The IRS Has No Chill, But Your Receipts Should, with Tanya Lawrence

Taxes drain more profit than most owners realize, and that single fact changes how we build, run, and sell a creative business. The Dead Pixels Society sits down with accounting expert Tanya Lawrence to map out the moves that protect cash today and increase valuation tomorrow—without drowning in jargon or guesswork.

She starts with the foundation: Choosing the right tax treatment as your company evolves. Lawrence explains why an LLC is a legal shell, not a tax status, and how to time a shift from sole proprietor to S corporation as profits grow. From there, we dive into bonus depreciation and asset strategy for studios, labs, and print shops—how to expense gear in the year you buy it, when to spread deductions, and why leasing isn’t a shortcut to bigger write-offs. She also walks through a crucial point for anyone planning an exit: buyers and banks focus on the last three years, so a business needs clean books that show profit while still using assets and intangibles to optimize taxes.

The conversation gets practical fast on compliance and audits. Bank statements aren’t enough; receipts prove purpose. We share simple systems for digital receipts, the 75-dollar rule, and the pitfalls of vehicle deductions when personal use overlaps. We also reframe your website and SEO as intangible assets to amortize, not just marketing spend—especially relevant for photo retailers and labs whose storefronts now live online. On cash flow, Lawrence breaks the P&L myth and shows how principal payments and owner draws drain cash, even when profits look strong. For seasonal operators, we outline a multi-account setup that moves peak revenue out of sight and keeps the lights on in the slow months.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Intro
• 2:05 Why Finance Is A Puzzle
• 3:55 Taxes As Your Biggest Expense
• 6:18 Picking The Right Tax Entity
• 10:45 Profit, Pay, And Resale Value
• 13:20 Bonus Depreciation And Assets
• 18:15 Lease Vs Buy For Equipment
• 21:10 Money Emotions And Audits
• 24:40 Audit Triggers And Receipts
• 28:10 Vehicles, Miles, And Proof
• 31:10 Prepping To Sell In Three Years

Transcript

Erin Manning: 0:01

Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society Podcast, the photoimaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau. The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is brought to you by Media clip, Advertek Printing, and Independent Photo Imagers.

Gary Pageau: 0:18

Hello again. Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau. And today we're joined by Tanya Lawrence, who's coming to us from Georgia. And Tanya is an accounting and business finance expert. Tanya, welcome to the show.

Tanya Lawrence: 0:33

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Gary Pageau: 0:35

So, Tanya, tell me why you got into the finance business. What is it that appealed to you about helping businesses with their finances?

Tanya Lawrence: 0:48

So a lot of people think it's all about math. And I've always loved math growing up and things like that. But when I actually got into accounting and finances and working with business owners, to me, I discovered that it's more like a puzzle.

Gary Pageau: 1:03

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 1:03

And believe it or not, I'm like terrible at math right now because I depend so much on a calculator for all these years. Yeah. Like you ask me what's two plus two, I'm gonna have to think about it.

Gary Pageau: 1:13

But that's the new math too. So that's a whole other thing.

Tanya Lawrence: 1:16

Yeah. Oh yeah, that's a whole other thing. But in general, like finances is a really big puzzle, and it's kind of exciting once it goes in together. And that's like my favorite part working with business owners is like once we put the puzzle of finances and accounting together, it's like a light bulb goes on that's like, oh, oh, okay, now I get it.

Gary Pageau: 1:38

So let's talk about that puzzle because there's different pieces of a business's objectives, right? I mean, they may be an asset out, you know, gathering strategy where they're trying to build up a company to sell, or they could be just trying to run a business profitably and not worrying about building assets and kind of things. So when you're talking to businesses, um, how important is their overall strategy in the conversations you're having with them?

Tanya Lawrence: 2:05

So when it comes specifically tax strategy, it's extremely important because believe it or not, taxes is your biggest expense. You think most people think, oh, it's payroll, but in reality, it's taxes because off of your profits, especially if you're in the high bracket, you're almost paying 40%. And then if you're in like a state that also collects taxes, you're paying in taxes over 50% of your net income. Right. So when it comes to taxes, the strategy is extremely important. And a lot of times people just because don't know like the law and things like that, they fall out of compliance. That's like the most common thing I've seen is people are not in compliance. And just because you don't know the law doesn't excuse you from it. So I would say it's extremely important. I should be number one on everyone's list, but it's usually not, it's on the back burner.

Gary Pageau: 2:59

Well, no, because no one gets into business to pay taxes. I mean, that's exactly it's like wow, I can't wait to start my photography store so I can pay 50% of my net income to taxes. Boy, that that is something I'm really excited about. Right. Typically, not what they want to do. But yeah, you know, a lot of people's business strategy are around either, you know, tax minimalization or tax avoidance. And you know, I don't really want to get into that per se, but you know, but taxes are, like you said, a major expense. And so you may want to reduce that uh by doing what kind of strategies.

Tanya Lawrence: 3:38

So I would say the number one strategy that would really help you is to make sure that you're in the correct tax entity. And I say specifically tax entity because an LLC is not a tax entity. An LLC, which a lot of people think, oh, I'm an LLC, I say money on taxes. That's not really the case because DIRS actually does not recognize an LLC. That's on the state level. An LLC still has to pick a tax entity. However, LLCs are still the best, in my opinion, because the LLC is the only one, the only one that can switch entities as you grow. So I always recommend when you're starting out, get an LLC, file your taxes as a sole proprietor, the easiest way. And as you grow, then you switch to an S corporation, or if you really grow and want to sell, maybe even a C corporation.

Gary Pageau: 4:29

So what are the differences between those? Because I know you know, probably a lot of my audience are one of those, but what are some of the differences between them? Like let's just starting with an LLC. Let's say, for example, I'm starting a uh a print shop now with an LLC, I can have employees, right?

Tanya Lawrence: 4:49

You can have employees in any entity, even just a sole prop. But an LLC, this is where you really separate yourself between you and your business. But as far as like employees, they go into any entity. The real um tax strategy comes in between not necessarily with employees, but between the owner and the company. Um, there's additional like tax savings that as you grow, that you wouldn't need because you're initially investing so much money, you're losing, you have so many expenses. But as you grow and you switch to like an S corporation, you have more tax strategies, more open doors because of how the tax system is structured. The tax code is structured.

Gary Pageau: 5:32

When you're talking about like extracting money out of the business, right, as an as an owner, um, you know, you can pay yourself a salary or a wage, and that's taxed on an individual level. And then there's also the tax that the business has, right? So there's a lot of people who run their business sort of with a net very close to zero to minimize their uh their tax burden. What do you think about that as sort of a uh because that what wouldn't that affect your resale value if you're not showing actually a great net profit at the end?

Tanya Lawrence: 6:05

Yeah, and most people are like, oh, wait a minute, I didn't realize that. So, yes, if you're building a business to sell it, you don't want to be showing that net. But there are so many other strategies to show a positive net but uh negative in taxes. For example, your assets. If you especially right now with this new bill coming out again with the hundred percent depreciation assets, your assets are added back to the company value, but on taxes, they're expensed out. So on tax purposes, if you're purchasing assets, you are technically saying here, this is my depreciated expense. So you are showing a zero taxable income or close to zero, but your company worth is not changing, it's uh showing more.

Gary Pageau: 6:51

Okay, so go into that because that's first I've heard of that. So, what is the reason for that? Is that to encourage people to capitalize your business or not lease equipment? What's the theory behind that change in the tax? And you kind of go into the background on that.

Tanya Lawrence: 7:07

Yeah, so usually when you purchase like an asset, so the IRS rules is anything over 500. So if you have a computer and you're purchasing it for $2,000, um, you have to expense that over five years. Right. That's the standard, that's the depreciation because the lifetime use of the computer, IRS says their computers are good for five years, so you have to expense it over five years.

Gary Pageau: 7:30

Even though you can use it far beyond that, just as far as the the the quote taxable value of that asset, it's will be down to zero in five years.

Tanya Lawrence: 7:38

Right. And the reason the IRS the reason that they did that is so you still pay taxes. You have you spent all this money in a company by buying furniture, by buying computers, by buying this, and you think, oh, I'm out of loss because my bank account shows zero dollars, and the IRS goes, wait a minute, and no, you can't deduct all of it in one year, you still have to show income, you still have to uh pay taxes on that. Right. And a lot of people don't understand that because an expense is like your supplies, right? So, like if you have a printer, the printer itself is an asset, but the paper and the ink is the supplies in it. Yeah, so the paper and the ink gets expensed every every single year. But the printer, the IRS is like, if it's a thousand dollar printer, the IRS is like, no, you have to separate that over five year period. So even though your bank account shows zero because of these depreciation over a certain amount of years, the IRS still wanted you to pay taxes with this new bill, you can expense it, depreciate it the full amount in the same year.

Gary Pageau: 8:41

Oh, okay.

Tanya Lawrence: 8:41

When it cut yeah, so you don't have to spread it over five years, and it comes into a really good strategy. Like, do I need to did I make so much money this year that I do need to depreciate all of it in one year? Or hey, I'm actually doing not doing so well, and I would and I'm gonna make more money next year and the following year. So I would rather use the whole five years. So that's like with the depreciation, the tax strategy comes a lot into play, especially like with assets and things like that.

Gary Pageau: 9:12

Can you change your mind? Can you like no so you have to decide that year that you acquired equipment? Okay, you can't let go. Well, my year was better than I thought, so I'm gonna change out and switch it back to the old depreciation schedule. You have to, you gotta stick with the one correct.

Tanya Lawrence: 9:29

Once you decide to do it over five years, it has to be over five years once you decide to do it the full depreciation, that year is done, taxes are done, year is closed, you can't redo it.

Gary Pageau: 9:39

So, in in the photography industry industry, a lot of equipment is leased. Uh, lease big printers, the lease equipment. Does that have a tax advantage? Is there something there that could be uh useful for that?

Tanya Lawrence: 9:55

Well, usually the lease payments are expensed out as a regular expense, but it's also limited to the lease. So the printer is a thousand dollars, and I'm just using round numbers here.

Gary Pageau: 10:06

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 10:06

The printer is a thousand dollars, but you only paid $300 in lease payments, you are able to uh deduct expense out the $300 in lease payments. It doesn't matter that the printer costs a thousand dollars, you're only expensing your lease payments, and that's usually an expense.

Gary Pageau: 10:24

Okay, because I mean, like I said, that's very common that you know people don't want to bring on the equipment and the overhead and whatnot, especially when it's technologically gonna be, you know, may not even last the five years depreciation, right? Um, let's talk a little bit about well, you mentioned earlier the emotional side that that the finances are really emotional.

Tanya Lawrence: 10:44

Yeah.

Gary Pageau: 10:44

Um, can you kind of explain and expand on that a little bit?

Tanya Lawrence: 10:48

Yeah, so I'm a very logical person just by nature, probably because I do love numbers and they all make sense and things like that. But when I started working with people, um, and I'm like showing them the you know things they need to do, and and some people just can't bring themselves. And I realized that it's very emotional process. So now I focus on like you need to figure out what works for you. So if you're a morning person, maybe that's when you tackle your accounting and you're done, right? If you're like an evening person, do it then. People don't realize that it's really emotional, it's all tied together. And working with business owners who have been audited, this is why I say it's the most important thing. If you are audited, hire someone else because the emotional part of being audited, you can't even organize your numbers correctly because you're so emotionally at you know, really attached. Because it's you know, your business is your baby. You put your sweat and tears into it, you know, late nights, no one on DRS is just looking at the numbers, you know. So to you, that's why it's emotional because your emotions are tied into it. You stayed up, you thought of this idea, you know. Sometimes it took years to actually, you know, start a printing shop or start a shop or you know, sure, buy the equipment. Right. So it's very emotional. But to a person who's doing accounting, it's like logical. Like, what are you talking about? This is what you need to do, right?

Gary Pageau: 12:22

You know, and the IRS is not emotional, right?

Tanya Lawrence: 12:24

They are no, they're not.

Gary Pageau: 12:27

They don't really care what your feelings are.

Tanya Lawrence: 12:30

They no, no, and you know, and the sad part is they heard every excuse in the book, so they're immune to it.

Gary Pageau: 12:36

Exactly. So let's talk about kind of auditing because when this podcast drops, it'll be sort of the end of the year uh time frame for a lot of the business, end of the calendar year. What are some things, typical small business, so you know, 50 employees or less, what are some of the things that they should be doing to avoid being audited, right? To avoid those red flags. Because I know there's a lot of people out there who, when they do their taxes, kind of submit them and just kind of cross their fingers and kind of hope that this won't be their year, right? Um, because either they're sloppy or they, you know, did it in a rush or they didn't get professional help or something like that. What are some of the things that um you see that can kind of help you dodge that bullet?

Tanya Lawrence: 13:20

Be organized, get organized with your receipts. A lot of people think, oh, I have a credit card statement, oh, I have a bank. Everything goes through the bank. I don't need to keep a receipt. But when the IRS audits you, guess what's the number? Yes, they ask for the bank statements and the credit card statements, but they also ask for the receipts. And a lot of people are like, but I have it's on my credit card statement. Well, your credit card statement shows when it was and where it was and how much, but it doesn't show for what it was. The receipt is what will show. And people are like, but there's so many receipts. What do I worry about? And yes, you are supposed to keep every receipt, believe it or not, you are. But I say, you know, don't worry about what happened before, just work on it now going forward. Because if you're gonna stress out, you know, oh my gosh, I didn't save that receipt, I didn't save that receipt, then it's just gonna, you know, drive you crazy. But focus on the now and moving forward. Like there's so many options. You, you know, like the whole receipt scanning, the whole email, the whole even a Google Drive folder works, you know, just take a picture of it, then you're not worried about the receipt. You have a you know, digital copy of it.

Gary Pageau: 14:32

So a digital copy is okay. So just you're just saying have an actual record of the receipt. You don't necessarily need the physical receipt itself. It's you can have a picture of it that kind of says you took a client to Bob's bakery for coffee and it cost you $12. That won't it'll just be on your credit card statement or your debit card, your bank statement. It'll be, you know, you went to Bob's bakery, it didn't say who with or what for. So you should still annotate the receipt, right? With who it was with and all those fun things before you digitize it.

Tanya Lawrence: 15:02

Yeah, I would say that. And a lot of times, like like I said, I've been through a you know multiple audits with the customers, they're not the tech customers that I prepare taxes for, it's usually customers coming to us because they're being audited.

Gary Pageau: 15:17

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 15:19

So, and then they become our tax customer. But what I have noticed is that depending on the transactions and things like that, if it's under $75, I would worry less about it. But if it's over $75, make sure you have that receipt. And then, of course, you have your recurring ones like your cell phone bill, like your rent payment, you know, your office internet, those are recurring ones. I wouldn't worry too much about getting it every single month. But as long as you have one you know that repeats the same, then it's fine. Have your receipts emailed to you. That's the easiest way.

Gary Pageau: 15:56

Okay.

Tanya Lawrence: 15:56

Even the stores now are like, Do you want to print it or email? I'm like, email.

Gary Pageau: 16:00

Okay. Well, I mean, that you know, no, that's good. Maybe you have a folder on your email thing that just receipts.

Tanya Lawrence: 16:06

Yeah, easiest way.

Gary Pageau: 16:08

Okay. So what about like things? I know a lot of people in the industry use a business vehicle for you know, maybe for personal or something like that. Like, you know, maybe it has their studio name on it or something like that. Now, that always used to be sort of like one of the perks of being a business is that you, hey, you could have a vehicle with your name on it and it's and you can expense it, but you can't expense all of it, right?

Tanya Lawrence: 16:38

Correct. So vehicle is a little more trickier, and I feel like it gets trickier and trickier every single year. But I always say, if you're splitting it before between personal and business, just reimburse yourself for the miles. That's easier way to keep track. There's not much record. But if you are using it 100% for the business, then you have a personal vehicle. Because if you don't have a personal vehicle and you're saying, no, no, I use this for 100% for the business, what the IRS will say is no, you don't. It's not possible, right?

Gary Pageau: 17:11

You can't unless you can prove you Uber and you ride your bike or you walk or something otherwise, right? But that's gonna be very difficult to prove.

Tanya Lawrence: 17:21

Correct. Yes. So I always say if you want to expense out a vehicle, I want to make sure you have a personal vehicle. If you only have one vehicle, what we're gonna do is we're gonna keep track of miles. That's a much better option. Then you don't have to worry about, oh, I'm only depreciating 80%. Right. Because guess what? When you go back and you sell that vehicle, you're gonna have to reclaim that depreciation as income.

Gary Pageau: 17:45

Wow. When you're looking at you know tax rise going forward, let's say a lot of my audience are looking for to sell, right? They're they plan on selling their business. Um, so like you said, they want to max you, they should be maximizing for net profit.

Tanya Lawrence: 17:59

Right. To maximize net profit, but to pay the least amount of taxes, right? You gotta focus on asset depreciation.

Gary Pageau: 18:07

Okay.

Tanya Lawrence: 18:09

So, because then when you do go to sell the business, you're selling those assets too.

Gary Pageau: 18:14

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 18:15

You could potentially sell those off assets.

Gary Pageau: 18:18

So, what do you mean by asset depreciation? What is, and when you're talking, I mean that's sort of a technical accounting term, but for but but for Joe Bob business owner, what does that mean?

Tanya Lawrence: 18:29

It basically means like, and I know this might sound funny, but like the furniture, that's an asset. Right. You pay less taxes, but you depreciate it, but it still has value to the business. Things like the printer, you know, it would come with the business and stuff like that. Even like intangible assets, like if you bought another business, so like let's say you're on the other side who's buying you know, an already established business, those are the the goodwill, the clients, the customers of the goodwill, that's already an asset as well. Right. So if you want to look at buying assets instead of just doing expenses, so whatever you can say is an asset and not an expense.

Gary Pageau: 19:13

Right. How long do you think that process should take to plan? Because, like I said, I run into when I talk to people in the industry who are maybe you know older and they're looking to sell their business, and it's like, well, I'm gonna sell in one to two years. Is that enough time to kind of get your financial house in order if maybe you weren't maximizing for sale during that time?

Tanya Lawrence: 19:34

So what I have noticed in business sales, they want through the last three years.

Gary Pageau: 19:39

Okay.

Tanya Lawrence: 19:39

And I've had customers who sold their businesses and in different kinds of industries, but the who the buyer, the bank who's giving them a loan, always looks back three years.

Gary Pageau: 19:51

Right. Okay. Because I remember used it used to be five, as I recall, not that long ago. People wanted five years of the of records.

Tanya Lawrence: 19:59

Yeah, now it's more standard, there's the three years.

Gary Pageau: 20:02

Okay.

Tanya Lawrence: 20:02

I wanted to go back a little bit on the assets, and a lot of people don't realize that this is an asset, but your website, that's an asset. And a lot of people just expense it out because they pay for monthly SEOs, and that's like, oh, that's my marketing expense. But your website with the SEO and you building all of that in, that's actually your biggest asset nowadays.

Gary Pageau: 20:26

And in my industry, right, the people are conducting business over the website, right? They've got a uh, you know, they're taking orders, people are uploading pictures and doing all those things primarily through the website. So you're right. That is so how is that valued, right? I mean, it's that that's valued probably differently than a piece of furniture, right?

Tanya Lawrence: 20:48

So that would be like a business valuation, right? So somebody who specializes in that would give would assign it a value. But I'm saying for your taxes, usually people just write it, oh, my marketing expense. But on if you flip it and put it on the balance sheet as you're investing into your website, into the monthly SEO and things like that, right? Then you amortize it, which is equivalent to depreciation because it's really an intangible method, right? Then you look much better on taxes.

Gary Pageau: 21:20

That's interesting. So I mean, do you have clients who have do a substantial portion of their business of their business on the internet? And I do, yeah. And then that's something they have to cope with, right?

Tanya Lawrence: 21:32

Right.

Gary Pageau: 21:33

Interesting, interesting.

Tanya Lawrence: 21:35

But I mean, any business who has a website, that's already their asset. But a lot of people don't even think like that.

Gary Pageau: 21:40

Yeah, I wasn't thinking about it either. Like I said, I would think I would think of more than an expense, but yeah, especially if you may have custom software you put into the website, right? That's intellectual property, and that has a value.

Tanya Lawrence: 21:53

Yeah.

Gary Pageau: 21:54

So another thing besides taxes that impact people is, of course, cash flow. And and that's one of the things that you know, everyone says cash is king or whatever. And it seems harder and harder these days to manage cash flow. Why, you know, why is that? What's happening with? I mean, I think a lot of it might even be, you know, digital transactions and all those kind of things are hindering how people can manage their cash.

Tanya Lawrence: 22:16

Yeah. So the biggest thing when with a business owner and or whoever's, you know, running the business is they get a report, which is a profit and loss. And so on the profit and loss, you have your income in, all the gross income, and then you have a list of your expenses, and then it says in pretty big black letters, hopefully, net profit, right?

Gary Pageau: 22:37

And then you don't want to see red there. You want to see black.

Tanya Lawrence: 22:39

No. Yeah. But then you're like, okay, it says I made a thousand dollars, but my bank account shows ten dollars.

Gary Pageau: 22:48

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 22:48

Where's the rest of the money?

Gary Pageau: 22:50

Right, yeah, yeah.

Tanya Lawrence: 22:50

So I think the biggest issue for cash flow is people don't understand that loan payments, you know, other payments that come in, like car payments, they do not come on the balance for profit and loss, but they affect the principal. They affect the money that comes out of your account. So most businesses only look at the profit and loss, and they completely forget to look at the balance sheet. Right. And there is no, unfortunately, report that combines the two, right? Unless you literally have to create a custom report that actually shows the transactions that are coming out.

Gary Pageau: 23:25

And and and the appropriate cash flow will kind of affect the business, right? I mean, I mean, type of business that it is. Some businesses don't just because of the nature of the business, don't have a lot of free cash flow, and others do. Now, what are your recommendations for businesses like the photography industry or the printing industry that are wildly seasonal, right? We're in the fourth quarter right now, and this is like the busy season. And for many things from a profit standpoint, it's got to carry them through the year.

Tanya Lawrence: 23:55

So I always uh recommend doing a budget, and I know of course that, but is there uh you know things they can do in terms of uh cash flow management to kind of to to to uh to approve that burgeon?

Gary Pageau: 24:10

I'm hoping most of my listeners have a budget, and I'm looking right at you guys. You better have a budget at least.

Tanya Lawrence: 24:17

And what I've noticed is for people to uh make better decisions and just be more effective, you have to make it as easy as possible for yourself.

Gary Pageau: 24:28

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 24:28

And I know it kind of sounds silly, and like even me with in my business, I'm like, how can I make it more easier for my clients, more easier for my employees? Because then it's easier to do. So I don't know if you remember before like all these banks and stuff like that, there was like an envelope budget system. Like they even have those envelopes, right? So you put this money and stuff like that. I always recommend, especially for people in the seasonal like that, is have multiple bank accounts.

Gary Pageau: 24:57

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 24:57

And you have your standard bank account, which should be a big bank like Bank of America, Chase, Well Spargo, that does everyday transactions that has great you know, customer service that can fix things, that you know, whatever. And then you should have your savings or actually prefer money markets instead, for like your income over the next six months over the years. So if you are in a busy season now, your money should come in, but then you should move it every time it comes in. I know it's hard, or like once a week, move it over to your income for going forward. So then it's out of mind, out of sight. It's much harder to spend money that you don't see. And then I say for your emergency fund, make it so difficult to take money out that you physically have to go to the bank.

Gary Pageau: 25:45

Okay.

Tanya Lawrence: 25:46

So I say these are the local small credit unions that and do not get a debit card. Do not, you know, so you physically have to go there and get money, make it hard for yourself. But but um as far as like making it easy with heavy seasonal, put that money aside, transfer that money right away. Not do not operate out of one bank account because you're looking at it and you have to train your brain. You're looking at it, and brain's like, oh look, I have money. But if you're moving that money right away and you're not seeing it, because that's your money to use off season, then it's much easier to manage. Make it easy for yourself, right? Is what my recommendation.

Gary Pageau: 26:28

So one of the other issues that small businesses have is of course controls on finances, right? Who has access to things? Because hopefully you either have someone you trust who's an outside person or a CPA or something like that who can keep an eye on things for you, right? Because you know, things, you know, there unfortunately a lot of small businesses have problems with either uh employees who have access to accounts when and they're not responsible and they're not being monitored and things like that. What are some strategies that a small business can employ to kind of you know keep easier track of their finances without being a full-time finance cop, I guess is the word looking for. You know, what are some of the controls you can put in place?

Tanya Lawrence: 27:16

Um, yeah, so I would highly recommend. Um, like if you do have an accountant or a bookkeeper, if you're a bigger business who has an internal person, I would recommend having an external person to review. Like we have customers that we they have an internal accounting people, but we review those transactions to make sure that the bills are paid correctly, that they're not overpaid. Right. Because you're right, unfortunately, and it's mind-blowing, you know, there are employees who just take a little extra, extra, extra, and it adds up, you know, like you hear horror stories on the news, and it's really hard to, you know, again, that's where that emotional part comes in, and you're like, I trusted you, you know, as my employee, and things like that. If you are a bigger cut company, of course, if you hire someone outsourced, they usually have insurance. And if you are hiring, please hire someone with insurance protection. So if they do take money from you, you can actually sue them and get money back, right? You know, but if you have someone internally, I highly recommend, and it doesn't have to be like weekly, it could be like on a quarterly basis, you know, like hey, here review these transactions. And again, this is where receipts come in. If they don't have a receipt, you know, and they're taking payments, like, well, we're are we sure that this money went there? You know, unfortunately, yeah. And I've I've had a customer whose employees actually tried to scam them and it was crazy. Yeah, and it was caught in time all because we were copied on the emails.

Gary Pageau: 28:46

Well, good. Yeah, because I mean that I mean over the years I've heard different stories of like, you know, especially when you're talking about, you know, online businesses and catalog business where people are shipping products, and sometimes there was a story years ago of a camera store that had uh literally an employee set up a parallel shipping operation inside the warehouse, right? Where he was taking on orders, taking it out of the camera store's inventory and shipping them out and selling the cameras, you know, and some and was doing some magic on the books to suddenly those cameras are disappearing, right? And yeah, it took a couple years to find it. I mean, that's the thing, you know. When you you start small with these things and you don't know, and they see what they can get away with, and then over time, uh it can become quite substantial. And like you and what can someone do when they're I mean, other than file criminal charges, uh, what can they do, right?

Tanya Lawrence: 29:39

Right. Unfortunately, not much. That's the sad part, you know?

Gary Pageau: 29:43

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 29:43

Take you'd have to just take that as a loss. But yeah, especially with inventory, and that's why people don't realize that's why you have to do inventory, like calculations at least once a year. Right. And so many people don't do it because they're like, oh, I don't I don't have time.

Gary Pageau: 29:59

Right.

Tanya Lawrence: 30:00

And it is tedious. I get it, you know. But if you have inventory, you definitely need to review once a year.

Gary Pageau: 30:06

Yeah. Because if you don't, it could be walking out the back door and you're not even knowing.

Tanya Lawrence: 30:09

Exactly. Unfortunately. These are like the horror stories.

Gary Pageau: 30:13

But you know, we we want the listeners of the Dead Pixel Society podcast to not experience horror stories. I mean, that's right. And we just so great.

Tanya Lawrence: 30:23

Better safe than sorry.

Gary Pageau: 30:25

Exactly. Well, you know, a lot of what you're talking about is kind of business 101 stuff, which I think is important to review and reinforce because a lot of times, you know, when technology comes into play where people can do these things, like you said, debit cards to keep track of expenses and things like that, which sound great. Oh, it's easier, but you may be creating a problem for yourself if you can't actually verify what these things are and and how they fit into your tax strategy. So, where can people go for more information to find out about Golden Apple Agency and the things you do?

Tanya Lawrence: 31:03

Yeah, so my website is goldenappleagencyinc.com.

Gary Pageau: 31:07

Okay.

Tanya Lawrence: 31:08

And then I'm also on LinkedIn. People can just connect directly with me, Tanya Lawrence. From Jacksonville, even though I'm technically in Georgia, but my main office is in Jacksonville, Florida.

Gary Pageau: 31:19

Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Tanya. It's been great to talking to you. You've kind of uh surprised me on some things, made me think about some others. So I appreciate your time and thank you so much.

Tanya Lawrence: 31:29

Thank you.

Erin Manning: 31:31

Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at www.theadpixels society dot com.