Liguori Accounting

05/28/2026

After cost of goods and payroll, federal and state income tax is the largest expense in most med spas. It is also the least strategically managed.

That gap is where six-figure overpayments live.

Tax preparation is backward-looking. By the time your return is filed in March, the year is over and the levers have already been pulled (or not pulled). Tax strategy is forward-looking — and when the right strategies get stacked together, the impact compounds quickly.

A few of the levers available to most profitable med spa owners right now:

- S-Corp compensation optimization
- The Augusta Rule
- Cash balance plans for advanced retirement contributions
- Cost segregation on recent buildouts
- Accountable plans
- Hiring family members
- Entity structuring and income timing

No single one of these produces a six-figure reduction on its own. Stacked together, they regularly do.

We laid out all seven, with the mechanics behind each, in a new post: https://www.liguoricpa.com/2026/05/15/7-tax-strategies-that-can-reduce-your-med-spas-taxable-income-by-six-figures/

Taxes are your largest controllable expense. Treat them that way.

Med spas with strong revenue are often overpaying taxes by six figures every year. Here are seven specific strategies med spa owners can use to legally and significantly reduce their tax burden.

05/27/2026

The management fee is the financial engine of your MSO — and it's the part most med spas get wrong.

The most common structure we see is a flat percentage of revenue. It's simple. It's easy to write into a contract. It's also the structure most likely to look like fee-splitting under state medical board rules — and the structure most likely to break the moment revenue climbs, drops, or shifts mid-year.

A better framework: a fixed base fee plus reimbursement of actual costs incurred by the MSO. The base covers core management services. The variable piece moves with what the management company is actually doing. The fee stays grounded in economic reality, the documentation defends itself if it's ever scrutinized, and the structure flexes naturally with the business.

That's just one piece of it. Payroll allocation, accruals during slower months, annual true-ups, and how the fee gets recorded on both sets of books all matter — and all are places we routinely see things go sideways when we audit a new client's structure.

We broke the whole thing down in a new post on how to structure (and keep structuring) your med spa management fee:

The management fee is the most important -- and most misunderstood -- part of an MSO structure. Here is how to size it, structure it, and build in the flexibility your med spa actually needs.

05/26/2026

A note like this from a client never stops feeling good.

"The Liguori team has been working with my company for a year and with my personal finances. They are professional and prompt. I highly recommend this team to any business owner or person looking for accounting, financing advise to including tax preparation, book keeping. Thank you!"

Professional and prompt. That's the standard our team works toward every day — for the business side, the personal side, and everything in between.

If your current CPA leaves you guessing, we'd love to show you what proactive, responsive accounting actually feels like. Start a conversation at liguoricpa.com.

05/21/2026

Hearing how a client felt before they came to us is one of the most useful things we can share.

Maria, the founder of Beautify Med Spa, found Liguori through an AmSpa podcast. Like a lot of med spa owners we talk to, she had been months behind on her bookkeeping — and carrying the quiet weight that comes with that.

A few weeks in, the books were caught up. The picture of her business was clear again. And she had a team handling it month over month so it would stay that way.

We hear some version of Maria's story constantly. Falling behind on bookkeeping is not a character flaw — it is what happens when an owner is running a clinical business, building a team, and trying to grow, all at once. The fix is not working harder on the books yourself. The fix is handing it to people who do this for med spas every day.

Watch Maria's full story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9kUICyhE4o

If you are behind and not sure where to start, that is exactly the conversation we are built for.

Reach out at liguoricpa.com.

Meet Maria, the proud owner and founder of Beautify Med Spa!When Maria needed help with accounting, bookkeeping, and taxes, she stumbled upon Liguori Account...

05/19/2026

Most med spa owners find out what they owe in April.

The ones paying the least started planning in January.

Taxes are typically the largest expense in a med spa after COGS and payroll. And almost no one is managing them with any real strategy.

Here are 7 strategies that, stacked together, can reduce your taxable income by $100K to $200K or more — all completely legal, all available to profitable med spa owners right now:

1. S-Corp Compensation Optimization — balance salary vs. distributions to cut payroll tax
2. The Augusta Rule — rent your home to your business for up to 14 tax-free days per year
3. Advanced Retirement Planning — cash balance plans that unlock $100K–$300K+ in deductions annually
4. Cost Segregation — front-load depreciation on buildouts and equipment instead of waiting 39 years
5. The Accountable Plan — reimburse yourself for real business expenses with zero tax consequences
6. Hire Family Members — shift income to lower brackets by paying spouses and kids for legitimate work
7. Timing + Entity Structuring — control when income is recognized and how entities layer together

The result? We regularly see $200K+ in taxable income reduction for med spa owners who combine even a few of these.

If your current CPA only talks to you in March and April, you are getting compliance — not strategy.

Swipe through for the full breakdown, then reach out at liguoricpa.com if you want to see what is possible for your practice.

👇 Save this for your next conversation with your accountant.

05/14/2026

Your med spa is growing. Your revenue is climbing. And your financial decisions are getting more complex.

But your accounting setup is still what it was when you were a single-room startup.

That gap is where most med spa owners start losing money they didn't know they were losing.

A virtual CFO isn't just bookkeeping. It's having a senior financial strategist in your corner — without the cost of a full-time executive.

Here's what a virtual CFO actually helps med spa owners with:

Cash flow problems that keep coming back no matter how busy you are. Growth can mask a cash flow structure that's about to break. A CFO spots that before it becomes a crisis.

Low gross margins that don't reflect how hard you're working. Sometimes the issue isn't revenue — it's how costs are structured. A CFO benchmarks your numbers against what they should look like at your size and stage.

Entering a new market, adding a location, or exploring a new service line. These decisions deserve financial modeling, not gut instinct.

Raising capital, taking on debt, or bringing in a partner. These are moments where having a financial expert who knows your numbers is not optional.

Getting acquired or planning for an exit. The practices that sell at premium multiples are the ones with clean, strategic financials. That takes time to build.

At Liguori Accounting, we pair each client with a dedicated virtual CFO who understands the med spa space — the MSO structure, the KPIs, the compliance nuances, and what healthy P&L ratios look like in medical aesthetics.

If your current accountant only shows up at tax time, you're not getting what you need.

👉 Learn what virtual CFO support looks like for your practice: liguoricpa.com/virtual-cfo-services

Liguori Accounting is a New Hampshire based business providing an advanced and affordable virtual CFO service to small business owners.

05/12/2026

A lot of med spa owners hear "MSO" and think: bundle of contracts, one-time legal setup, done.

But the structure is only as good as the compliance behind it. And the most important part — the funds flow — is the part that most practices aren't actually following.

I recently joined Justin Marty on the Marty Law Group Office Hours series to talk through exactly how MSOs are supposed to work from a financial and accounting standpoint.

Here are the most important takeaways:

Revenue must flow through the clinic entity. Not the MSO. Not a shared account. The entity providing the medical services is the entity that needs to receive that income. If you're running everything through one bank account tied to the MSO, you have a compliance problem.

Separate sets of books for separate entities. You have two legal entities. You need two sets of records. This isn't just good accounting — it's what creates the actual separation that makes the structure defensible.

The management fee is the mechanism. The goal is for the clinic entity to break even at year end. The management fee is how you move profit into the MSO — where it belongs. The structure of that fee matters: a hybrid of a base fee plus actual costs incurred tends to work better than a flat percentage of revenue.

Most problems start at setup. Once your EMR or payment processing system is routing deposits to the right bank account, most of your compliance exposure disappears automatically. The mess usually comes from never getting the initial setup right.

Watch the full conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZB7vvrHziU&t=2s

If you have an MSO structure in place and aren't sure whether your funds flow is actually compliant, that's exactly what we help med spa owners sort out. Start at liguoricpa.com.

Join Marti Law Group's attorney and founder Justin Marti in a conversation with Nick Liguori, CPA and owner of Liguori Accounting. Nick specializes in the me...

05/07/2026

If you have injectors or aestheticians working in your med spa, this post is for you.

Worker classification — 1099 vs. W-2 — is one of the most common (and costly) compliance mistakes I see in this industry. And the penalties for getting it wrong are not small.

We're talking back employment taxes. Penalties of 20%-40% on F**A contributions. Interest on unpaid amounts. And that's before state-level penalties layer on top.

The IRS doesn't look at what your contract says. They look at the actual working relationship. And if your injector works exclusively at your practice, uses your equipment, follows your protocols, and sees patients you've scheduled for them — they're almost certainly an employee. Full stop.

I broke down exactly how to think through this in a new post on the Liguori blog. We cover:

✅ The IRS three-factor test (behavioral control, financial control, type of relationship)
✅ The one question that almost always determines classification
✅ What the penalties actually look like if you've been doing this wrong
✅ What to do if you're unsure — including the IRS Voluntary Classification Settlement Program

This is one of those issues you want to get right before it becomes a problem. Not after.

Read the full post here: https://www.liguoricpa.com/2026/04/27/1099-vs-w-2-how-to-classify-your-injectors-and-aestheticians-and-why-getting-it-wrong-can-cost-you/

Questions? Our team works exclusively with med spa owners across the US. Reach out at liguoricpa.com.

A common compliance issues I see is worker classification. Should my injector be a W-2 employee or a 1099 independent contractor?

05/06/2026

Most med spas are leaving six figures on the table in unnecessary taxes every single year.

Not because they're doing anything wrong. Because no one ever built them a real tax strategy.

I had the opportunity to speak recently on exactly this: how med spa owners can legally and strategically reduce their taxable income by $100K, $150K, even $200K+ annually.

Here are a few of the biggest takeaways:

Taxes are typically the largest expense after COGS and payroll — and the least strategically managed. That's a problem with a solution.

Seven strategies that actually move the needle:

1. S-Corp Compensation Optimization — balancing salary vs. distributions to reduce unnecessary payroll tax

2. The Augusta Rule — renting your home to your business for up to 14 tax-free days per year

3. Advanced Retirement Planning — cash balance plans that unlock $100K-$300K+ in deductions annually

4. Cost Segregation — accelerating depreciation on buildouts and equipment-heavy spaces

5. The Accountable Plan — reimbursing yourself tax-free for home office, phone, mileage, and more

6. Hiring Family Members — shifting income to lower tax brackets by compensating spouses and children for real work

7. Timing and Entity Structuring — controlling when income is taxed and layering entities strategically

The real insight? It's not about finding one magic deduction. It's about coordination and stacking multiple strategies together.

A med spa owner with $500K in profit who stacks even a few of these approaches can realistically see a $200K+ reduction in taxable income.

If your current CPA only talks to you in March and April, it's time to have a different conversation.

👉 Ready to see what's possible for your practice? Start at liguoricpa.com

Accounting, bookkeeping, & tax firm based in New Hampshire providing outsourced accounting solutions to medical aesthetic practices!

04/27/2026

Nick Liguori is heading to Modern Beauty Con.

On April 29 at 2:00 PM, he'll be presenting "Tax Hacks That Can Reduce Your MedSpa's Taxable Income by Six Figures" during the virtual pre-event session. If you're a med spa owner who only thinks about taxes in April, this one is for you.

The session covers seven advanced strategies, including S-Corp compensation optimization, the Augusta Rule, cash balance retirement plans, and cost segregation. The big takeaway: six-figure tax savings does not come from finding one magic deduction. It comes from coordinating multiple strategies with a proactive plan.

Liguori Accounting will also be on the ground in Boston as a vendor May 1-3. If you're attending the conference, come find us.

Register at

The Elite Medical Aesthetics Conference May 1 – May 3, 2026 Boston Park Plaza, Boston REGISTER NOW Held annually, we gather renowned medical aesthetics experts to share their knowledge with you in an intimate environment. Learn everything you need to grow a safer and more profitable practice. REGI...