LowTide Limited

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Lansing, MI
LowTide Limited

Helping business owners clean up their books, stay organized, and build smarter systems. Clear numbers, no fluff, and structure that actually lasts.

QuickBooks Certified. Michigan-based. LowTide Limited.

08/18/2025

Understanding Profitability: Is Your Business Actually Making Money?

Profitability tells you if your business is truly earning money after all expenses—not just bringing in sales.

Here are 3 key profitability ratios every business owner should know:

1. Net Profit Margin
Formula: Net Profit ÷ Revenue
This tells you how much actual profit you keep from every dollar earned.
Higher is better.

2. Gross Profit Margin
Formula: (Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold) ÷ Revenue
Shows how efficiently you produce or deliver your product/service.
A healthy margin keeps your business sustainable.

3. Return on Assets (ROA)
Formula: Net Income ÷ Total Assets
Measures how efficiently your assets are generating profit.
It’s about making your money work smarter.

Need help with your profitability ratios? LowTide Limited is happy to help.

08/15/2025

Do You Know If Your Business Is Solvent?

Solvency = your business’s ability to survive long-term and meet its financial obligations.

Here are 3 key financial ratios that help you measure it:

1. Debt-to-Equity Ratio
Shows how much debt you're using vs. your own capital.
➡️ Lower = more stable

2. Interest Coverage Ratio
Can your profits cover your loan interest?
➡️ Higher = more breathing room

3. Equity Ratio
What portion of your assets are truly yours?
➡️ Higher = less financial risk

Understanding these ratios helps prevent financial surprises and keeps your business strong.

Not sure where your numbers stand? LowTide Limited can help you break it down clearly and confidently.

08/13/2025

Meet Mike.

Mike watched 2 YouTube videos and decided he could “DIY his books and taxes last year.
He deducted his cat.
He called it a win.

Mike’s Accountant was less than thrilled.
Don’t end up like Mike.

LowTide Limited: We love numbers. And we know what to do with them.

08/11/2025

Just because money hits your bank account doesn’t always mean its income.
There are two types of revenue when doing jobs that can come in with accrual accounting:

Revenue = You earned it. You completed the job or delivered the product. It gets counted as income and shows up on your P&L
Unearned Revenue = You got paid before the work is done. Think: a deposit for a future job. It’s a liability, not income... yet.

Why it matters:
Booking unearned revenue as regular income could mean paying taxes on money you haven’t earned yet and that can add up fast depending on the nature of your field.

Clean books = accurate taxes = less headaches.

08/08/2025

Meet Linda.

Linda doesn’t trust accounting software.

She built her own spreadsheet. It’s 27 tabs long and takes 12 minutes to open.
She uses formulas she doesn’t understand.

Excel, on startup:
“Would you like to recover 47 versions of 'Final_FINAL_v6_REVISED.xlsx’?”

Problem is:
None of her totals match.

Don’t end up like Linda.

LowTide Limited turns your spreadsheet spaghetti into one clean financial data source.

08/06/2025

What Is Depreciation (and Why It Matters for Your Taxes)?

Every time your equipment, tools, or vehicles lose value over time… that’s depreciation.

But here’s the upside: the IRS lets you deduct that decrease in value from your taxable income—which means less tax owed

So if you bought a $10,000 machine, you might not deduct it all at once, but you can spread out the deduction over its useful life. This helps match the cost with the income it helps generate. That's called depreciation.

Do you have equipment or assets that should be depreciated?

Knowing how and when to apply depreciation depends on your accounting method and business structure. It can make a big difference at tax time.

Let LowTide Limited help to make sure you're not missing out on deductions you’re entitled to.

08/04/2025

Meet Janet.

Janet runs an online boutique and checks her bank balance to “see if she can afford something.”

If the number looks big, she buys inventory.
If the number looks small, she panics and skips payroll.

Her books haven’t been reconciled since the Obama administration.

Surprise:
She spent “extra money” on inventory, but that money was from a customer refund that never cleared.

Don’t end up like Janet.

LowTide Limited leads you to real numbers, not hallucinations.

08/01/2025

Did You Know?

If you pay an insurance policy in full — say $1,200 for a 12-month policy — that expense might not hit your books all at once.

On accrual-basis accounting, it’s often more accurate to treat it as a prepaid expense and spread it out over the coverage period. In this case, $100/month for 12 months.

On cash-basis accounting, the whole $1,200 might be recorded when the payment is made.

Do you know which method your books are using?

The answer can have a big impact on how your finances look — and even how much you owe at tax time.

At LowTide Limited, we help you get these details right so you aren’t over- or under-reporting expenses. Let’s clean up your books and keep your numbers sharp.

07/30/2025

Meet Steve.

Steve owns a landscaping company. He started a “petty cash” fund for small expenses.

By June, it had mysteriously evolved into a daily taco budget.
Steve has zero receipts and thinks Venmo screenshots count as documentation.

IRS Auditor, squinting:
“So… what exactly was ‘🌮🔥TacoWarriorChallenge.jpg’ for again?”

Steve finds out he wrote off tacos 3 years ago and found out it was disallowed, especially with the lack of proof. Now the penalties and interest make him pay 10 times more than the tacos costed him in the first place.

Don’t end up like Steve.
LowTide Limited helps to track petty expenses so tacos don’t ruin your taxes.

07/28/2025

Can Your Business Handle a Rainy Day? Let’s Talk Liquidity.

Liquidity measures how easily your business can meet short-term obligations. In simple terms: if bills hit tomorrow, could you pay them?
Here are the Top 3 Liquidity Ratios every business owner should understand:

1. Current Ratio
Formula: Current Assets ÷ Current Liabilities
A ratio above 1 means you have more assets than liabilities due soon—a good sign of short-term stability.

2. Quick Ratio (Acid-Test Ratio)
Formula: (Cash + Accounts Receivable + Marketable Securities) ÷ Current Liabilities
Strips out inventory to test if your business can survive a crunch—fast.

3. Cash Ratio
Formula: Cash and Cash Equivalents ÷ Current Liabilities
The most conservative measure. Do you have enough cash on hand to pay every bill due today?

Do you know your numbers?

Liquidity issues sneak up fast so don’t wait for a cash crisis to find out. Let LowTide Limited help you get clear and confident with your financials.

07/26/2025

Meet Bob.
Bob runs a successful business… sort of.

Every year, Bob tosses receipts into a box labeled “Taxes: Do Not Open Until April.”

He hasn’t reconciled a bank statement since 2018.
But Bob’s got a secret weapon: his CPA of 12 years.
Or so he thinks…

CPA at 9 AM:
“Bob! Always great to see you, let’s dig in.”

CPA at 6 PM (to his wife):
“If Bob drops off one more box of unlabeled gas station receipts, I swear I’m becoming a florist.”

Bob thinks his CPA loves him.
His CPA thinks about faking his own death every March.
Don’t end up like Bob.

LowTide Limited helps small businesses stay organized before tax season.
Because your CPA deserves better—and so do you.

Let’s clean up your books before they become a punchline.

07/20/2025

When Growth Becomes Dangerous.

Many people talk about growth like it’s the only goal.
But here’s the truth:

Growth without structure is a time bomb.

• A business doubles revenue, but the books are a disaster
• New hires are added, but payroll is guesswork
• More clients come in, but no one’s tracking profitability
• Taxes get missed, receipts disappear, stress takes over

Growth doesn’t fix broken bookkeeping systems.

It exposes them.

LowTide Limited helps business owners install clean financial systems before the cracks turn into collapse because scaling without structure doesn’t lead to success, it leads to burnout, breakdown, or worse. Cleaning up now is better than watching things break later.

Address

120 N Washington Square
Lansing, MI
48933

Telephone

+15172580219

Website

http://www.lowtidelimited.com/

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