She had been in business for over ten years, building a multi six figure coaching business she was genuinely good at. Her clients loved her. She had a gift for helping other women find clarity in their own lives, work that meant something to her deeply. But somewhere along the way, in all those years of helping other people get clear, she never once turned that same clarity toward her own numbers. She had never sat down and really looked at her own Profit and Loss Statement.

That's more common than people think, especially among the women I work with. So many of them are financially phobic, and it's not simply that they've been too busy or too distracted to look. Their numbers feel like they're judging them, shaming them for choices they've already made, so looking feels like opening yourself up to criticism you're not ready for. And even when they do look, the information rarely makes sense, so what's the point. On top of that, most of them believe their CPA and their bookkeeper already have it covered, that hiring the right professionals means they don't need to understand any of it themselves.

I want to be honest about something. These women aren't avoiding their numbers because they don't care about their business. Most of them care deeply, more than almost anyone I know. They're avoiding their numbers because somewhere along the way, money became tangled up with worth, with safety, with old stories about not being enough or not doing it right. Looking at a Profit and Loss Statement isn't just a business task for a woman like that, it can feel like standing in front of a mirror that might tell her something she's afraid to hear. That fear is real, and it deserves compassion, not correction.

She believed all of that too. She had real money trauma, no one had ever shown her how to read this part of her business, and she trusted that her bookkeeper and her CPA had it handled. And to be fair, they were doing exactly what she'd hired them to do, mostly. A bookkeeper keeps the books. A CPA files the taxes. Neither one is in the room helping her understand what any of it means for her business, or where she should go next. A CFO is often the missing link for multi six and seven figure business owners, someone whose whole role is to sit inside the numbers with her, translate what they're actually saying, and help her step into her CEO identity while becoming more profitable and growing the business to the next level.

When we finally sat down together and opened her financial information, one number caught my eye almost immediately. Her coaching expense line was so large it would have been an audit trigger on its own, the kind of number her CPA should have flagged along the way, but never did.

When I looked closer, I found the first thing worth flagging. She had subcontracted coaches working under her, and their pay was being lumped into that same coaching expense line, right alongside her own personal business coaching. Those subcontracted coaches actually belonged in a different place on her Profit and Loss Statement, in Cost of Goods Sold, since they were directly delivering the service she sells. Where an expense is categorized isn't just a technicality, it changes how clearly you can see what your business is actually costing you to run.

But that wasn't the part that made me pause.

Underneath the subcontracted coaches, I found a recurring monthly charge to her business coach, one she had been paying for close to three years. Then, starting three months earlier, I found a second charge to that same coach, sitting alongside the first. I sat with it for a moment before saying anything.

For a moment, I wondered if she was being double charged. Was her coach billing her twice a month without her realizing it? Neither of us knew yet, and there was no way she could have, since this was the first time either of us had really looked closely. I could see the worry cross her face too, that quiet moment where you brace yourself for whatever comes next.

It turned out she wasn't being double billed by her coach at all. What had actually happened was quieter, and in some ways more understandable. Her coach had reduced her monthly rate a few months earlier, a kind gesture to retain her as a long standing client. But the original recurring charge, still set up in her books at the old, higher rate, was never removed. So for three months, both the outdated entry and the new, correct charge were showing up as expenses every month. Her Profit and Loss Statement was overstating what she was actually spending on coaching, a bookkeeping miss that had gone unnoticed the whole time.

We flagged it for her bookkeeper to correct right away.

She hadn't been overcharged, and I was genuinely relieved for her. But honestly, that's not even the part that stays with me most. What stays with me is how easily something like this can sit quietly for a while, not because anyone did anything wrong, but simply because financial information is so easy to avoid when it feels like judgment instead of information, and so easy to hand off entirely to someone else, even when it still needs your eyes on it too.

This is exactly why I hold a free event every single month called Where Is All My Money Going. I don't expect anyone to walk in and suddenly feel confident reading a Profit and Loss Statement, no one hour experience does that alone. What I want to give her is one hour where looking feels safe instead of frightening, where someone sits beside her instead of judging her, and where she has a safe space to ask questions with an expert CFO in her corner.

Because here's what I know for certain. The answers are always there, waiting in the financial information, whenever you're ready to look. If you're afraid you're missing something in your business, or you know it's finally time to start understanding your financial information, come join me at my next Where Is All My Money Going. https://www.audreyfaustconsulting.com/money.