Alan Melton: Okay, Alicia Klausmeier. Very good. It is my pleasure to have Alicia with us this morning. She founded Dream Accounting Advisory in 2018 and has drawn on her background in data analytics and education to make financial numbers make sense for business owners—not just accurate, but usable.
Alan Melton: She specializes in cash-flow management, KPI reporting, and advanced tax-optimization strategies. Outside the office, she trades spreadsheets for scoreboards, keeping a full schedule of youth hockey and soccer games with her 12-year-old son, as well as dance competitions with her 10-year-old daughter. Alicia, welcome to the podcast.
Alicia Klausmeier: Thank you, Alan. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Alan Melton: During our pre-podcast interview, I was really impressed with the results you have achieved as a business owner and the results you are getting for your clients. Tell us about Dream Accounting Advisory: what you do, who you serve, and what led you to build it.
Alicia Klausmeier: I started the firm by focusing on client accounting services: bookkeeping, payroll, accounts payable, and accounts receivable. Those are the things that help business owners day to day and month to month from an accounting-services perspective.
Alicia Klausmeier: We have grown to include tax advisory, fractional CFO work, forecasting, cash flow, KPI management, strategic planning, and advisory support. Our goal is to help businesses succeed. My business is named Dream Accounting because we want to see business owners achieve their dreams. For us, seeing business owners succeed is the dream.
Alicia Klausmeier: Many firms offer one of these services. We offer them all under one roof: tax advisory, fractional CFO support, and client accounting services. Clients can pick the services they need, but they have one team that sees the full picture. I love that we can provide that for our clients.
Alan Melton: That is a comprehensive array of services. As a small-business owner, have you experienced your own version of the Owner’s Trap, where the business was running you instead of the other way around?
Alicia Klausmeier: Of course. There are always moments when the Owner’s Trap pulls you back in. When I started my firm, it was just me. I was a solopreneur. You take every job you can, work any hours you can, and try to survive, feed your family, and pay your mortgage. The business is running you.
Alicia Klausmeier: Eventually, I learned to delegate. I hired people and learned how to trust them. I worked my way out of the Owner’s Trap enough that I could take vacations, pick my kids up from school, and not feel obligated to return to the office immediately.
Alicia Klausmeier: But as the business has grown over the past eight years, there are still times when I get pulled back in. Adding new service lines over the past year and a half pulled me back into the trap. I have to reset boundaries and delegate again. I set my hours and decide that the business will not get more time after that because my kids, family, and mental health need that time.
Alicia Klausmeier: During COVID, my son was in kindergarten and my daughter was in preschool. The firm was only a few years old, and I had one or maybe one and a half employees. I taught my kids all day, managed their schooling, then worked every night until 2 a.m. I slept for a few hours, woke up at 6 a.m. when they did, and started over. If I could survive that, I feel like I can survive anything now.
Alan Melton: What draws you back into the day-to-day work, and how do you pull yourself out again?
Alicia Klausmeier: I naturally have a growth mindset and a competitive personality. I want to reach the next goal, milestone, or level of knowledge so I can provide the next level of service to clients. That internal motivation and competitiveness can pull me back in because it is exciting to pursue those goals.
Alicia Klausmeier: Before taking a new step, I consult with my husband and ask whether our family is in a good place for me to put in additional time. I ask the team whether we are in a good place to hire two people or start a new branch of the company. Having support from my family and team matters.
Alicia Klausmeier: To counterbalance it, I constantly do capacity checks with the team and my family. I try to hire before we urgently need to hire. If we will need someone in three months, we start the process now. I do not want team members to feel overwhelmed, because that will eventually pull me more deeply back into the Owner’s Trap.
Alicia Klausmeier: I schedule ahead. If we have a family vacation or a hockey tournament coming up, I make sure it is on the calendar far in advance so I do not get pulled into work during that time. It is not perfect, but it is always a work in progress.
Alan Melton: When a new client comes to you, what is the most common financial mistake or blind spot you see?
Alicia Klausmeier: A lot of business owners do not actually know their financials. They may know their gross revenue—perhaps they know they make $1 million—but they do not know the profit or the margin. They are also often confused about cash and profit.
Alicia Klausmeier: They might say, “My profit and loss statement shows I made $150,000, but I do not see $150,000 in the bank. I do not understand.” There is a lot of misconception and confusion around money and what financial statements mean.
Alicia Klausmeier: Our goal is to educate first. The advisory piece is important because we help people understand what each number means and how to use it. It is not enough to know you made $3 million. The next question is: What does that mean, and how will you use it?
Alan Melton: How does poor financial visibility keep owners stuck, working harder but not actually growing?
Alicia Klausmeier: If you do not have financial visibility, the only solution you know is to put in more effort, more time, and more hustle. You think, “I do not have enough money coming in, so I need more jobs.” Maybe that is true—but maybe you need better margins, lower payroll, better pricing, or lower materials costs.
Alicia Klausmeier: When you cannot see your numbers, you do not know where to put in the work or what to change. Most people assume the answer is more sales, so they put effort in the wrong place. If you sell more but your margins are still bad, you are still going to lose money.
Alan Melton: What is the difference between an owner who knows their numbers and one who truly understands them?
Alicia Klausmeier: Knowing means you can recite your revenue and profit. You might say, “Revenue was $3 million, and net profit was $250,000.” Understanding means knowing why the numbers are what they are.
Alicia Klausmeier: You understand that the $3 million came from a certain number of sales. You know why gross profit changed from last year. You know whether payroll went down, why it went down, and what changed in the business to produce the result. Understanding gives you the ability to make good financial decisions and change behaviors.
Alan Melton: Why do owners avoid understanding their numbers, and what is the fix?
Alicia Klausmeier: Sometimes people are afraid to look at their numbers. They may fear asking questions because they think they will appear incompetent. Other times, they do not want to know. It can feel easier to put your head in the sand and assume everything is fine.
Alicia Klausmeier: Some business owners do not have someone on the team they feel comfortable asking. They may not be able to afford a full-time CFO, and they or their team may not have a finance background. My recommendation is to find an advisor you feel comfortable with—a business coach, CFO, fractional CFO, or accountant—who understands the numbers and is willing to educate you.
Alicia Klausmeier: Ask questions without being afraid. There are no dumb questions. Even if you do not know what to ask, say, “What should I be asking you? What should I know?”
Alan Melton: What are the two or three financial metrics every small-business owner should watch every week—not just at tax time?
Alicia Klausmeier: First, cash runway. Cash is king. A cash runway is not just the balance in the bank; it is how many weeks of expenses your cash will cover. I recommend using a 13-week rolling cash-flow forecast.
Alicia Klausmeier: If average weekly expenses are $15,000 or $25,000, you map out how much cash is needed to cover them. That gives you a simple, useful measure of financial health.
Alicia Klausmeier: Second, gross margin. In an industry with direct costs—such as construction, where materials, labor, and subcontractors are tied directly to a job—you need to know your margin.
Alicia Klausmeier: For example, if you collect $10,000 for a project and spend $4,000 on materials, labor, or subcontractors, you have $6,000 left. That is a 60 percent gross margin. Knowing your gross margin helps with pricing and ensures your direct costs stay within the intended range.
Alicia Klausmeier: Third, accounts receivable: open invoices and the money customers owe you. Make sure people are paying on time, and make sure someone is following up on overdue invoices. If money owed to you is not coming in, it hurts the business. You do not want to work for free.
Alan Melton: At what revenue stage should an owner stop doing their own bookkeeping and bring in outside help?
Alicia Klausmeier: There is not a specific revenue number. It is more about the signal that it is time. One company might have $500,000 in revenue but only one sale per month and very simple books. Another business with the same revenue could have 250 transactions a month and much more complexity.
Alicia Klausmeier: You also have to consider the value of your time. If you provide a service worth $250 per hour but you are doing bookkeeping, it may be more valuable for you to provide that service while someone else handles the books.
Alicia Klausmeier: Growing teams also create complexity, especially payroll and tax exposure. Those are strong signals that it is time to bring in an expert. You do not want to create payroll or tax problems that could have been avoided.
Alan Melton: Do large companies really have tax loopholes that small-business owners cannot access?
Alicia Klausmeier: There is some truth to that. There are many legal tax strategies available to businesses that owners do not know about or are not taking advantage of. Some strategies require cash, though.
Alicia Klausmeier: A business might be able to pay $40,000 to the IRS or invest that $40,000 in a qualified strategy that reduces the tax bill. But the $40,000 still has to leave the business. If there is not enough cash available to invest, then you cannot use that strategy to mitigate the tax bill.
Alicia Klausmeier: Larger businesses often have more cash, more complex strategies, and expensive tax professionals to help them use those strategies. But every business owner should have someone on their team who can help them understand legal ways to optimize and mitigate both business and personal taxes.
Alan Melton: What does a healthy financial dashboard look like for a service-based business?
Alicia Klausmeier: Every business needs an easy-to-read, one-page dashboard. It does not need multiple tabs or complicated reports. It should be updated weekly and take only five to 10 minutes to review.
Alicia Klausmeier: Each business should choose the KPIs that fit its needs. Examples include cash in the bank, gross margin, accounts payable, accounts receivable, revenue trends, profit, number of sales, or closed jobs. The point is to glance at the trends and understand what is changing.
Alicia Klausmeier: At my company, we meet every Wednesday with the leadership team. Every Monday or Wednesday morning, we update our KPI sheet for the previous week. We spend the first five to 10 minutes reviewing it, asking why numbers changed, and then move to the next agenda item.
Alicia Klausmeier: Accounting tells you what happened in the past. Finance helps you plan the future through forecasting and budgeting. A dashboard combines those views: you look at what happened, identify the trend, and consider where it is heading.
Alan Melton: When a client gets financial clarity, what changes first: decisions, confidence, or growth?
Alicia Klausmeier: Decisions probably come first. Financial clarity helps you make decisions based on real information. Confidence comes with that because now you feel more confident making those decisions.
Alicia Klausmeier: Not every decision immediately fixes the problem. There is usually a lag, and sometimes a decision does not work out as expected. For example, changing suppliers may lower materials costs but create shipping delays that cause operational problems.
Alicia Klausmeier: I think about it like a controlled experiment. If you make one change, you can better understand what caused the result. If you make several changes at once, it is harder to know which one created the outcome. You may eventually make multiple decisions, but financial clarity gives you the ability to analyze those results instead of making blind decisions.
Alan Melton: Can you share an example of this in action?
Alicia Klausmeier: We worked with a client who was showing a loss every month. Sales were okay, but they had a compensation structure for contractors that used a base pay plus commission. The base pay was causing them to lose money because contractors were not selling enough to cover even the base compensation.
Alicia Klausmeier: We reassessed the numbers, created several scenarios, and talked with the contractors. Instead of base pay plus commission, we dropped the base and increased the commission paid on each sale. The margin was smaller for the company on each sale, but the company no longer had the fixed base-pay expense.
Alicia Klausmeier: The contractors were happy because they made more per client they brought in. The business stopped losing money because it stopped paying fixed compensation it was not earning back. For the last three months, the company has been profitable. It was a win-win decision driven by understanding one specific line item.
Alan Melton: What is one thing an owner can do this week to get a better grip on their financial picture?
Alicia Klausmeier: Build a financial dashboard. Pick five easy KPIs that you can pull in five minutes each week—from QuickBooks, your bank account, or another simple source. Track them consistently.
Alicia Klausmeier: Knowledge is the start. Then you can move to understanding by asking why. Why did revenue drop from last week to this week? Why did margin change? Start with the why questions.
Alan Melton: Where can listeners connect with you and learn more about Dream Accounting Advisory?
Alicia Klausmeier: Visit dreamaccountingadvisory.com. There is a link to schedule a call directly from the website. You can also email me at alicia@dreamaccountingadvisory.com.
Alan Melton: Alicia, this has truly been a pleasure. You have given me—and many business owners watching—excellent ideas. Thank you for being here. We will also include Alicia’s contact information in the show notes.
Alicia Klausmeier: Thanks, Alan.
Alan Melton: Thank you, Alicia. I appreciate what you shared today. It is right on target, and it sounds like we are like-minded in many ways. The way you help clients is comprehensive—true one-stop shopping.
Alicia Klausmeier: Thank you. Clients have had the need, and we have worked to solve that problem. They have asked us to do their taxes and help with tax planning, so that has become our newest service area over the past year and a half. I have embraced that challenge.
Alan Melton: What does your ideal client look like?
Alicia Klausmeier: It is less about a specific niche or industry and more about mindset. Our ideal clients want to learn and grow because we are educationally and advisory focused. They value us as partners, and we value that relationship with them.
Alicia Klausmeier: We do a lot with service-based businesses, construction, and the trades. We work with clients across the country, so it is not location focused. But clients who only want transactional work—someone to do their books and send a financial statement once a quarter—are not ideal for us. We want a relationship with our clients.
Alan Melton: Where are your clients located?
Alicia Klausmeier: All over the country. We have clients in California, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and many other locations. We also have employees in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, and Colorado.
Alan Melton: That is amazing. Congratulations on your success.
Alicia Klausmeier: Thank you.
