Honest Buck Accounting

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Honest Buck Accounting provides expert accounting, tax, and advisory services for childcare providers, preschools, and non-profit schools, helping them streamline finances, save on taxes, and grow their businesses. Since 2007, Honest Buck Accounting has been committed to helping mid-size businesses make smart financial decisions through professional bookkeeping services, CFO services, and profit c

oaching. As experts in accounting and tax preparation, Honest Buck transforms messy financials into sustainable bookkeeping systems so business owners can focus on their business.

A pattern we see often in childcare diligence engagements.A multi-location operator thinks their books look fine. They'v...
06/25/2026

A pattern we see often in childcare diligence engagements.
A multi-location operator thinks their books look fine. They've been operating for years. Enrollment is healthy. The accountant has been doing the work.
Then the buyer's diligence team arrives.
Within two weeks, they've produced a list of fifteen items the seller can't easily explain. Why is overhead allocated this way? Why is the 2023 legal fee line spiking? What's the director tenure at site three? Who's the assistant director at site one? Why does the lease at site two only have eighteen months remaining?
Each unanswered question creates downward pressure on the offer. Each missing document slows the timeline. Each surprise becomes leverage in the buyer's hands.
The fix isn't complicated. It's preparation. Specifically, the same documentation work that supports a higher offer also speeds up closing.
The full guide on what childcare buyers actually look at during diligence is live now. It's the third piece in our series on selling a childcare center.
Read it at https://go.honestbuck.com/childcare-buyer-checklist

❓What's actually on a childcare buyer's diligence checklist? After watching the patterns repeat across deals for over a ...
06/23/2026

❓What's actually on a childcare buyer's diligence checklist? After watching the patterns repeat across deals for over a decade, here's the short version.
FINANCIAL
· Per-location P&L for three years (not portfolio rollups)
· Adjusted EBITDA reconciliation, line by line
· Working capital and subsidy timing
ENROLLMENT
· Per-site trends by classroom age group
· Capacity utilization (infant rooms vs. preschool rooms behave very differently)
· Waitlist quality and conversion rates
OPERATIONAL
· Director tenure and leadership depth at each site
· Staff retention metrics and wage scale vs. local market
· Licensing history and compliance record per site
REAL ESTATE
· Remaining lease term per location
· Related-party rent structures
· Upcoming capital needs
REGULATORY
· Subsidy program exposure (CCDF, state pre-K, CACFP)
· Local regulatory environment
This week's piece walks through each item in detail. Multi-location operators thinking about a sale in the next two years should be working on this list now.
Read it: https://go.honestbuck.com/childcare-buyer-checklist

A reflection from the team this week.The cleanup work we do for childcare owners preparing to sell is not glamorous.Ther...
06/20/2026

A reflection from the team this week.
The cleanup work we do for childcare owners preparing to sell is not glamorous.
There's no client meeting where the owner cries with gratitude. No before-and-after photos. No social media moment. It's spreadsheets, reclassifications, and three years of restated financials.
But for a multi-location operator approaching the end of a thirteen-year career as an owner, this work is the difference between $1.2 million and $1.6 million in sale proceeds. It's the difference between an offer they accept and an offer they walk away from.
We've been doing this since 2013. The work is quiet. The result is loud.
If you're thinking about an exit timeline — even five years out — let's talk.

A question for childcare owners thinking about an exit in the next five years.Have you ever asked your accountant what y...
06/19/2026

A question for childcare owners thinking about an exit in the next five years.
Have you ever asked your accountant what your business is actually worth?
A) Yes — they gave me a real number
B) Yes — they couldn't really answer
C) No — I've been afraid to ask
D) No — I don't think they would know how to value it
Drop the letter in the comments.
We're seeing that most operators have never had a serious valuation conversation. Many discover later that proper cleanup work could lift their adjusted EBITDA by tens of thousands of dollars before they ever go to market.
The complete guide on how to clean up your P&L before you sell is live now at https://go.honestbuck.com/sell-childcare-pl

Most multi-location childcare owners think their books look fine.Then a buyer's diligence team arrives and finds a dozen...
06/18/2026

Most multi-location childcare owners think their books look fine.
Then a buyer's diligence team arrives and finds a dozen reasons to discount the offer.
The pattern we see across sale-prep engagements:
· Personal expenses still running through the business
· Owner compensation buried inside operating expenses
· Shared overhead allocated as a single bucket
· One-time items from 2020-2023 sitting in prior-year financials with no explanation
· Inconsistent treatment across the three years buyers actually look at
Each one of these issues is fixable. Together they typically lift adjusted EBITDA by 10 to 20 percent. Each percentage point gets multiplied by whatever EBITDA multiple buyers offer.
We've been doing this cleanup work with childcare operators since 2013. The same handful of items come up in nearly every engagement.
The new piece in our series on selling a childcare center walks through the four cleanup tasks that move the number — and explains when to start the work.
Read it at https://go.honestbuck.com/sell-childcare-pl

📏Here's a math problem worth thinking about.Your multi-location childcare business shows $400,000 of EBITDA on the curre...
06/16/2026

📏Here's a math problem worth thinking about.
Your multi-location childcare business shows $400,000 of EBITDA on the current books.
A standard sale-prep cleanup typically lifts adjusted EBITDA by 15 percent. That's $60,000 of additional adjusted EBITDA.
Childcare buyers pay multiples in the range of three to six times. At a four-times multiple, that 15 percent cleanup translates to $240,000 of additional sale price. At a five-times multiple, it's $300,000.
The cleanup work itself usually costs $15,000 to $40,000.
The math isn't close.
The four cleanup tasks that move the number:
· Reclassify owner compensation below operating profit
· Rebuild per-location overhead allocation
· Annotate every one-time item with a defensible narrative
· Restate prior-year financials with consistent treatment
This week we published our complete guide on what each task involves, when to start the work, and what the first conversation with a sale-prep advisor looks like.
Read it: https://go.honestbuck.com/sell-childcare-pl

Thirteen years working exclusively with small businesses, primarily child care centers.In that time, we've watched the s...
06/12/2026

Thirteen years working exclusively with small businesses, primarily child care centers.
In that time, we've watched the sector go through a lot of seasons. COVID came and went and left scars. Subsidies expanded, then contracted, then expanded again. Multi-location operators became the norm rather than the exception. The Child Care Aware data published last month confirmed something we'd been seeing across our client base for two years — for the first time in years, the supply of US childcare centers actually declined.
What hasn't changed: childcare is economic infrastructure. Every parent who can work because of you. Every business that runs because parents can work. Every child whose first classroom is yours.
We're not pivoting to serve SaaS startups next year. Childcare is our world. It's the world we serve.
Thank you for being in it with us.

❓A question for multi-location childcare owners.When you imagine selling one of your locations — even hypothetically, fi...
06/11/2026

❓A question for multi-location childcare owners.
When you imagine selling one of your locations — even hypothetically, five years from now — what's the FIRST thing that comes to mind?
A) The buyer pool (who would even want it?)
B) The price (what's it worth?)
C) The financials (would they survive due diligence?)
D) The staff (what happens to them?)
E) The story (how do you frame it without it looking like a fire sale?)
Drop the letter in the comments. No explanation needed.
We're collecting reactions across the multi-location operator base this month. The most common answer tells us where the planning conversation actually starts.
For context: our new five-part series on selling a childcare center launched this week. The first piece walks through the carve-out decision most operators don't realize they can make. Honestbuck.com.

We're publishing five pieces over the next five weeks on how to sell a childcare center.Here's why.Across the multi-loca...
06/11/2026

We're publishing five pieces over the next five weeks on how to sell a childcare center.
Here's why.
Across the multi-location operators we work with, sale, exit, and expansion are the dominant conversations right now. Some are unwinding. Some are reorganizing. Most are quietly preparing in the background.
And almost all of them are making the same mistake: assuming the portfolio sells as one package.
It doesn't have to.
The first piece is live this week. How to Sell One Location Without Selling Your Whole Portfolio walks through the carve-out decision: when it works, when it doesn't, and the financial preparation that has to happen first.
The next four weeks:
Week 2 — How to Clean Up Your P&L Before You Sell
Week 3 — What Childcare Buyers Actually Look At
Week 4 — 7 Things That Can Derail Your Sale (and How to Fix Them First)
Week 5 — The complete guide tying the series together
If you're five years out from selling — or five months — this series is for you.
Honest Buck Accounting has worked exclusively with childcare centers since 2013. Sale prep is one of the most underserved planning conversations in our sector. We're trying to fix that.
Read this week's piece at https://go.honestbuck.com/3SbQrBG

💼Most multi-location childcare owners assume their portfolio sells as one package.It doesn't have to.When one site is dr...
06/09/2026

💼Most multi-location childcare owners assume their portfolio sells as one package.
It doesn't have to.
When one site is dragging down the others — say, projecting losses for two years while the rest are profitable — there's a smarter move than the all-or-nothing sale most operators default to.
It's called a carve-out.
Three signs you're a carve-out candidate:
· One location is projecting sustained losses while the others are healthy
· Your strong sites are approaching capacity but the weak site is consuming bandwidth and cash
· The natural buyers for your locations are different people (a small home daycare attracts one buyer profile; a 200-child center attracts another)
When all three are true, selling the weak site separately and keeping the strong ones almost always produces higher total proceeds than selling the portfolio whole.
Most owners never realize this is an option.
The full breakdown — including what buyers actually look at per location and the financial cleanup that has to happen first — is the first piece in our new five-part series on selling a childcare center.
Read it: https://go.honestbuck.com/3SbQrBG

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