FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #111 From Tax Season Stress To Year-Round Strategy With Mission First CPA
Ready to trade tax-time panic for calm, confident decisions? We sit with CPA Melissa Harman of Mission First CPA to unpack how small businesses can turn messy books and ad hoc choices into clear systems, steady cash flow, and a mission-led strategy that actually scales. Melissa shares how her years in tax, audit, public accounting, and corporate finance shaped a simple truth: the crucial moves happen before the tax return, not after. That mindset guides her work helping owners past the startup phase who crave structure, accurate reporting, and CFO-level insight without hiring a full-time team.
We dig into practical building blocks that work for real operators: monthly closes, weekly cash check-ins, and dashboards that focus on a few core metrics, not vanity numbers. Melissa explains why bookkeeping isn’t “just data entry,” how proactive planning lowers taxes legally, and what a fractional CFO can add with scenario modeling, pricing analysis, and hiring timing. She tackles common myths—like “I’m too small to need help”—and shows how early systems prevent painful rework, protect margins, and free time so founders can stay the visionary.
This conversation is as human as it is technical. Melissa talks about trust, fit, and finding an accountant who speaks plain English and teaches as they go. The firm’s mission-led approach, shaped in part by her family’s military roots, favors a boutique client roster and hands-on support. If you want fewer surprises, better forecasts, and a finance function that serves your purpose, you’ll walk away with a clear next step and a framework you can start using today.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a founder who needs clarity, and leave a quick review to help more neighbors find us. Ready for guidance built around your mission? Reach out and tell us your top finance question.
Melissa Harman
Mission First CPA
Hello@missionfirstag.com
+1 202-301-8411
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another episode of the FXBD Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. I'm excited to introduce you to my guest today. We've got Melissa Harman joining us, and she's with Mission First CPA. Melissa, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Dori. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm excited that you're joining me on the podcast today. I'd love to learn more about you and your business. So let's start there. Share with us a little bit about Mission First CPA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so um I am a CPA. I am Melissa Harman, living hearing staffer. I our firm, it's an accounting financial systems operation firm. So we provide everything from um financial transformation, um, operations, financial management, all the way to CFO strategy.
Speaker 1:Amazing. And who is your ideal client? Is it you know small businesses, medium businesses, or a certain type? Talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yes. So my ideal client is a small business who is passionate about what they do, but they need to, they know they need maybe better systems, they have questions about the finances, right? So better financial clarity and they're past maybe the startup phase. So they have consistent revenue, but they need more structure and a strategy on their finances. So they don't just want to know what happened last year, but they're ready to, you know, move forward and make confident decisions.
Speaker 1:That strategy piece is huge and so valuable for business owners. So I love that you mentioned that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. Not everybody thinks or every some business owners think they're alone, right? So coming in as a sub-partner and just um giving you a perspective that maybe you didn't thought of.
Speaker 1:That's the key. Yeah, absolutely. So many business owners are really, really good at what they do. And then when it comes to the financial piece, it can be so overwhelming. Sometimes you put blinders on. So having a partner like you it's really important.
Speaker 2:And that that's where the name comes in too. So mission first stands, or it's the reminder that you you created your business because there was a need, there was a mission, there was something that inspires you, joy, right? So it's we're the reminder that there's this goal and profits will follow when you're focused on your goal and your mission and your vision. So that's where the name comes in, too.
Speaker 1:I love that. So tell me a little bit about you. How you know what led you to starting your business? Give us your backstory.
Speaker 2:Yes, great. So I started um in tax on audit. So I started at a small CPA firm in Ruston, and I was there for five years. That's where I got my CPA, and I got five years of tax season, and I remembered after that I was like, great, the CPA. Um, I got the CPA, but I didn't want to do taxes. Uh, I wanted to continue exploring more like what happens before it gets to the tax return, right? Um, because by the time the tax return uh stage comes, then it's too late to even do anything about what happened last year. So I moved from there to bigger firms. Uh, I work with big organizations, median organizations, and that was all within public accounting. So you work with multiple businesses, and then I decided this is not the life I want to live because I want to start a family, and I was working a lot, a lot of hours. So I decided to exit public accounting and work in the corporate world. So I work for a foundation, um, and um and I do that remotely, and I have time to work this um in my business as well. So actually, my husband will come and join me and expand the CFO arm of the firm as well. But um, you know, the firm got started because I knew there was a gap in the small business world. I mean, all these big organizations have a finance team, uh, very, you know, good financial consultants, uh good CFO, and the good controller. And I knew from my experience, I can bring the same high-level systems and strategy guidance that large companies have and bring it to the small business owners and just tailor it to their industry and scale.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Congratulations on your success. And I'm excited for your expansion. That's really exciting. And I love that you you found the need and you, you know, you saw the gap and you decided to do something about it. And so my next question is if if someone listening right now is inspired by that and inspired by listening to you, and what advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting their own business and maybe taking something that they've been doing as an employee and and now turning that into a business?
Speaker 2:Yes. Um I think is starting a business takes courage, takes red determination. Like it's not something that you just one day decide, you know, this is going to be easy. And if you think it's going to be easy, you will find out really soon that it's not. And you will have to come in with an open mind that everything that you've done while working for someone, um, it's not gonna be the same. You'll be wearing different hats and you will have to learn to ask for help because you will not be able to do it yourself, or at least you shouldn't, right? Like I truly believe that you, as a business owner, you should stay as the visionary, as someone who is gonna exercise this creative um side of you to expand your business and to move forward with your mission, right? This is going back to the mission and and whatever goal you had, whatever gap you saw and that you were able to fix, you should stay at that level because once you get too deep into the details, you lose track of that. So ask for if you don't know anything about social media, ask someone who knows marketing, right? If you don't know anything about the finances, you need to find a CPA, you need to find someone who does bookkeeping, you need to find a CFO. Like all of those words need to be in there because uh setting up the the business from the beginning is the key, you know, because you will expand, you have the vision, you will expand. Just thrust your gut on them.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's really good advice. Setting up systems for growth instead of growing first and then trying to figure it out when it's too late.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:I think that's really good advice. I love that. Do you find that there are any myths or misconceptions that you hear often about the industry or about your business?
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. Yes, many. So many. Many, many. Um, I I guess there are quite a few. I think I have the one where people think bookkeeping or accounting is just data entry, right? Um, they put more value on the CPAs and tax, and they only think about that during tax time. That is a big, big misconception. I mean, the truth is you have to think strategically, like you build a business for success. I mean, that so it's thinking about being proactive, right? So not just think about this is just a one-time thing in April that I do, and let's forget about it. Um, then there's another one where they think they're too small to need professional accounting support. That's not the truth either. I mean, like you said, like um setting up systems from the beginning is will make you scale properly, will make you feel more confident about the next step because everybody will be in this messy middle middle, right? Where you're like, I don't know what to do. You you need that um that help, that partnership. The other one I think is people think that we accountants are intimidating and judgmental. And I'll be the first one to say, yes, there are people and there are CPAs, there are accountants that will give you that vibe. Well, it is your job as the business owner to go and find the person that you vibe with, right? It's the person that's gonna help you, the person that you know is not gonna judge you, that is going to actually educate you and help you. Because uh in in school, they don't teach us and and through the the work, they don't teach us how to be uh like how to how to really translate the numbers or you learn that as like because someone like myself, like I wanna teach you how to do that, so I have to make sure that I translate this in plain English, right? Because we have other words that we use within the accounting um industry. So it's it's having that, it's like dating. You go out and date, right? You know who you don't like, then you go and find and oh, okay, this person, yes, I like this person. So think about it that way. And for anything, I would I would say for any service that you you're looking for, that should be the one.
Speaker 1:I'm really glad that you mentioned that because I do feel like a lot of small business owners probably do feel intimidated and maybe embarrassed, and maybe, you know, they kind of know like, you know, I've been just kind of winging it, and I'm a little nervous for someone to take a look at my book. So I'm really glad that you mentioned that. And it's it's nothing to be embarrassed about or intimidated over. Just find the right person. And I mean, there is a lot of trust involved in in that relationship.
Speaker 2:It is, it is, yeah. Trust is at the bottom, like it's at the top, right? It's something that you if you don't trust, then it's not gonna work. That that's just the way it is. And we accountants and anybody in the finance industry have to gain your trust. So we'll just have to prove little by little that we we do know what we're doing and and that we have the best the best for you in mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What is something that you wish the listeners knew about mission first CPA?
Speaker 2:Um, well, I wish they knew that I created this not because I'm in looking for to become rich or looking to like um that this is not a business to that that we just want to take advantage of people or like we don't like mission first is here because I want to make sure I want to make an impact on what you do for the rest of the community, right? It's like we're often accountants and anybody in the finance professional, we're almost on this uh support uh personality type, right? There's many personality types, but we're in this bucket of support. We like to support you, and and I like to keep my clientele small because I know that a lot of CPA firms do tend to, you know, take more clients, and at the end there's not they don't have the capacity to help all. So I I want my clients to know, and anybody who wants to work with me that you are not just one more, that you are you are one specific uh person in business that I will look after, um, right? Me personally, and and that I care. I think that's that's the important thing is that I care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you are a gem.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1:And and I love that you tie, you know, your your business name into everything that you do. It's um it's very clear um your intention in your business. And so congratulations on thank you so much.
unknown:I love it.
Speaker 2:And it does come with uh so my husband gets in the military, he will retire soon. So the name it's also it we chose it together because it has meaning from like being mission first, right? For him in the military and for me for business. So it's it has a full circle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's meaningful. I love that.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:If the listeners want to connect with you, if they want to work with you, learn more from you, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:Yes. So my website is missionfirstcpa.com. And I'm also on Instagram at missionfirst.cpa, you can message me and it's me. I will answer all the DMs.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Melissa, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing Mission First CPA with us.
Speaker 2:Great. Thank you so much, Dori.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to FXFG Neighbors Podcast.com.