Member of Russell Bedford International, a global network of independent professional service firms.
Member of Russell Bedford International, a global network of independent professional service firms.
Accounting & Advisory Services (CAAS) Manager
In business, cash is king. For small to medium-sized companies, understanding where your money comes from and where it goes is not just a strategy; it’s essential for survival and growth.
Whether you’re a startup founder or a seasoned business owner, managing cash flow can be the difference between thriving and struggling. Here are 10 powerful reasons why tracking your cash flow should be a top financial priority and how it can help your business stay healthy, flexible and future-ready.
1. Get a Clear Picture of Your Spending
When you track your cash flow you see exactly how your money is allocated and spent. This helps you spot wasteful spending, control costs and understand your true financial position beyond what your profit and loss statement shows.
2. Measure Business Performance Accurately
Comparing your cash flow forecasts to actual results, shows how well your business is performing. If your projections don’t match reality, you’ll know where to adjust, making your future plans more reliable and achievable.
3. Always Know Your Cash Balance
Understanding your cash on hand and working capital helps determine what your business can do today. Tracking these helps you make smarter decisions about paying bills, investing excess funds or seeking external financing before cash gets tight.
4. Discover Ways to Boost Cash Flow
Analyzing cash flow data enables businesses to discover practical ways to bring in more money, such as optimizing inventory management or improving how quickly customers pay. These simple tweaks can significantly improve your liquidity.
5. Plan Ahead for Short-Term Needs
A cash flow statement acts like a financial dashboard. It shows you what funds you have available right now, helping you plan short-term goals, pay vendors on time and avoid last minute cash shortages.
6. Making More Informed Business Decisions
When you know your cash position, you can avoid poor financial decisions, like delaying purchases until customer payments arrive. Better insights lead to better financial judgment.
7. Protect Your Vendor and Supplier Relationships
Consistent, positive cash flow ensures you can pay vendors and suppliers promptly. This builds trust and strengthens vital business relationships.
8. Prepare for Financial Emergencies
Unexpected slow seasons or expenses can happen to any business. Regular cash flow reviews help you spot red flags early and create backup plans to handle challenges before they become crises.
9. Support Long-Term Growth Strategy
Detailed cash flow analysis is essential for long-term planning. It helps you prioritize key projects, manage investments and position the company for future success.
10. Create a Solid Foundation for Business Expansion
Strong cash flow management lays the groundwork for growth opportunities, like hiring more staff, opening new locations or launching new products, without falling into financial turmoil.
Tracking cash flow is not merely about monitoring money; it’s a strategic advantage. It keeps your operations running smoothly, supports better decision-making, and positions your business for growth.
If you’re unsure where to start, please reach out to Cray Kaiser’s CAAS Department. We can help you set up practical systems to monitor and manage your cash flow effectively. Contact us today to schedule a consultation meeting and learn how to strengthen your business’ financial foundation.
CPA | CK Principal
The “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law over the July 4th weekend introduces major updates to estate and gift tax rules that could significantly affect your estate planning strategy. Prior to the Act, the gift and estate tax exemptions were slated to scale back to about $7 million per taxpayer in 2026.
The following are the highlights involving the estate and gift tax:
Beginning January 1, 2026, the federal estate and gift tax exemption will increase to:
This increased from $13.99 million per individual exemption available in 2025. This new amount will also be adjusted annually for inflation after 2026. This exemption is made “permanent” by the Act, but as history reminds us, a future change in control of the government means nothing is ever truly permanent.
The annual gift exclusion remains at $19,000 per recipient for 2025. This means you can give up to $19,000 per individual without reducing your lifetime estate tax exemption. The annual exclusion will continue to adjust for inflation each year.
This portability feature remains a powerful estate planning tool for married couples aiming to preserve wealth and minimize estate taxes.
Prior to OBBBA, the federal exemption was expected to drop to about $7 million per taxpayer in 2026. This pending “sunset” led many individuals to accelerate estate planning strategies before the deadline.
With the new, higher $15 million exemption, that state of urgency has eased. But strategic estate planning is still essential, especially for individuals or couples with estates near or above the new thresholds.
For taxpayers residing in Illinois, the federal exemption is not the only number that matters. Illinois imposes its own estate tax on estates over $4 million.
We recommend speaking to your advisors to make sure your trusts are structured to maximize federal and state tax benefits.
Even though OBBBA extends and expands the federal exemptions, estate planning remain crucial for individuals and families of all wealth levels. Laws can change, so the best way to protect your legacy is to keep your estate plan current, flexible and aligned with your goals.
If you have questions about the OBBBA affects your estate, gift or trust planning, contact the team at Cray Kaiser to help you evaluate your options and ensure your plan is up to dat
In part 2 of our video series about college foundations, Dan Swanson, an assurance manager at CK, shares his expertise in supporting college foundations. With more than a decade of experience, Dan breaks down the complexities behind managing scholarship funds, maintaining accurate financial reporting and leveraging financial systems to ensure transparency and donor confidence. He explains how thoughtful accounting practices directly translate into real opportunities for students. He highlights why strong financial oversight isn’t just important, but essential to fulfilling a foundation’s mission.
Transcript:
Welcome everybody. I’m very excited to be here today. My name is Dan Swanson. I am an assurance manager here at Cray Kaiser. I’ve been with the firm for about 12, 13 years now. And I wanted to talk about a subject matter that I’m very passionate about. And that is college foundations and some of the important factors that we need to be considering, some of their hot topic issues.
I wanted to kind of talk about foundations and how we here at CK have helped foundations on a number of different areas. So when you think of college foundations, what do you think about? What are some of their big struggles? What are they, what’s their mission, what’s their vision, what are their values. So with college foundations, they get funds, they get dollars, they get money, they get to invest, and hopefully those earnings, it earns, returns, which then turn into scholarships, turns into real dollars for real students to pay for real education. So sounds simple, but when you have, if you only had like two or three scholarship funds, not a big deal, but some of our clients that we serve have over a hundred different individual unique scholarship funds or program funds, and they have millions of dollars of investments. So how do we ensure that everybody’s getting their fair share of these investment earnings? How do we ensure that the financial statements are telling an accurate story to the board, to the executive director, to the finance committee, to all those involved to make sure the end of the day, the maximum amount of dollars are going out to students to serve the mission. So that’s where we here at Cray Kaiser can come in and use all of our knowledge and experience to really help these foundations and a number of different factors.
You know, personally, I’ve helped just with the system setup. You know, what financial system are they using? Is there any setup issues we need to update, adjust, add to it, what type of modules does their system have? Timeliness of financial reporting, are they getting accurate financial statements monthly?
So some shared experience I have while working with foundations, some of the things that keep them up at night. I kind of touched upon this as individual scholarship funds or individual program funds. Your more sophisticated donors are going to ask, how’s my fund doing? How’s my scholarship doing? How much do I have left in that fund? How much did you spend in scholarship funds this year? What did it earn? Can we do better? You know, if my balance is running low, do I need to write another check to get my scholarship funds back up there? So in order to answer all those questions, what do you think we need to do? What’s super important? What’s super important is, you know, accurate financial reporting, both on an overall basis and by an individual scholarship and or project fund.
So the way I tell people is if you’re like a for-profit company, you have kind of one set of books that you need to monitor and track. With these nonprofit foundations, you could have 200 different trial balances or general ledgers that you have to track. Because each individual scholarship fund is its own kind of entity. So you can see where it’s not super simple and straightforward. You really got to be very careful and very meticulous about tracking this activity.
So how do we do that? How do we make sure it’s over cumbersome? Because we the goal is we want to give these donors financial reporting accurately and timely because that’s going to drive them to open up their checkbooks and bring in more funds and more opportunities to these to the students. Again what’s the goal? We want to give out scholarships to help educate young students.
So kind of where I come in, where I get passion is about, is we can see, you know, by accurate financial reporting, by accurate accounting, where it has a direct impact, you know, on America’s youth. So it’s pretty cool. So from that standpoint, it’s very cool. Accounting is cool, right? Accounting is cool, guys, you know, because it translates to real dollars to real students. You know, how do we pay it forward? Well, have good solid accounting records will pay it forward and increase scholarship funds.
Other issues I’m seeing, a lot of these foundations use the same type of software package. And over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at learning the system and its full capabilities. So what I’m always trying to do is, I understand that this is the financial package that has always gone to the board each month, but what else can we do? What are they looking at? You know, I’ll sit in the board meetings or sit in the trenches. You know, what is it that you hone in on? What is it that you’re looking at? What’s important to you? And then I’ll try to see if the system can generate a better, more improved report to help them do what they need to do to keep the foundation on the straight and arrow. Again, transparency is your best friend. So how do I utilize that system to its fullest potential? Because it’s a powerful system, so let’s utilize it. So what is it that you need? What is it that you want? And then let’s work towards that. So that’s kind of fun. It’s fun to kind of see what, hear what they want, what they need, and then going back to the system and seeing if we can generate a new report and make it part of that standard monthly financial package. So that’s a lot of fun.
Some of the other issues I see is there’s different, like there’s like a dual-based system where one tracks all the donor information and all the contribution information. And then there’s a different system, which is your standard kind of general ledger accounting software. and they talk to each other and they’re integrated to each other. So making sure that both systems talk appropriately is super key. You know, if we have a bunch of donor information, a bunch of contributions in one system and it’s not being linked correctly to the other system, you can see how financial reporting can become out of whack and then you can see how come year-end. When it comes to audit time, it’s going to create a lot of headaches. So how do we get in front of that? How do we make sure the system is set up initially? So both systems are talking to each other and are integrated. So again, over the years, I’ve kind of learned both systems and we know how to make them work. Or at least know who to contact to help us when we notice issues.
If you have any questions that you would want to ask me, you know, please feel free to reach out. You can go to the Cray Kaiser website and you can find me. Again, I’m Dan Swanson. I’m an assurance manager here.
CPA | Tax Manager
In June 2025, Illinois enacted major tax reforms as part of the 2026 Illinois Budget bill. The changes have a direct impact on how businesses, particularly multi-state and privately-held companies, calculate, report, and allocate taxes.
If your company is operating in Illinois or conducting business remotely within the state, it’s essential to understand these updates and adjust your tax strategy now. The new legislation includes the following key provisions:
Effective for tax years ending on or after December 31, 2025, Illinois will replace the Joyce apportionment rule with the Finnigan rule for unitary combined reporting.
What This Means:
Why It Matters:
This is a major shift from the old Joyce rule, which only included sales from group members with an Illinois nexus. The result? Many multi-state businesses will see a higher Illinois apportionment percentage and, consequently, potentially higher Illinois tax liability.
Starting with tax years ending on or after December 31, 2025, corporate taxpayers can only deduct 50% of the amount of global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI) under IRC Section 951A from taxable income.
Previously, businesses could deduct 100% of GILTI. This change effectively increases Illinois’ taxable income for corporations with foreign operations or subsidiaries.
Effective for tax years ending on or after June 16, 2025, Illinois will change how capital gains and losses from the sale or exchange of S corporation shares or partnership interests are sourced.
How It Works:
What Changed:
Previously, capital gains and losses from selling or exchanging an interest in a pass-through entity generally were sourced based on the taxpayer’s state of residence. Now, non-residents selling Illinois-based business interests may owe Illinois tax and should confirm whether their home state allows a credit for taxes paid to Illinois.
The new Advancing Innovative Manufacturing (AIM) for Illinois Tax Credit aims to encourage investment in domestic manufacturing facilities.
Key Details:
Remote Retailer Transaction Threshold Eliminated
Starting January 1, 2026, Illinois will remove the 200- transaction threshold used to determine nexus for sales and use tax.
From now on, remote retailers, marketplace facilitators, and marketplace sellers will need to collect and remit Illinois sales tax if their Illinois sales exceed $100,000 annually, regardless of transaction count.
Service Occupation and Service Use Tax Expansion
Also beginning January 1, 2026, the Leveling the Playing Field for Illinois Retail Act will expand to cover service providers. Service businesses with nexus in the state will be responsible for collecting both state and local sales taxes when a service is provided from outside the state to an Illinois customer. The applicable tax rate is calculated based on the customer’s location (destination basis). Prior to this change, out of state service businesses collected only the state 6.25% tax rate.
The 2026 Illinois Budget Bill introduces some of the most significant tax law changes in recent years. From combined apportionment rules to GILTI limitations and new manufacturing credits, these updates will reshape how businesses plan and report taxes in Illinois.
At Cray Kaiser, we specialize in helping business owners navigate these complex changes. Our team can help you update your strategy and ensure compliance while optimizing your Illinois tax position. Contact Cray Kaiser to discuss how the 2026 Illinois tax changes may affect your business and how to prepare effectively.
Taxes are a fact of life, but thoughtful and timely planning can help to reduce their impact. By estimating your liability, exploring potential savings and making timely decisions, you can better manage your tax burden. That’s why we are excited to offer our 2025-2026 Tax Planning Guide to assist you.
In Cray Kaiser’s Employee Spotlight series, we shine a light on the people who make CK such a great place to work. This month, we’re proud to introduce Cody Squires, one of our talented In-Charge Tax Accountants.
As an In-Charge Tax Accountant, Cody wears a lot of hats. A true generalist, he works across a wide range of tax returns, from pass-through entities and corporations to individuals, making sure every client’s reporting is accurate and compliant. Cody is also the go-to for cleaning up books when clients need a little extra help getting things in order. Beyond preparing returns, he’s involved in the review process, ensuring each file reflects CK’s high standards for quality and precision.
For Cody, it’s not just about crunching numbers, it’s about problem-solving and helping clients find confidence in their financial picture.
Immediately drawn to the team and atmosphere, Cody joined the CK team in August 2025, “The people and the environment felt supportive during my interview process,” he shares. “I also enjoy the sense of humor and camaraderie around the office.”
That positive culture is also why he’s chosen to stay. “CK has a very collaborative atmosphere. The people here are quick to help and provide support,” he says. For Cody, teamwork isn’t just a buzzword, it’s part of what makes coming to work every day enjoyable.
When it comes to CK’s core values, one stands out most: Education. “The world and tax law are constantly evolving and changing, so I feel it’s important to stay educated and continue lifelong learning to stay up to date,” Cody explains. “I also really enjoy learning new things!”
Originally from Tennessee, Cody earned his master’s degree at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Before joining Cray Kaiser, he worked at another CPA firm in North Carolina, performing similar work and sharpening his expertise in tax preparation and client service.
When asked about the most impactful moment in Cody’s career, he can’t narrow it down to just one. It’s any time he’s able to resolve a client’s issue directly with the IRS or state revenue department. “When I can call on behalf of a client and get everything squared away, and then deliver the good news, it’s a great feeling.”
Cody is excited about continuing to grow his tax strategy knowledge. “I think it can be fun to play around with a client’s tax position and brainstorm ways to create tax-efficient solutions,” he says. That curiosity and drive for improvement are what make Cody a great fit for CK’s culture of continuous learning.
What motto do you live by?
Whenever I find that I am comparing myself to other people, I tell myself, ‘Not my journey, not my path.’ It helps me focus inward and reflect on my own growth. It’s my take on ‘Comparison is the thief of joy.’
Favorite vacation?
One of my favorites was going to the Bonnaroo music festival. I love live music and being unplugged for a long weekend while camping and discovering new artists.
Favorite movie?
My favorite movie is Elf! I watch it every year with my family in Tennessee during the holidays.
What’s on your music playlist?
I listen to a wide range of music but mostly pop—Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Dua Lipa are some of my go-tos. Fleetwood Mac is also on repeat!
In this latest episode of Small Business Focus, Tax Manager, Eric Challenger, breaks down the fundamentals of self-employment tax, including what it is, who it applies to and how it’s calculated. Whether you’re a freelancer, sole proprietor or a new business owner, understanding self-employment tax is essential to avoiding surprises at filing time and planning effectively for your finanacial success.
Transcript
Congratulations. You finally started your own business. Years of working for somebody else are finally over. Now you set your own schedule and reap 100% of the profits from your hard work. Unfortunately, what they don’t tell you is that even though you don’t have any traditional payroll, you still have to pay payroll taxes on your self-employment income in the form of the dreaded self-employment tax. Many new business owners are unaware of this tax and feel bamboozled by their accountants when they go to file their returns for the first time and are notified of this extra tax.
Self-employment income is the earned income derived from the business operations for people who operate as independent contractors, freelancers, sole proprietors, single -member LLCs, and some other small business owners. All SE income is subject to SE taxes. Typically, this applies to all business owners who are either disregarded entities or partners in a service partnership. Disregarded entity is a business that, one, has a single owner or two, not organized as a corporation or three, not elected to be taxed as a separate business entity. Even if you have elected to be treated as a partnership, you may still be subject to SE taxes on your flow through SE income.
SE tax is essentially payroll tax, charged at the individual level on Form 1040 to disregarded entities and partners receiving flowed through SE income. SE tax is comprised of two parts, Social Security tax and Medicare tax. As an employee, you would consistently see those extra withholdings on each check in tandem with your income tax withholdings. What you didn’t see was that your former employer was paying a matching amount on those taxes to the government. What? They were paid twice? Yes. And as the owner of your business, acting as the employer and the employee, you now get to pay both sides to a whopping total of 15.3%. The Social Security tax makes up 12.4 % and the Medicare tax makes up 2.9% for the total 15.3. However, there is some relief as the Social Security tax is capped annually after achieving a certain wage base. For 2025, that limit is $176,100. But you still have to pay the 2.9 % on the amount over that, and the Medicare tax bumps up to an additional 3.8 % for people making over $200,000 if you’re single or $250,000 if you’re filing jointly.
SE tax is calculated on your net income from operations of your business. Net income includes all of your offsets and proper business deductions, including one half of the SE tax, the employer’s side. Net income for disregarded entities is calculated on your Schedule C, profit, or loss from business. For partners in a partnership, it is flowing through your K-1, line 14, and reported on Schedule E, page 2. The tax itself is calculated on Schedule SE and includes all your SE income from all sources.
Although the tax is calculated on your return, you are required to pay as you go using the estimated tax payment system. For more information on how to make estimated taxes, please check out our other newsletters and audio blogs on the subject. Hopefully you’ve stumbled on to this article while doing your homework for starting your own business. For those of you researching after you’ve already gotten your tax bill, I’m sorry. For next year, seek out the small business experts at CK to help you better understand your SE tax requirements and how to prepare for them in advance. For more information, on small business tax topics, please visit our website at www.craykaiser.com or give us a call at 630-953-4900. Thank you for listening.
The recently signed “One Big Beautiful Bill” brings tax changes for employees and business owners, especially when it comes to the reduction of taxes on tips and overtime. While most people have heard about those changes, the law includes several important details that will affect your taxes in both 2025 and continue through 2028.
Here are some of the key takeaways for the new rules on tips and overtime pay:
Under OBBB, employees and self-employed individuals working in tip-based industries may now qualify for a tax deduction on tips. Here’s what you need to know:
The OBBB also adds a deduction for overtime pay, designed to give relief to middle-income workers. Here’s how it works:
If you earn tips or overtime pay:
If you manage payroll or own a business:
As with any new tax law, expect there to be clarifications as we near year-end. The professionals at Cray Kaiser can help you understand how OBBBA may impact your 2025 taxes, whether you are an employee, contractor or business owner. Contact us today to prepare your tax strategy for 2025.
Senior Tax Accountant
The President signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, a piece of legislation that cements many tax provisions for individuals and families.
If you’ve been following tax policy, you know that many provisions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) were originally set to expire at the end of 2025. This new bill changes that and makes several tax benefits permanent and introduces new deductions.
Below we break down the key individual tax changes you need to know for 2025 and beyond.
Before the TCJA, the highest federal income tax rate was 39.6%. The TCJA temporarily lowered it to 37%. Under the OBBBA, that rate and the entire tax bracket structure has been made permanent.
What does this mean for you? If you’ve been planning around a possible rate increase in 2026, you can breathe easier because these brackets are here to stay.
The enhanced standard deduction, originally increased under the TCJA and indexed for inflation, will remain permanent and has been increased again for 2025:
Beginning in 2025, a new, temporary federal deduction is available for seniors aged 65 and older. This deduction will phase-out at higher income levels and is available whether you claim the standard deduction or itemize:
Families with children will see an increase in their Child Tax Credit. Beginning in tax year 2025, the credit will increase by $200 per qualifying child, bringing the total to $2,200 per child. This change is permanent.
Beginning in 2026, taxpayers who don’t itemize deductions can still claim up to $1,000 for individuals and up to $2,000 for Married Filing Jointly for certain charitable contributions.
Now is the time to review your 2025 tax plan. With lower rates and new deductions, you may be able to reduce planned tax payments for the remainder of 2025.
At Cray Kaiser our team is here to help you navigate these changes. Contact us today to discuss how these 2025 tax updates might impact your unique financial situation.
In this first video in our series about supporting college foundations, Dan Swanson, Assurance Manager, shares his passion for helping college foundations fulfill their missions. With more than a decade of experience in the firm and a lifelong connection to education, Dan explores the unique financial challenges and opportunities that college foundations face.
Transcript
Welcome everybody. I’m very excited to be here today. My name is Dan Swanson. I am an Assurance Manager here at Cray Kaiser. I’ve been with the firm for about 12-13 years now, and I wanted to talk about a subject matter that I’m very passionate about. And that is college foundations and some of the important factors that we need to be considering, some of the hot topic issues. I want to talk about some success stories, some issues that they commonly face.
One of the reasons I’m very passionate about this, because we always hear that question, if I wasn’t an accountant, what would I be doing? You know, I’m a big fan of education, my parents were teachers, I have brothers that are teachers, so if I wasn’t an accountant, I would be a teacher. So by serving these college foundations, I feel like I get the best of both worlds. I’m helping students, while getting to use my accounting knowledge and expertise. So, it’s very near and dear to me. So, I wanted to kind of talk about foundations and how we here at CK have helped foundations in a number of different areas.
So, when you think of college foundations, what do you think about? You know, what are some of their big struggles? What are they? What’s their mission? What’s their vision? What are their values? So, with college foundations is they get funds, they get dollars, they get money, they get to invest, and hopefully those earnings, it earns returns, which then turn into scholarships, turns into real dollars for real students to pay for real education. So sounds simple, but if you only had like two or three scholarship funds, not a big deal, but some of our clients that we serve have over a hundred different individual unique scholarship funds or program funds and they have millions of dollars of investments. So how do we ensure that everybody’s getting their fair share of these investment earnings. How do we ensure that the financial statements are telling an accurate story to the board, to the executive director, to the finance committee, to all those involved to make sure the end to the day, the maximum amount of dollars are going out to students to serve the mission.
A big thing that I see with a lot of these foundations is the budgets. Every year, the board, the finance committee comes up with budgets. How much are we going to budget to spend out in scholarships? How much are we going to budget for various, just kind of general expenditures? So how do we make sure on a monthly basis our budgets to actual are being monitored and tracked and appropriately recorded. So that’s the overall goal. That’s the overall purpose of what we here try to accomplish when working with foundations.
The board, the finance committee spends a lot of time coming up with budgets. Whether it’s kind of revenue budgets based upon donations that are coming in or investment earnings. But it’s also some of those management in general costs, you know, because we all know that there’s some just overhead that they need to cover. They need software, they need to pay for people, supplies, printers, etc. So, it’s not 100 % of it’s not going to scholarships. There are these overhead manager, we try to minimize it or they try to minimize it, but there are those costs. So a good way to kind of monitor and track that is through like is through budgets.
So how do we make sure as expenses are being incurred and checks are being cut, that we’re matching up the right expense item to the right budgeted line item. Seems simple but it can get it can get kind of tricky depending on the volume of invoices and who’s coding the invoices. You know, are we consistently coding this vendor to this budgeted line item? So again, what I like is kind of being on the outside is we’re that second set of eyes. You know, we can go in there and kind of build some of these expenses and enter your payables and run your checks for you. But you know, you are the kind of the initial person at you being the foundation, but we’re that second set of eyes. Hey, did you think about that? Did you think about this? Does this match up with the budget? And then we can kind of catch some inconsistencies in real time. And as we catch them, we can try to implement best practices because consistency is key. So, if we can implement these best practices, we’re consistent. And then the financials, again, tell the story. If you have any questions that you would want to ask me, you know, please feel free to reach out. You can go to the Cray Kaiser website and you can find me again I’m Dan Swanson. I’m an assurance manager here.
