Liguori Accounting

10/28/2026

A clean year-end close starts long before December.

If your chart of accounts wasn’t built for a med spa, the year-end numbers won’t tell you much, no matter how carefully they’re reconciled.

What it should include:
→ Revenue broken out by service category
→ Cost of goods mapped to those categories
→ Inventory carried as an asset
→ Deferred revenue carried as a liability
→ Payroll organized so you can benchmark it

Here’s how to structure it: https://www.liguoricpa.com/2026/08/05/med-spa-bookkeeping-what-to-track-every-month-and-how-to-structure-your-chart-of-accounts/

Good med spa bookkeeping comes down to two things: a chart of accounts built for an aesthetics practice and an accurate monthly close.

10/26/2026

When a new med spa client’s books come over to us, we tend to see the same things.

→ Loan payments expensed in full instead of split into principal and interest
→ Equipment written off with no asset record behind it
→ Package and gift card sales counted as revenue on day one
→ Inventory expensed when it’s bought
→ Two MSO entities sharing one set of books
→ Every service lumped into a single revenue line

None of this means the owner did something wrong. It means the books were set up by someone who didn’t know how a med spa makes money.

Every one of these is fixable. The earlier in the year we see them, the more of the year we can still fix.

We wrote about what switching looks like this late in the year. The link is in the comments.

10/23/2026

Holiday gift card and package promotions are around the corner. Before you launch yours, make sure your books are ready for them.

The money comes in now. The services happen next year. Until they’re delivered, that cash is a liability, not revenue.

→ Booking it as revenue overstates your profit
→ Overstated profit leads to spending money you still owe in services
→ It can also distort your tax picture

Here’s how packages, gift cards, and memberships should be recorded: https://www.liguoricpa.com/2026/04/07/deferred-revenue-for-med-spas-why-your-packages-gift-cards-and-memberships-might-be-distorting-your-books-2/

Deferred revenue for med spas isn't an abstract accounting concept. It directly affects the decisions you make about your practice.

10/21/2026

Is it too late in the year to switch accountants?

No. For most med spas, fall is the best time to switch.

→ There’s still time to plan taxes before December 31
→ Cleanup happens before tax season, not during it
→ Your new accountant files a return they actually understand

Wait until February, and your new accountant inherits a closed year.

Nick covers what cleanup usually finds and how the switch works: https://www.liguoricpa.com/2026/10/08/is-it-too-late-in-the-year-to-switch-your-med-spas-accountant/

10/19/2026

If a new provider is in your 2027 plan, the time to run the numbers is now.

Feeling slammed isn’t the same as being ready to hire. Sometimes the answer is another provider. Sometimes it’s a fuller schedule, a better service mix, or a pay structure that fits what your current team actually produces.

The questions we work through with owners:
→ Are current providers hitting their production benchmarks?
→ Is the bottleneck provider time, rooms, or front desk?
→ How long until a new hire covers their own cost?
→ Can cash flow carry the ramp-up period?

Planning the hire in Q4 means you’re not making the decision in a rush in Q1.

We laid out the full framework, and the link is in the comments.

10/16/2026

Your P&L shows a profit. Your bank account doesn’t agree.

One common reason: when you pay down a loan, only the interest hits your P&L. The principal comes straight out of your bank account without ever showing up as an expense.

→ Profit tells you if your pricing and costs work
→ Cash tells you if you can cover what’s due
→ You need to watch both

Nick explains it in under a minute. The full post is linked in the comments.

10/15/2026

Before 1099s go out in January, it’s worth asking whether your contractors should be contractors at all.

Worker classification is one of the most common compliance issues we see in med spas. If you set the schedule, supply the tools, and direct how the work gets done, the IRS may see an employee, whatever the contract says.

→ Misclassification can bring back taxes and penalties
→ It’s far easier to fix going forward than to fix looking back
→ Q4 is the right time to review it

Nick covers how to classify injectors and aestheticians: https://www.liguoricpa.com/2026/04/27/1099-vs-w-2-how-to-classify-your-injectors-and-aestheticians-and-why-getting-it-wrong-can-cost-you/

A common compliance issues I see is worker classification. Should my injector be a W-2 employee or a 1099 independent contractor?

10/14/2026

Six providers. One of them was booked about 30% of the time and on salary.

The practice looked fine from the top. Revenue was solid and the bottom line was positive. Nobody saw the problem until we looked provider by provider.

That’s the issue with one blended number. A strong performer covers for a weak one, and you never find out.

The questions we ask instead:
→ What is each provider producing relative to their pay?
→ How full is each schedule, really?
→ What’s the service mix behind each provider’s revenue?
→ What’s the rebooking rate, provider by provider?

The benchmark we use is 3 to 5 times salary in revenue per provider. Falling below that doesn’t make someone a bad provider. It means the arrangement needs a look.

We walk through the monthly reports that surface this. The link is in the comments.

10/13/2026

If your med spa runs an MSO, here’s a question to answer before December 31: which entity is holding your profit?

In most structures, the MSO should carry the profit or loss at year end, and the PC should finish close to break-even. When profit gets stranded in the wrong entity, the wrong person ends up paying the tax.

This month is the time to check:
→ Patient revenue is landing in the PC’s account
→ Expenses are coded to the right set of books
→ Intercompany balances match across both entities
→ Your year-end true-up is projected before the year closes

Nick breaks it down in our newest post, with the full video inside:https://www.liguoricpa.com/2026/10/08/which-entity-should-show-the-profit-in-your-med-spa-mso-at-year-end/

10/12/2026

Every fall, we hear the same question: should I buy the laser before December 31 for the write-off?

“Clients often ask what the tax benefit is of buying a new laser. Those benefits are real, but they should not necessarily be the reason to purchase a piece of equipment.” Nick Liguori, CPA

→ Start with demand
→ Run the break-even math
→ Let the tax benefit be the bonus, not the reason

The full breakdown, including the break-even formula, is linked in the comments.