The One Job I’ll Never Do in My Small Business

Meta Description: A Greeley-area construction business owner opens up about the frustrations of DIY accounting—and how finding the right pro changed everything.

The Only Hat I Won’t Wear: How I Learned to Let Go of the Books and Get Back to the Work I Love

I’ve worn just about every hat there is to wear in this business. Some of ’em I’ve had to stitch together myself—figuratively and literally. One day I’m hauling rebar, the next I’m crawling under a foundation in a blizzard trying to figure out why the ground’s heaving like it’s mad at me. I’ve patched roofs in sideways rain, rebuilt decks in hundred-degree heat, and spent more nights than I care to admit sleeping in the cab of my truck because the jobsite was two hours from home and the motel smelled like wet carpet and cigarettes.

But out of all the jobs I’ve done—framing, demo, plumbing, site cleanup, hauling trash, you name it—there’s one hat I just can’t wear: the accountant’s.

I tried. Lord knows I tried.

When I first started this company out in the Greeley area, it was just me and a borrowed trailer. I did the bids, I did the work, I wrote the invoices, and come tax time, I stared at a blinking cursor on my laptop until the battery gave out. I’d pour a strong cup of coffee—real strong, like stand-up-on-its-own strong—and spend hours trying to figure out what the heck a Schedule C even was. One year I almost convinced myself that lunch at the gas station counted as a business meeting. I called it “fueling strategy.” The IRS didn’t buy it.

Every year, it got worse. I’d spend all of March with a wrench in one hand and a calculator in the other, double-checking receipts stained with drywall dust and smeared pencil notes that said things like “Home Depot run – ??” and “client lunch – maybe.” I once spent three days trying to track down a $48 hardware store charge from the previous June because I was scared it might throw everything off. Spoiler: it didn’t. But the anxiety did.

What they don’t tell you when you start a small business is that unless you’ve got a real taste for spreadsheets, you’re gonna burn yourself out chasing nickels while the dollars fly out the window. And brother, that’s exactly what I was doing. I was losing time, losing sleep, and worst of all—losing focus. I got into this business because I love building things with my hands. Not because I wanted to turn into some half-baked bookkeeper with ink-stained fingers and a QuickBooks subscription I barely understood.

So last year, after a particularly nasty go-round with a stack of 1099s and a shoebox full of receipts, I finally gave in. I found someone who actually likes this stuff—numbers, deductions, tax code changes, all that jazz. I don’t know how or why, but there are people out there who look at a spreadsheet and see art. Me? I see static. But this accountant? They saw patterns. They asked smart questions. They didn’t flinch when I showed up with my paperwork in a grocery bag and a sheepish look on my face.

And just like that, the weight started to lift. Not all at once, but enough that I stopped dreading April. Enough that I started catching up on sleep. Enough that I could put my time back where it belonged—on the job, with my crew, doing the kind of work that leaves you sore in a good way.

Let me tell you something—there’s a certain pride that comes from being the kind of person who says “I’ll figure it out” and then does. I’ve built my life on that. But there’s also pride in knowing when to hand something off. Especially when the thing you’re handing off is eating up your weekends and turning you into a grumpy mess come spring.

These days, I still keep my eye on the numbers. I’m not flying blind. I know what a job costs, what a crew’s worth, what my margins look like. But I don’t try to decode the tax code after midnight with a beer in one hand and a stack of receipts in the other. That life is behind me.

If you’re like me—if you’re in the Greeley area or anywhere else where people build with their hands and earn their money one busted knuckle at a time—do yourself a favor. Find someone who can carry the weight of the numbers so you can carry the rest. We all have our hats to wear. Mine’s sweat-stained, sun-bleached, and smells a little like diesel. And I wear it proud. But that accountant’s hat? That one stays on someone else’s head.

Because I’ve got a job to do—and it ain’t in front of a spreadsheet.