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I have +20 years of experience in commercial finance and FP&A, across various…
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain posted thisCEO: We lost money this year. Accountant: We did. CEO: Then why am I looking at a tax bill? Accountant: Because the tax office doesn’t use your P&L to calculate tax. Silence. Here’s where a lot of business owners get caught off guard. The financial statements tell the economic story of your business. The tax return applies the tax rules. Those are not the same thing. You might have expenses that are completely legitimate from an accounting perspective but aren’t deductible for tax. You might record provisions because it’s the right thing to do financially, but the tax authority won’t recognize them until much later. You might depreciate an asset one way in your books and a completely different way on your tax return. So yes, it’s entirely possible to lose money on paper and still owe taxes. That’s not an accounting mistake. That’s how the system is designed. One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is: “We made a loss, so we shouldn’t pay tax.” Not necessarily. Accounting profit and taxable income are two different calculations serving two different purposes. One measures business performance. The other follows tax legislation. The best finance leaders don’t just understand the P&L. They understand why the tax return tells a different story.
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain shared thisThis came up in one of my coaching sessions last month. One spouse treated every dollar like it was their last. The other treated every payday like it was a reason to celebrate. It wasn’t an income problem. It wasn’t a budgeting problem. It was something I see far more often than people realize. One spouse was a saver. The other was a spender. Most people assume this means one person is financially responsible and the other isn’t. That’s usually not true. More often, it’s the result of how each person grew up. Someone who grew up worrying about money often finds peace in saving every extra dollar. Someone who grew up believing money was there to make life enjoyable often finds value in spending on experiences, convenience, or things they love. Neither mindset is inherently wrong. The real problem starts when neither person understands where the other is coming from. The saver begins to feel like they’re carrying the financial future alone. The spender begins to feel criticized every time they use their own money. Eventually, the arguments stop being about money altogether. They become arguments about trust, control, appreciation, and respect. The solution isn’t trying to turn the spender into a saver or the saver into a spender. The solution is creating a system both people agree on. Decide together what your long-term goals are. Automate your savings before you spend anything else. Then give each spouse a monthly amount they can spend however they want without asking permission or feeling guilty. A budget should never feel like a prison. It should create enough structure that both the saver and the spender can win. Because the strongest financial marriages aren’t built by two people who think the same. They’re built by two people who commit to the same plan. P.S. Want to learn more about budgeting write budgeting in the comments below, I’ll share with you link to my course (how to budget).
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain posted thisThe biggest mistakes the middle class make have nothing to do with income. They have everything to do with priorities. They finance things that go down in value. Cars. Phones. Furniture. Vacations. Then they wonder why their investments never seem to grow. They spend their raises before they earn them. A bigger paycheck becomes a bigger mortgage. A nicer car. A more expensive lifestyle. The bank gets richer. They don’t. They confuse monthly payments with affordability. If you have to ask, “Can I afford the payment?” You’re asking the wrong question. The real question is: Can I afford to own this without sacrificing my financial future? They wait to invest. “I’ll start when I make more.” The problem is, lifestyle inflation grows just as fast as income. Tomorrow becomes next year. Next year becomes ten years. They chase status instead of freedom. They want the watch before the portfolio. The luxury car before the paid-off house. The Instagram lifestyle before actual wealth. The middle class spends to impress people they’ll never meet. The wealthy invest so one day they never have to ask permission to take a day off. Wealth isn’t built by earning more. It’s built by keeping more, investing more, and needing less. Most people don’t stay middle class because they don’t make enough. They stay middle class because every extra dollar already has somewhere to go before it even arrives.
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain posted thisThe fastest way to lose a great candidate? Make them interview for three different jobs. A Senior Accountant candidate withdrew after the final interview. Not because of pay. Because every interviewer described a different role. One said it was mostly month-end close. Another said inventory would be the primary focus. A third said they were hiring someone to eventually lead the team. Same position. Three different expectations. That’s not an interview problem. It’s a scope problem. Strong candidates don’t mind complexity. They mind walking into a role that nobody inside the company can define the same way. Before you post the job, make sure every interviewer can answer the same three questions: - Why does this role exist? - What will this person spend most of their time doing? - What does success look like after 12 months? If your panel can’t answer those consistently, the search isn’t ready for market. And your best candidates will figure that out long before you do.
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain posted thisAnother accountant just handed in their resignation. Everyone assumes it was the salary. Most of the time, it wasn’t. It was the 11th spreadsheet they updated that week. The manual reconciliations. The copy and paste work. The late nights fixing reports that should have been generated automatically. Here’s the reality. Nobody studies accounting, spends years earning certifications, and builds a career because they dream of spending their life moving numbers from one spreadsheet to another. They want to solve problems. They want to advise the business. They want to make decisions that actually matter. The firms that keep their best people understand this. They don’t just invest in talent. They invest in removing the work that drains talent. They automate repetitive tasks. They simplify processes. They give accountants time to think instead of time to click. If your best people keep leaving, don’t ask why they’re chasing another paycheck. Ask why staying with you means doing work a computer should have been doing years ago. The firms that win over the next decade won’t be the ones with the biggest hiring budgets. They’ll be the ones that give their people the best work to do.
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain shared thisThe easiest way to stay broke is to spend your paycheck convincing strangers you’re rich. The $70,000 SUV. The designer clothes. The newest iPhone. The watch that costs more than your emergency fund. The vacation you put on a credit card. None of it builds wealth. It builds an image. Some of the wealthiest people you’ll ever meet drive ordinary cars, live in modest homes, and couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of them. Some of the most financially stressed people look successful from the outside. Because appearances are cheap. Payments are expensive. Every dollar you spend trying to impress someone is a dollar that isn’t buying your freedom. Freedom isn’t driving a luxury car. Freedom is waking up without worrying about the next bill. Freedom is owning your time instead of owing another payment. Stop trying to look rich. Start becoming rich. Those are two completely different goals.
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain shared thisMost people have the formula backwards. They buy the Porsche first. Then spend the next 7 years making payments on a car that’s worth less every month. All while their investment account barely exists. Here’s a better picture. A paid-off Honda. A seven-figure investment portfolio. No car payment. No financial stress. No pretending. One of those people looks rich. The other one is rich. The irony? The person driving the Honda can probably afford the Porsche. The person driving the Porsche often can’t. Stop buying symbols of wealth. Start building wealth. Because your bank account doesn’t care what badge is on the front of your car.
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain posted thisOne of the strongest signals that someone is a great hire never appears on their resume. A candidate told me recently he landed a Controller role because the CEO had worked with him years earlier at another company. That didn’t surprise me. The best finance leaders don’t just build teams. They rebuild the same teams. A VP of Finance hires the same Controller. A CFO calls the same Revenue Accountant. A Finance Director brings back the FP&A Manager they trusted through every budget cycle. Why? Because they’ve already seen them under pressure. They’ve watched them navigate month-end closes that went sideways. Handle brutal audits. Work through missed forecasts. Stay calm when everyone else was panicking. Resumes tell you where someone has worked. Repeat hires tell you someone who has already seen their work wants them back. To me, that’s one of the strongest endorsements a finance professional can have. Skills can be tested. Interview answers can be rehearsed. But when someone chooses to build their next team around you, that’s trust you can’t fake.
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain posted thisThe biggest mistake finance professionals make in interviews? They spend the entire interview trying to impress the company. They forget the company is being interviewed too. I’ve walked into finance interviews where I knew within 20 minutes I wouldn’t accept the job. Not because of the salary. Because of the red flags. Here are the ones I pay attention to: They can’t explain what success looks like. Ask what they expect from the person in the first 6 or 12 months. If the answer is full of buzzwords like strategic partner, transformation, or driving change, but nobody can explain the actual deliverables, you’ll spend the next year trying to hit a target that doesn’t exist. Every interviewer tells a different story. One says the priority is forecasting. Another says pricing. Someone else says systems. If leadership isn’t aligned during the interview, don’t expect alignment after you’re hired. They can’t answer basic business questions. Ask about the biggest challenges facing the business. Ask where margins are under pressure. Ask what keeps the CFO awake at night. Senior finance leaders should be interviewing a business as much as the business is interviewing them. The hiring process keeps changing. One more interview. One more presentation. One more stakeholder. Strong companies have a hiring process. Disorganized companies have a hiring adventure. They spend more time talking about the previous Finance Director than the future. If every answer starts with, The last person didn’t… That’s a culture that looks for people to blame instead of problems to solve. Nobody will discuss compensation. If they won’t be transparent before you join, don’t expect transparency after you join. Here’s what I’ve learned after nearly two decades in finance: A company’s interview process is often a preview of what it’s like to work there. Confused interviews usually lead to confused priorities. Slow decisions usually become slow execution. Poor communication during hiring rarely improves after Day One. The interview isn’t just about getting the offer. It’s about deciding whether you should accept it. What’s the biggest red flag you’ve seen in a finance interview?
Bahroz Abbas Hussain replied to a comment
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Rabia Tabassum Great add - thanks
Bahroz Abbas Hussain replied to a comment
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Sri Ram Peruvamba Srinivasan live life you can’t afford is not living it’s borrowing life till you can’t borrow any more
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain liked thisBahroz Abbas Hussain liked thisFrance's recent assisted dying legislation reflects a remarkable ethical shift, grounded in personal autonomy and the relief of suffering. But it also exposes a deeper societal question. Why do we legislate more urgently for assisted death than for assisted living? Before celebrating the right to choose one's exit, we should ask whether we have done enough to support those struggling through their final years. Many elderly people face loneliness, declining health, inadequate care, and a loss of purpose. What are we doing to help them live well? Dignity is not only about how we die. It is also about how we live. If we truly believe in autonomy, we must invest in quality palliative care, home support services, and meaningful social engagement. The real challenge is not simply managing the end of life. It is creating a continuum of care that enables people to spend their final years with comfort, connection, purpose, and dignity. The deeper question is not how we help people die, but how we help them live when they are at their most vulnerable. #Ageing #ElderCare #Healthcare #PalliativeCare #Ethics #HumanDignity
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain liked thisBahroz Abbas Hussain liked thisOne SAT strategy that can instantly improve your score: Don't start solving the problem immediately. Instead, ask yourself: "What is the question actually asking me to find?" It sounds simple, but many students lose points because they begin calculating before fully understanding the problem. Whether it's a math word problem or a reading question, taking just a few seconds to identify the goal can prevent careless mistakes and save valuable time. Sometimes, slowing down at the beginning helps you finish faster. #SAT #StudyTips #Education #CriticalThinking #Learning
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain liked thisBahroz Abbas Hussain liked thisOver 2,300 years ago, Plato described a remarkable idea. In The Republic, he imagined prisoners chained inside a cave from birth. All they could see were shadows dancing on a wall, which they believed was reality. When one prisoner escaped, discovered the outside world, and returned to tell the others, they rejected him. Plato's cave had fixed shadows. Today, for many of us, that cave is social media. The difference is that Plato's prisoners didn't have a "For You" page. Today, algorithms decide which information we are supposed to see. Every click teaches them what to show us next. Before long, they feed us more of what confirms our beliefs and less of what challenges them. We are no longer looking at the same world. We are each looking at our own version of it. Two intelligent, well-meaning people can witness the same event yet come away with completely different "facts" because their feeds have been curated differently. The problem is that algorithms are designed to maximise engagement, not truth. Content that provokes certainty and strong emotion keeps us scrolling until we begin to mistake emotions for facts and certainty for wisdom. Soon, each of us will be living in our own personalised cave. How to Step Outside Spend just five minutes a day exploring a viewpoint that challenges your own. Instead of relying on your social media feed, search for questions such as: "Strongest arguments against abortion" if you are pro-choice, or "Biggest policy failures of a leader you support." The goal is to understand why thoughtful people reach different conclusions. That simple habit broadens your perspective, sharpens your thinking, and reminds you that reality is always larger than your feed. Final Takeaway * Social media algorithms do not blind us by hiding everything. They blind us by showing us more of what makes us increasingly certain that we are right. * Seek out the opposite view, not because you expect to abandon your beliefs, but because every mind has something to learn. * That moment of openness is the first step out of the cave and into the sunlight. #CriticalThinking #SocialMedia #MediaBias #DigitalWellbeing
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Bahroz Abbas Hussain liked thisBahroz Abbas Hussain liked thisThe sale isn't over when the application is submitted. The sale is won on Day 30. The biggest mistake agencies make is treating their clients like completed transactions. If the first time your client hears from you after the sale is during renewal season, you have already lost their loyalty. The Market Marvels 30-Day Check-In Script: Set an automated CRM task for exactly 30 days after the policy takes effect. ✅ The Script: "Hi John, this is [Name]. I’m just calling for our scheduled 30-day check-in. You should have received your new ID cards by now, and I want to confirm you didn't have any issues picking up your prescriptions this month. Is everything running smoothly?" Why this is mandatory: Prevents Buyer’s Remorse: If they did have a hiccup at the pharmacy, you fix it immediately before they call another agent or file a complaint. Cements Authority: You promised you were a consultant, and now you are proving it by following up when there is no commission attached. The Referral Window: Once they say, "Yes, everything is perfect, thank you!" you reply: "Wonderful. I'm taking on five new clients this week—do you have any friends who are still confused by their mailers?" Protect your book. Serve your clients. Ask for the referral. #ClientRetention #SalesScripts #CustomerSuccess #InsuranceAgent #BusinessStrategy #MarketMarvels #FollowUp
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