Caro & Associates - Accountants & Advisors

10/28/2026

Picture a landscaping owner doing the books on Sunday evenings. Enter the transactions, reconcile the bank statement when there’s time, send the file to a tax preparer every February. It feels functional, and nothing has gone wrong yet. 🗓️

What he can’t see is what those evenings cost in hours, and in small mistakes that compound quietly over months.

A transaction coded to the wrong category in April stays wrong until someone reviews the whole year. Reconciling only when there’s time means a missed deposit or a duplicate charge can sit unnoticed for weeks. And with the file going to a preparer once a year, there’s no real view of how the business is doing until the year is nearly over.

If this sounds familiar, it’s worth asking what those evenings are costing you, in hours and in accuracy.

10/26/2026

Picture a landscaping company near $850K in revenue. In March, the tax preparer calls: about $14,200 in federal taxes due in six weeks, and the owner had planned for roughly half. 📞

Nothing was wrong with the business. The number just arrived after the window to do anything about it had closed.

That’s the part that catches owners off guard. By March, the year is over, and the decisions that move the number, like how you pay yourself, when you buy equipment, and what you’ve sent in as estimated payments, were made months ago. Seeing the same figure in the middle of the year, while there’s still time to adjust, is a very different conversation.

This is an illustrative example based on patterns we see in WA service businesses, not a single client.

10/25/2026

When revenue lands in March but the client pays in May, the profit shows up on your report about six weeks before the cash lands in your account, and you cover wages and materials out of cash in the meantime. If you run a service business in the South Sound, this is one of four common reasons a profitable business runs tight on cash.

One of the quickest fixes: invoice the day the work is complete. Month-end batching donates weeks of float to your clients.

Full article on all four causes, and the one number that tells you how urgent the problem actually is: https://caroandassociates.com/learning-center/posts/clean-books-tight-cash/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=clean-books-tight-cash

Does your business invoice immediately or on a schedule?

Profitable businesses run out of cash for predictable reasons: receivables timing, owner draws, debt principal, taxes. Here is the calculation that explains it.

10/24/2026

Can your associate OD be a contractor? Sometimes. A locum covering your office for two weeks, with their own patient base and other practices, can be. An associate who’s been with you a year and sees only your patients usually can’t. ✅

What separates the two is independence. A locum runs their own business and works for several practices. An ongoing associate on your schedule, your equipment, and your patient list looks like part of your team, regardless of what the agreement calls them.

No single factor settles it, and state rules can differ from the federal test. If you’re not sure which side your arrangement falls on, bring us the details and we’ll help you work through it before it becomes a problem.

10/23/2026

Reclassifying before an audit costs far less than after. Under the IRS Voluntary Classification Settlement Program, the practice pays 10% of one year’s employment taxes at reduced rates, with interest and penalties waived. Once an employment tax exam starts, that option is gone. ⏳

The trade-off is that you treat the associate as an employee from here on, and the program covers the federal side only. There are eligibility requirements too, including having filed 1099s for the workers involved.

If you think an associate arrangement might not hold up, it’s much cheaper to fix it on your own timeline than after a notice arrives. Bring us the details and we’ll walk through the options.

10/22/2026

Revenue per comprehensive exam averages around $285 in 2026. Top-performing practices reach $350 or above, and anything below $250 is a revenue problem, not a volume problem.

Cost per exam is one that most OD owners have not run: your fixed costs divided by revenue-generating exams. It sets the floor for which vision plans are worth keeping and which ones cost you money to stay in.

The full 2026 benchmarks for all 7 KPIs that actually run a practice, with the math for each: https://caroandassociates.com/learning-center/posts/optometry-practice-kpi-benchmarks/

Have you ever run the cost-per-exam number for your practice?

Actual 2026 benchmark ranges for staff payroll, optical margin, cost per exam, net collection rate, revenue per exam, capture rate, and practice net.

10/22/2026

A signed contractor agreement documents what you both intended. It doesn’t decide what the IRS concludes, and if it goes the other way, the payroll tax bill lands on the practice. 📄

The IRS looks at how the work actually happens: who sets the schedule, who owns the equipment, who carries the financial risk. If an associate gets reclassified as an employee, the practice owes the payroll taxes it should have been withholding, plus penalties and interest, and the associate still has their own tax to square up.

It’s much easier to settle the classification before the first day than to unwind it after a notice. State rules can differ from the federal test, so it’s worth checking both.

10/21/2026

She works Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, sees your patients on your equipment, and emails an invoice at month end. The IRS has a word for that, and it isn’t contractor. 🗓️

This is a common setup for practices adding an associate OD, and it’s easy to see why it feels like a contractor arrangement: she invoices you, she’s only in three days a week. But the IRS looks at the facts, not the label. Your schedule, your patients, your equipment, and your EHR all point toward employment, and a monthly invoice doesn’t change that.

Misclassification can mean back payroll taxes, penalties, and interest, and state rules can differ from the federal test. If you’re setting up an associate arrangement, it’s worth settling the classification before the first day.

10/19/2026

The IRS doesn’t read your contract. It looks at who controls how the work gets done, who controls the money side, and what kind of relationship it really is. 🔍

This comes up a lot when a practice brings on an associate OD as an independent contractor. The IRS looks at three things: behavioral control, financial control, and the type of relationship. The label on the agreement doesn’t settle it. If the practice sets the schedule, provides the exam lane and equipment, and directs how patients are seen, that can point toward employment even with a contractor agreement in place.

Misclassification can mean back payroll taxes, penalties, and interest, and state rules can differ from the federal test. If you’re structuring an associate arrangement, it’s worth reviewing before the first paycheck, not after a notice shows up.

10/19/2026

An October exam can show up as a November bank deposit. Clinical revenue passes through insurance before it hits your account, and depending on your payer mix, that delay runs 14 to 45 days.

If you are building a revenue forecast from one blended number, you are forecasting from different time periods for each stream.

The article walks through how to build separate 90-day projections for optical and clinical revenue, and what to check when optical gross margin falls below 45 percent.

https://caroandassociates.com/learning-center/posts/why-revenue-forecasting-fails-in-optometry-practices/

Does your forecast treat optical and clinical revenue separately, or do you run one number?

Two revenue streams, two timelines, one misleading blended number. Here is how to build a forecast that actually holds.