LUCA

LUCA Growth-oriented accounting and financial ops for your modern business.

05/26/2026

You'll be amazed what you can do when you put your mind to it! Our Bookkeepers do extraordinary things, but we believe you can too! Were you able to figure out the difference between hot and cold?

05/21/2026

Staying on the same page is important for bookkeeping, but making sure the playlist has some variety is vital for the office vibes. Which song do you think of when you hear the word Hello?

05/19/2026

Whether by car, plane, or chicken wing we are just grateful if you stop by! We've got new opportunities available and an amazing team ready to serve our awesome clients...all we need is you!

05/14/2026

There is nothing wrong with doing your own books when you are getting started. It is a reasonable way to manage costs and stay close to your numbers.

But there is a point where the cost of continuing to DIY is not the money you save. It is the signals you miss.

A few signs that point is behind you:
✔️ Reconciling your accounts takes most of a day, and you are not entirely sure the result is right when you finish
✔️ You cannot tell which products, services, or clients are actually profitable because the reports do not break it down that way
✔️ Tax season surprises you every year, either with an unexpected bill or with the discovery that your books need significant cleanup before your CPA can even start
✔️ You made a major purchase or hiring decision in the last year without first building a cash flow projection
✔️ You have noticed transactions that sat miscategorized for months before anyone caught them

None of these are personal failures. They are operational signals. Accounting systems that work fine at $300K in revenue often create real problems at $800K. The complexity of your books should scale with the complexity of your business.

If a few of these sound familiar, it is worth thinking about what it is actually costing you to keep the current setup in place.

05/14/2026

"Every culture has contributed to math just as it has contributed to literature. It's a universal language; numbers belong to everyone." -Daniel Tammet Numbers may be a universal language we speak daily here at LUCA, but the English language CERTAINLY leaves some words up for interpretation...

05/12/2026

The average small business waits more than 45 days to get paid for work already delivered.

For most, a significant part of that delay is avoidable.

Accounts receivable is money your clients owe you. The time between when you earn it and when you collect it is called your Days Sales Outstanding (DSO). Every extra day that number grows, you are essentially funding your clients' operations with your own cash.

The businesses with the tightest collections tend to share a few habits:
✔️ They invoice immediately after delivery, not at the end of the month
✔️ They have automated reminders set for 7 days before the due date, on the due date, and 7 days after
✔️ They review an accounts receivable aging report every week, not every quarter
✔️ They pick up the phone for anything past 30 days instead of sending a fourth email

The aging report is the key tool here. It sorts every outstanding invoice by how long it has been unpaid: current, 1-30 days late, 31-60, 61-90, 90+. The older a receivable gets, the harder it is to collect. Catching a problem at day 35 is significantly easier than catching it at day 95.

A quick check worth running: how many open invoices do you have right now that are more than 30 days past due? That number tells you more about your cash flow picture than almost anything else.

05/12/2026

When you step into our back office at LUCA, you'll be greeted by the one and only Molly LaHue! Where some just have four walls they call a cubicle, Molly has created something else. Whether you like books, markers, or even cool coasters...you can't miss our first episode of Welcome to My Cube!

05/07/2026

One of the most consequential decisions in your business accounting is one most owners make without realizing they made it.

It is called your chart of accounts.

Your chart of accounts is the list of categories your bookkeeping software uses to organize every transaction. Revenue, cost of goods, salaries, software subscriptions, marketing spend. Every dollar that comes in or goes out gets assigned to a category. Those categories determine what every financial report you ever run will look like.

Here is the problem: most accounting software comes with a default chart of accounts that is generic by design. It works for a restaurant, a law firm, and a e-commerce company equally, which means it works really well for none of them.

When the categories are too broad, your P&L cannot tell you which parts of the business are profitable. When they are mislabeled, your tax return is harder to prepare. When different team members categorize the same type of expense differently, your reports become inconsistent over time.

A few markers of a chart of accounts that is actually working:
✔️ Revenue is broken out by product line or service type, not just lumped as "sales"
✔️ Expenses are specific enough to be actionable, not vague enough to be meaningless
✔️ Categories are consistent with how your CPA will prepare your tax return
✔️ Everyone touching the books agrees on what goes where

If your financial reports feel hard to learn from, the problem is often not the numbers. It is the structure underneath them.

05/07/2026

Welcome our newest Controller, Jennifer Sheffield! Jennifer is going to be crushing it for our Bowline team working with camps across the country gain their time back through precise and proper bookkeeping!

We asked Jennifer a few questions for you and our staff to get to know her a little bit better!

Check Out Careers at LUCA Here! https://hubs.la/Q04flCPL0

05/06/2026

Your P&L shows a profitable month.

Your bank account tells a different story.

This is one of the most disorienting experiences in running a small business, and it happens all the time. Here is why.

Profit is not the same as cash. A profit and loss statement records revenue when it is earned and expenses when they are incurred, regardless of when money actually moves. If a client owes you $15,000 from last month and has not paid yet, your P&L already counts it as revenue. Your bank account does not.

A few other reasons the gap shows up:
✔️ You prepaid an annual expense (insurance, software, rent) that hits cash all at once but spreads across the P&L over time
✔️ You made a loan payment, which reduces cash but does not appear as an expense on the income statement
✔️ Inventory you purchased is sitting as an asset, not an expense, until it is sold

Profit tells you how the business is performing. Cash tells you whether the business can operate right now. You need both numbers, and they will almost never match exactly.

If you have ever stared at a profitable P&L and wondered why the account feels empty, this is the explanation. The good news is that once you understand the gap, you can start managing it.

Address

3212 6th Avenue S. , Suite 100
Birmingham, AL
35222

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

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