A small-cohort course for small business owners
Ten checkpoints, taught in plain language. You read at your pace, do real homework in your own books, and we meet to walk through what you found — including the parts that didn't make sense. Built for owners who want to understand their numbers, not just hand them off.
Who this is for
If you've ever felt like every bookkeeping resource assumes you already know what they're talking about, this is the course for you. It's written for business owners who think differently — and explained at the level of "why," not just "where to click."
Most bookkeeping content is written for a brain that loves spreadsheets and structure for its own sake. This one is paced, visual, and built for the brain you actually have. Long-form reading, generous whitespace, real diagrams.
You used to look at your books once a year. Now you have decisions to make — pricing, hiring, whether you can afford a slow month — and your books can't answer them. This course is the bridge.
The course splits into two tracks at Checkpoint 4. Service owners go deep on AR, retainers, utilization, and realization. Product owners go deep on inventory, COGS, sales tax, and margins. You take the one that fits.
You can hand your books to a bookkeeper and never look at them again — and a lot of business owners do. This course is for the ones who want to be in conversation with their bookkeeper, not just be a client of one.
What you'll learn
The course starts with three foundation checkpoints everyone takes. Then it splits into two tracks — service or product — for the middle five. The final two are shared again, covering owner pay, equity, and your monthly close.
CP 1
Money in 3D
CP 2
Balance Sheet & P&L
CP 3
Cash vs. Profit
CP 4
You Are the Product
CP 5
AR is Not Money Yet
CP 6
Deposits & Retainers Aren't Income Yet
CP 7
Utilization, Realization & Real Margins
CP 8
Reading Your Books Like a Service Owner
CP 4
Inventory is Money in Costume
CP 5
COGS & When Expense Actually Happens
CP 6
Sales Tax Is Not Your Money
CP 7
Margins That Mean Something
CP 8
Reading Your Books Like a Product Owner
CP 9
Owner's Pay & Equity
CP 10
Your Monthly Close
How it works
The course is paced, not crammed. You're learning a skill, not memorizing a list. Each month follows the same simple loop: read a checkpoint, do the homework in your real books, then meet with us to walk through what you found — including the parts that didn't work.
01
Each checkpoint is a written lesson with collapsible sections, pacing, and diagrams. You read at your own speed, on your own schedule.
02
Hands-on work in your own books — not a sample file. The homework is what makes the course actually stick.
03
About 50 minutes once a month, walking through both checkpoints. The parts that didn't work are the most useful thing you can bring.
04
Two checkpoints per month, ten in total. Recordings of every meeting are in your member area, plus access continues after the cohort ends.
Who teaches it
The Profit Nook is a small accounting firm. The course is taught by Kales or Shannon — you'll work with one of us through the cohort, depending on schedule and fit. Both of us wrote the lessons, and both of us have been having the same conversations with small business owners for years. Plain language, no jargon, no shame, no condescension.
You may have found us through Shannon on TikTok. The course is taught by both of us, but if you've been watching her videos and recognized yourself in them, you're in the right place — whichever one of us you end up working with.
We run small cohorts on purpose. Three to five owners means we actually know your business by the end of the course, and the meetings stay personal. If that sounds like more attention than you wanted, this isn't the right course. If it sounds like exactly what's been missing, you'll know.
Pricing
This isn't a full bookkeeping service. We don't do your books for you — you do, with help. If you want full-service bookkeeping instead, get in touch and we can talk about that separately.
$1,950
Or 3 monthly payments of $675. Tuition covers all ten checkpoints, all five meetings, and ongoing access to the member site.
Join the waitlistCohort starts June 1, 2026 · 3–5 spots
Common questions
The course is written for QuickBooks Online and Xero, since those are what most small businesses use. The concepts apply regardless of software — it's all double-entry accounting underneath — but the “where it lives in your books” sections give specific instructions for those two tools. If you use Wave, FreshBooks, or something else, the concepts still translate; you just translate the menus yourself.
Pick the track that matches the majority of your revenue and use the optional bits of the other track when it's relevant. Most businesses are mostly one or the other; the small overlap can be handled in our meetings. When in doubt, start with Service.
Good. That's the most common starting point, and it's actually easier to teach into messy books than into hypothetically tidy ones. The first checkpoint includes a homework that helps you assess the state of your books honestly — that's the diagnostic we work from. You don't need to clean anything up before starting.
No. The course assumes nothing — CP 1 starts at "what is an account type." If you've been doing your books for a while you might find the early checkpoints familiar; if you're brand new, you're starting at the right place. The pace is built so neither extreme is left behind.
Not currently. The course is built around the meetings — the homework only really lands when we walk through it together. If a self-study version exists in the future, we'll let the waitlist know first.
We reschedule. The meetings are 1:1, so we work around your calendar. If life gets in the way and we need to push a meeting by a couple of weeks, we push it — the cohort isn't lockstep, and the material doesn't expire. Access to the member site continues after the cohort ends.
Three to five spots, opening soon. Get on the list and you'll hear first when registration opens, plus a handful of free emails on the topics the course covers — useful even if you decide not to enroll.
No spam. Unsubscribe whenever. We won't sell your email — we run an accounting firm, not a mailing list business.