Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory

Partner @ ABM Group | 20+ years ċross-border accounting for Canadian & US businesses | Nomadic soul with 27 countries visited | Polyglot

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

Languages have always intrigued me. Currently mastering Italitan which will be my sixth.

The thing about learning multiple languages is that they start talking to each other. A word in Italian that sounds like Spanish. A root in French that shows up in Romanian. The word for "couch" is the same in Italian and Russian.

You stop seeing them as separate systems and start seeing them as variations of the same thing.

My mom was a foreign languages professor before she became an accountant. I think that curiosity was always going to find me one way or another.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

Languages have always intrigued me. Currently mastering Italitan which will be my sixth.

The thing about learning multiple languages is that they start talking to each other. A word in Italian that sounds like Spanish. A root in French that shows up in Romanian. The word for "couch" is the same in Italian and Russian.

You stop seeing them as separate systems and start seeing them as variations of the same thing.

My mom was a foreign languages professor before she became an accountant. I think that curiosity was always going to find me one way or another.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

One of the hardest days in this job is testifying against another accountant. I've done it more than once unfortunately.

Sometimes it's negligence, failure to file on time or maybe books that were deliberately cooked.

I do not enjoy it. Nobody wants to sit across from another professional and say publicly that what they did was wrong.

But sometimes that's just the job.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@FbaAbe Your hourly value as a founder is your highest cost asset.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@adrianpandev It also derails other aspects like financial planning, property investments, and business ventures in the US.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@Sergio_ECOM XRP was built from the ground up to solve institutional cross-border liquidity issues, which is a massive market. While predicting exact market returns is always a wild card, the foundational utility for banks is definitely where the value lies.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

Every Friday our team has lunch together.

It sounds simple because it is. But across four firms and a growing team, it's the one thing we do consistently to stay connected as people rather than just colleagues.

Running multiple firms means your time gets pulled in a lot of directions. Client work, strategy, hiring, operations. It's easy to let the week go by without actually talking to the people you work with.

Friday lunch fixes that.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@WillowGagnon @slashapp Think of breaking even as the ultimate stress test passed. It means your market validated your product, and now you have the foundation to scale profitably.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@robbfraser Putting my accountant hat on for this one. When protecting the overhead becomes more important than delivering the value, the entity is no longer an asset.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@jnpayne As an accountant, if your billable rate or the value of your time is worth more than $44/hour, saving those 70 minutes is a huge ROI. In my opinion - expense report approved.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

I'm officially out of office for the next few weeks.

First stop is Madeira. Then Porto, first time actually exploring the city rather than just passing through.

After that, Romania for a family friend's wedding. Three days of celebration at a winery. Excited to be back with my parents. My dad hasn't been back in about 30 years, my mom, 15. I was the last one from our family to see it, back in 2019.

Then Milan with my mom before she flies home and rounding out this trip on my own in Torino for a week.

Four countries in a few weeks. One of the better itineraries I've put together.

I'll share some of it along the way.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@dave_stickland Smart move. Moving that above the fold changes the unit economics - once conversion rates tick up, ROAS follow. Then you can outbid everyone.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@GeorgecomX Reminds me of logging onto Temu.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@JimWHuffman As an accountant, love seeing Rule #4. Stacking over 10 weeks accelerates your cash conversion.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

I visited Ukraine in 2010 with my dad.

He is originally from there. It was the first time I'd seen where that side of my family came from. I got to meet my grandfather while there.

Three months later the revolution started.

Back then I didn't realize how lucky I was to get to travel and learn about my dad's life growing up. Looking back, it was one of the most important trips we ever took and I couldn't be more grateful I got to experience it when I did.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

I see professional service firms hit the same two walls trying to scale past $3M.

1. Capacity
2. Cash flow

Capacity hits first. The work coming in exceeds what the existing team can handle. The options are:

- Hire faster than the revenue supports or
- Start turning work away

Neither feels good when you're in it.

Cash flow hits next. Professional services firms bill in arrears. Work gets done in January, invoiced in February, collected in March. The lag between delivering the work and getting paid for it creates a gap that gets harder to manage as the team grows.

The firms that break through are the ones that solve BOTH problems at the same time.

- Hire deliberately (not time to be reactive)
- Build a billing and collections process that shortens the gap between work delivered and cash received.
- Price the work at a rate that supports the team doing it.

The firms that get stuck between $1M and $3M are almost always underpriced, understaffed, or both.

Breaking through that ceiling is about building the infrastructure to serve the ones you already have.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@WillowGagnon Hey man, yeah, let's do that. Your DMs are closed.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@JimWHuffman Fixing cost per lead doesn't matter much if intake gives the gain back. Trust accounting and billing infrastructure rarely scale as fast as the ad spend does.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

@mannybarbas_ Free still costs money. Contribution margin looks great on the sale report and ugly when the books catch up.

[Mathias Dos | Canada-US Tax & Advisory @mathias_a_dos]

I just signed a lease for an office three times bigger than the last one. Which probably makes all of you remote workers cringe a bit.

I do a hybrid model for my employees so they get the best of both worlds.

The concept of working at home is great, I get the hype but then there's also this feeling that work is just always with you.

Having an office forces some separation and obviously gives us space to meet our clients in person.