Guides
One business, one week, and the numbers worked all the way through — including the part where the tool refuses to answer.
The businesses are invented. The arithmetic is the tool's own.
Brightline Heating & Air — New Project Feasibility
A $16,000 duct-cleaning trailer pays back in 5.3 months. Pricing the owner's own hours against it adds up to nearly two-thirds of that cash back
Brightline considers a $16,000 duct-cleaning add-on. The monthly cash comparison alone makes it an easy yes; the tool also prices what the owner's own hours and the $16,000 could otherwise earn, and that alone runs to $4,619–$9,909 — a third to nearly two-thirds of the cash back.
Reviewed 22 September 2026
Dispatchly — Debt vs Equity
A $300,000 loan costs Dispatchly $79,207 in interest. The same raise as equity could cost $915,527 to $2,683,983 — and the loan's own coverage ratio still comes back negative in the company's worst month
A four-person software startup compares a $300,000 venture loan against extending its seed round for the same amount, run through the same tool. The loan is far cheaper on the five-year math, but its coverage ratio — checked against the company's own worst month, then against the lender's own minimum — says something the growth-adjusted equity number never has to answer.
Reviewed 23 September 2026
Two Rivers Dental — Unit Economics & Payback
A dental membership plan pays for itself in under two months, on every honest count of what it costs — the number worth reading is the one that says the 25-month member life is still unproven
$29 a month, a $10 signup incentive, and the instinct to call that a clear win. Run on a real membership plan's first ten months: payback stays under two months from $10 to $27 CAC, and the tool's own caveat — the assumed member life is longer than the plan has existed — turns out to matter more than the payback number itself.
Reviewed 19 September 2026
Two Rivers Dental — Is My Marketing Working?
A dental membership plan's payback holds at under two months no matter how the retention guess moves. The ratio next to it swings from 5:1 to 36:1 on the same guess
Two Rivers Dental runs its membership incentive through the two-minute version of the marketing math, nine months in. Payback stays under two months whether the honest cost is $10 or the fully-loaded $27. The LTV:CAC ratio beside it swings from under 5:1 to over 36:1 depending on a guess nobody has tested yet — which is exactly the number the practice sent upstairs for a harder look.
Reviewed 20 September 2026
Fernbank Studio — Entity and Structure Review
A one-person studio's own $95,000 target lands inside the S-corp threshold, not above it or below it — the stronger year that actually arrived clears it by $30,060 to $63,041
Fernbank Studio's four-year-old take-home target, run through the profit level where an S-corp election starts saving more in payroll tax than it costs: at $95,000 it sits inside the $76,959-to-$109,940 range the studio's own salary and cost guesses draw, not clearly past it either way. The stronger year the corrected pricing floor and a referral wave actually produced clears the range outright — and only that number, not the target, settles anything.
Reviewed 25 September 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — Break-Even
A six-van HVAC shop, and what 149 jobs a month actually means
Break-even is two numbers divided. Most owners have never done the division, so they read the bank balance instead. Here it is worked through, on one ordinary company's figures.
Reviewed 18 September 2026
Two Rivers Dental — Hire Affordability
A two-location dental practice, an $84,000 hygienist, and the month the decision stops being reversible
Employer payroll taxes on an $84,000 hire come to $6,510 over the first twelve months — computed from published rates, not a 1.3x multiplier. And the month you can no longer undo the hire arrives two months before the money runs out.
Reviewed 18 September 2026
Willow Creek Veterinary Clinic — Property Tax Appeal Triage
A veterinary clinic's tax bill jumped 39% at reassessment. A rough guess said maybe; a real comp said $1,150 to $2,300 a year, for sure
Willow Creek Veterinary Clinic's assessed value jumped from $460,000 to $640,000 at reassessment. A first, informal guess at what the building is really worth left the case marginal — could be overpaying, could be nothing. Three signed comps from a commercial agent closed the range and turned it into a clear one: $1,150 to $2,300 a year, on the clinic's own numbers.
Reviewed 25 September 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — Owner Pay and Draw
An HVAC company's S election, a $92,000 market rate, and a gap nobody had measured
An S corporation must run reasonable compensation through payroll before anything else — it is a requirement, not a preference. Here is what that requirement actually shows up as, in one company's own figures.
Reviewed 18 September 2026
Badlands Rock & Gem — Obligation Calendar
Badlands Rock & Gem has twelve South Dakota sales-tax dates in 2026, no South Dakota income-tax date, and a tool that only dates monthly filers
A rock and gem shop in Wall, South Dakota files sales tax monthly. The Department publishes the dates, weekend moves included. The tool dates a monthly filer and nobody else, and it does not cover five other South Dakota taxes.
Reviewed 4 October 2026
Brandywine Bindery — Obligation Calendar
Brandywine Bindery files Pennsylvania sales tax twice a year, and the tool leaves next February blank on purpose
A two-person book-restoration studio in West Chester, Pennsylvania collects a few hundred dollars of sales tax a year, so the state has it file twice a year. The calendar tool shows both 2026 dates, refuses to guess the third, and shows what happens to the shop's returns when collections cross $300.
Reviewed 29 September 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — Price Increase
Brightline can lose 295 maintenance plans and be no worse off. Nobody had worked that out.
Will I lose customers has no answer. How many could I lose and still be no worse off has an exact one, from two numbers you already have — and the sequencing matters more than the size of the rise.
Reviewed 18 September 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — True Cost Per Customer
Brightline's ad bill says $120 a customer. Adding back what else it took says $268 — and on one honest input, a range instead of a number
Ad spend divided by customers won is the number most owners compute and stop at. Run on one HVAC company's replacement-install leads: the same $120 becomes $268 once commission, software, the agency's fee and discounts are added back — and still $238 with no selling time counted at all.
Reviewed 19 September 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — The Pre-Mortem
Brightline's first commercial bid, run through a pre-mortem: the risk that ranked first was not the one anyone in the room already worried about
Eighteen months from now, it failed — asked once, honestly, before the bid goes in. Run on a six-van HVAC shop's first commercial contract: a bid-scoping error nobody would have caught outscores the cash-flow risk everyone already worried about, until one weekly check moves it out of the blind spot entirely.
Reviewed 19 September 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — Tax Reserve Calendar
Brightline's flat 25% tax reserve looks conservative. Run against its own IRS safe harbor, it's $1,800 short — caught a week before the deadline, not after
An S corporation sets aside a round percentage of profit for the owner's personal tax bill and has never checked it against the one number that actually determines a penalty: last year's own return. At 25% it misses by $1,800. At 26% it clears with room to spare.
Reviewed 24 September 2026
Cardinal Ridge Hardware — Obligation Calendar
Cardinal Ridge Hardware has fifteen Kentucky dates in 2026, and the Department's April 15 line names pass-through entities the tool does not date
A hardware and farm-supply store in Winchester, Kentucky files sales tax on the 20th and pays individual estimates on the 15th. Kentucky's own calendar already moves three of those sales-tax dates to Monday. A calendar-year C corporation would stack four items on April 15. The calendar tool lays all of it on one sheet.
Reviewed 1 October 2026
Cascade Coffee Roasters — Obligation Calendar
Cascade Coffee Roasters' Washington return for November is due on Christmas Day itself, and switching from an S corporation to a C corporation would not move it by one day
A wholesale coffee roaster in Tacoma, Washington builds its 2026 filing calendar and finds two facts no other state this tool covers shows: Washington's own year-specific due-date table puts the November excise return on December 25, not the next business day the state's general rule would suggest, and Washington's business tax reaches gross receipts rather than profit, so it doesn't move at all when the entity question does.
Reviewed 27 September 2026
Cumberland Strings — Obligation Calendar
Cumberland Strings has nine Tennessee sales-tax dates on its sheet and three missing, and the biggest Tennessee tax is not on it
A guitar shop in Franklin, Tennessee files sales tax monthly, due the 20th. The tool dates nine of the twelve returns, leaves June, September and December off because no source says what a weekend does, and does not cover Franchise & Excise Tax at all.
Reviewed 3 October 2026
Dispatchly — Obligation Calendar
Dispatchly's franchise tax comes back $0 owed. The report is still due May 15 — and its own December 15 deadline sits a full month ahead of the date an individual return would show for the same quarter
A Texas-based, Delaware-incorporated software startup runs its first full federal-and-state obligation calendar as a corporation, not a pass-through. A $0 tax bill still carries a filing deadline, a sales-tax question nobody had actually answered gets a named refusal instead of a guess, and the corporation's own Q4 date turns out to land a month earlier than the founder's old personal-return habit expected.
Reviewed 24 September 2026
Fernbank Studio — Contractor or Employee
Fernbank's developer is $33,420 cheaper as a contractor — until three answers change, and then the tool won't price it at all
Eight questions about how the work actually happens, asked before any money enters the picture. Run twice on the same studio and the same developer: once on the arrangement as it stands, once on the tighter version being considered — and only one of the two gets a cost comparison.
Reviewed 19 September 2026
Hawkeye Trophy & Engraving — Obligation Calendar
Hawkeye Trophy & Engraving has seventeen Iowa dates in 2026, and none of them is the fifteenth
An engraving shop in Marshalltown, Iowa files sales tax on the last day of the month and pays individual estimates on April 30, June 30, September 30 and January 31. Five of the monthly dates and the last estimate land on a weekend and move to Monday. The calendar tool works every one out on one sheet.
Reviewed 1 October 2026
Kestrel Bicycle Co. — Obligation Calendar
Kestrel Bicycle Co. finds out April 15 is two checks, not one — an IRS deadline and a separate New York deadline, on the same day, and New York's own 'quarterly' sales-tax return runs on a different clock entirely
A five-person New York bike shop, taxed as an S corporation, builds its first real federal-and-state obligation calendar after the bookkeeper who used to handle it retires. Four dates on the calendar turn out to carry two estimated-tax obligations apiece — one federal, one New York, both due the same day — and the state's own sales-tax quarters cover different three-month windows than its income-tax quarters do, despite both being called quarterly.
Reviewed 26 September 2026
Lakeshore Outfitters — Obligation Calendar
Lakeshore Outfitters files one Michigan return for sales tax and withholding, and a C corporation would owe eight state and federal estimates in seven different months
An outdoor-gear retailer in Holland, Michigan files one combined return for sales, use and withholding tax on the 20th. Michigan's own forms put a monthly filer on twelve dates, a quarterly filer on three and an annual filer on one, and a corporation's state estimates land in July and October while the federal ones land in June and September. The calendar tool lays all of it on one sheet.
Reviewed 30 September 2026
Lowcountry Kayak Outfitters — Obligation Calendar
Lowcountry Kayak Outfitters has thirteen South Carolina sales-tax dates, three of them on a weekend the Department does not explain
A kayak shop in Beaufort, South Carolina files sales tax monthly, due the 20th. In 2026 the 20th is a Saturday in June and a Sunday in September and December, and the Department's page does not say what happens. The tool shows those three as published and flags them.
Reviewed 3 October 2026
Marlow Creative — Marketing or Branding?
Marlow Creative's own rebrand pays for itself on 2 new clients a year. The bigger, faster version the same studio pitched next needs 8 — against 6 the agency was winning in the quarter it was offered
A 14-person branding agency gets quoted for the kind of project it sells to clients every week — its own website and identity — and runs the arithmetic on itself for the first time. The modest, two-year version needs 2 more clients to pay back. The upsell, done in one year, needs 8, tested against a quarter where the agency was only winning 6 clients a year.
Reviewed 20 September 2026
Meridian Structural Engineering — Obligation Calendar
Meridian Structural Engineering elected Illinois's pass-through entity tax, and the calendar this tool builds for an S corporation never asks about it
A structural engineering firm in Naperville, Illinois elects the state's Pass-Through Entity tax to move its own state tax bill off the owners' personal returns onto the business itself. The calendar this tool builds for the firm's actual entity type, an S corporation, computes the wrong installment schedule for that election and never asks whether the election was made at all.
Reviewed 27 September 2026
Northfield Ski & Cycle — Obligation Calendar
Northfield Ski & Cycle has thirteen Vermont sales-tax dates in 2026, and seven of them are not the 25th
A ski and bike shop in Northfield, Vermont files sales tax monthly. Vermont publishes a dated table, so the calendar tool copies it: January is the 26th, February the 23rd, December the 28th. An S corporation also gets four Vermont estimate dates; a C corporation gets four different ones.
Reviewed 2 October 2026
Ocmulgee Ironworks — Obligation Calendar
Ocmulgee Ironworks files Georgia sales tax once a year, and this tool is the first one that tells it both dates at once
A five-person ornamental ironworks shop in Macon, Georgia files sales tax annually because a state letter said so. Georgia's own due-date table resolves both this January's return and next January's return directly — the first state this tool covers where a small once-a-year filer isn't told to come back later for the second date.
Reviewed 27 September 2026
Penobscot Marine Supply — Obligation Calendar
Penobscot Marine Supply has seventeen Maine dates in 2026, and four days when three or more items land at once
A marine-supply shop in Rockland, Maine files sales tax monthly. Maine states its dates as a rule, so the calendar tool works them out: four of the thirteen move off the 15th. The bigger problem is the 15th itself, where the federal estimate, Maine's estimate and the sales-tax return share a day, and in April the owner's Form 1040 joins them.
Reviewed 3 October 2026
Pine Bough Kitchen Supply — Obligation Calendar
Pine Bough Kitchen Supply has fifteen Minnesota dates in 2026, and a C corporation's first state payment would land a month before any federal one
A cookware and restaurant-supply store in Rochester, Minnesota files sales tax on the 20th and pays individual estimates on the 15th. Minnesota's own table puts a monthly filer on twelve dates, a quarterly filer on three, and a calendar-year C corporation on a March 16 payment that nothing federal matches. The calendar tool lays all of it on one sheet.
Reviewed 30 September 2026
Quinnipiac Lighting — Obligation Calendar
Quinnipiac Lighting has thirteen Connecticut sales-tax dates, five of them not the last day of the month
A lighting showroom in Hamden, Connecticut files sales tax monthly, due the last day of the month after. Five of the thirteen fall on a weekend and move, though the Department's sales-tax page does not say so. And an S corporation's sheet carries no Connecticut estimate at all.
Reviewed 3 October 2026
Redfish Fly & Tackle — Obligation Calendar
Redfish Fly & Tackle has thirteen Idaho sales-tax dates in 2026, and no Idaho income-tax date on the sheet at all
A fly shop in Stanley, Idaho files sales tax monthly. Idaho publishes a rule, not a table, so the calendar tool works the dates out: three of the thirteen land on a weekend and move to Monday. Idaho is the one state where the tool dates sales tax and nothing else.
Reviewed 2 October 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — Rent vs Buy
Riverside Yard Leasing offers to sell, and owning wins on paper. The question is what the paper leaves out
Buying Brightline's own yard costs $919 a month less than the rent it already pays, and over twelve or six years it comes out cheaper at both ends of a discount-rate range once the building's value is counted back. Then a plain list of what that arithmetic does not count.
Reviewed 4 October 2026
Sequoia Tile & Stone — Obligation Calendar
Sequoia Tile & Stone's first California sales-tax return lands the same day as three federal payroll filings, and the state's own income-tax payments turn out to be 30%, 40%, 0%, then 30% — not four even quarters
A two-partner building-materials supplier in Fresno, California registers to collect sales tax for the first time after opening a retail counter, and builds a full-year obligation calendar. California's own individual estimated-tax payments turn out to be an uneven 30/40/0/30 split, not the even quarter the federal schedule uses, and its monthly sales-tax return runs on a separate rhythm entirely — including a first return that lands on the same day as three federal payroll filings already due that week.
Reviewed 26 September 2026
Tamiami Marine Canvas — Obligation Calendar
Tamiami Marine Canvas has twelve Florida sales-tax dates in 2026, no Florida income-tax date, and three of them sit on a weekend the Department's page only answers for paper filers
A boat-canvas shop in Punta Gorda, Florida files sales tax monthly. Florida says a return is due on the 1st and late after the 20th. The tool moves three weekend 20ths for every filer; the Department's sentence covers paper returns.
Reviewed 5 October 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — Where the Next Dollar Goes
The agency's pitch was to double Brightline's ad budget. Its own numbers said not yet — one channel is too new to trust, and the other is already running out of room
Brightline splits its $3,000 replacement-install ad budget into the two channels behind it and asks the free tool where the next dollar should go. The honest answer this month is a refusal, not a ranking: Facebook is two months old and nobody can honestly guess its marginal return yet. Guessing anyway would have sent the money to Facebook and flagged Google Local Services as running low on room.
Reviewed 23 September 2026
Fernbank Studio — Job Pricing
The same project is $5,276 underwater or $400 ahead, and the difference is a guess
What a job has to be priced at is arithmetic. The number that decides it is how many hours a year you actually bill — and almost everyone overstates that, which pushes the required rate down rather than up.
Reviewed 18 September 2026
Tippecanoe Pool & Spa — Obligation Calendar
Tippecanoe Pool & Spa files Indiana sales tax on the 30th, and $100 more a month of average tax would move it to the 20th
A pool and spa retailer in Lafayette, Indiana averages $900 a month in sales tax, so it files on the 30th. Indiana's own table sets the line at $1,000 a month, moves the 20th filers ten days earlier, and puts the January return on March 2 because February has no 30th. The calendar tool shows both schedules and where they collide with the rest of the year.
Reviewed 29 September 2026
Trestle Home Furnishings — Obligation Calendar
Trestle Home Furnishings crosses into North Carolina's 'monthly, with a prepayment' sales-tax tier, and finds its corporate return lands the same day as the federal one — not a month later
A two-showroom furniture retailer in High Point, North Carolina has its best month ever during High Point Market, crossing the $20,000 threshold that reclassifies its sales-tax filing. North Carolina's own corporate income and franchise tax return, and its corporate estimated tax, land on the exact same days as the federal ones — not offset like Texas, California, or Colorado — and a 'monthly with prepayment' sales-tax filer owes more than the month's own tax with each return.
Reviewed 26 September 2026
Truckee Meadows Hobby & Craft — Obligation Calendar
Truckee Meadows Hobby & Craft has twelve Nevada sales-tax dates in 2026, no Nevada income-tax date, and a payroll tax the tool does not put on the sheet
A hobby and craft shop in Sparks, Nevada files sales tax monthly. Nevada moved the due date to the 20th from the February 2026 return. The tool dates twelve returns and says it does not date the Modified Business Tax.
Reviewed 5 October 2026
Brightline Heating & Air — The Diagnostic
Twelve questions ranked Brightline's tight cash first and a stale price worth $46,169 to $184,677 a year second — until 'we're already hiring' bumped the price question off the page
A twelve-question, five-minute diagnostic ranks the decisions an HVAC contractor should be making and is not. Cash and a four-year price freeze rank first and third on their own; adding one already-pending decision — a hire — reorders the whole list, and nothing underneath it changes to do it.
Reviewed 20 September 2026
Redline Electric — Co-Founder Equity Split
Two electricians score each other the same way twice. Weight the idea and the cash: 65/35. Weight the work: 45/55.
Co-founder equity usually gets decided by instinct — whoever had the idea and put in the money keeps the bigger share. Run on two electricians' own scores: weighting idea and capital gives one founder 65%; weighting commitment and responsibility, the tool's own default, flips it to 55% for the other, on the identical scores.
Reviewed 19 September 2026
Two Rivers Dental — Runway & The Decision Date
Two Rivers Dental, a $1,500-a-month margin, and the decision date behind the zero date
The practice clears $1,500 a month in an ordinary one. One slow month on collections and the cash-out date for a lever that takes five months to pull has already passed, months before the bank balance says anything is wrong.
Reviewed 18 September 2026
Two Rivers Dental — Should I Expand?
Two Rivers Dental, a third location, and the office that isn't paying for itself yet
The second office looks fine on a bank balance. Counted at full cost — its own fit-out loan included — it loses $1,000 a month, and the tool refuses to model a third location until that number turns around.
Reviewed 21 September 2026
Dispatchly — SAFE Dilution & The Stack
Two SAFEs signed months apart convert on the same day. Founders end at 74.94% — one no-cost ask on the term sheet moves it to 76%
A four-person software startup's two angel SAFEs and a seed term sheet, run through the same stack conversion at once. The founders' own number depends less on how much was raised than on two things nobody read twice: that each angel's share is fixed just before the round (so the new money dilutes it), and which side of the valuation the option pool comes out of.
Reviewed 4 October 2026
Wiregrass Boiled Peanut Co. — Obligation Calendar
Wiregrass Boiled Peanut Co. has thirteen Alabama dates in 2026, and three of them are not the twentieth
A boiled-peanut stand and shop in Dothan, Alabama files sales tax on the 20th of every month. June, September and December land on a weekend and move to Monday. An S corporation gets no Alabama estimate dates from the calendar tool; a C corporation gets four.
Reviewed 1 October 2026