins because that’s what you said matter to you. And my job is to hold you accountable to that so that come the end of the year, you’re know that you reached it. Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t spend, it just means that we spend on the things that are going to move the needle forward towards that goal.
What Are Some Examples of Goals Client’s Come To You With?
We don’t actually start with money goals. The reason is, if you dig deeper, there’s usually a more meaningful goal behind every financial target. For example, a couple of years ago, one of my goals was to be able to take vacations with my family without stressing about money. That goal led me to set specific income targets so I could put aside what we needed for those vacations. For the past two years, we’ve taken those vacations, and everything is paid for—we don’t have to say, “No, we can’t afford this,” because we prioritized that goal.
It doesn’t mean I’m not spending on other things in my business; it just means that this personal goal is a top priority. I take the same approach with my clients: we start with their personal goals—what they really want to achieve. Often, it’s not just about hitting a certain income level; it’s about what that income allows them to experience. Whether it’s vacations, flexibility, or freedom, we start there. Then, we look at their business goals and tie everything together. By the end of the year, they can say, “This is the one thing I made sure to accomplish.” And surprisingly, that top goal is almost always a personal one, not a business one.
Do you have any closing tips for what we should be doing specifically in Q4 and in our profit planning?
So, beyond the three steps we talked about, my final tip is to actually do something different. If we keep doing the same things we did this year, yet aim for bigger or bolder goals next year, we’re likely to fall short. So, if you’re setting higher, scarier goals, it’s time to switch things up. This could mean taking a DIY approach but with clearer, more focused actions. Or it might mean seeking out help and finding someone who can work alongside you, keeping an eye on what’s coming up and staying a few steps ahead.
At the end of the year, I tell my clients the same thing: as we close out Q4, we’re reviewing the entire year and planning for what’s next. We’re already holding our “planning for profit” sessions for 2025 because I don’t want my clients starting the new year feeling uncertain or directionless. I want them to know how last year ended and have a plan for where they’re going. So, take a moment to pause, look back, and then look forward—that alone can carry you into next year with confidence. Whether you do this yourself or with a financial professional, the key is to do something different if you want to see different results.
Profit Planning with Geily of Cutting Edge Financial Solutions
For more on Geily, find her on Instagram and LinkedIn. Or head on over to her website, where you can find free profit planning resources and you could also book a Planning for Profit session.
LINKS MENTIONED
- Grab Geily’s FREE Mastering Cash Flow Guide
- Follow Geily on Instagram
- Work with Geily here (and check out her planning for profit sessions)
- Learn more about working with our marketing agency here
- Follow me on Instagram
