For the Ask-a-CPA community
Free tools to assess your owner dependencies, find your biggest continuity gaps, and take your next step toward a business that can keep operating when you can’t be the one doing everything.
One form covers everything on this page. Tick what would help, and your first step comes back to you by email. The waitlist is free and commits you to nothing.
The waitlist is a real mailing list, with an unsubscribe link in every send.
Quickstart seats are $599, or $539 at the Ask-a-CPA member rate.
Not a member yet? Join Ask-a-CPAThe question is rarely who does my job. It is more specific than that.
You don’t need everything documented to start. You need to know what matters most.
Documentation isn’t the same thing as continuity. A document nobody can find, understand, or use isn’t much of a backup plan.
Ten statements across the five areas where owner dependency usually bites. This isn’t a grade. It’s a flashlight.
0out of 20
Well covered. You are further along than most owners. What follows is your thinnest area, not a failing grade.
Partly covered. The structure is there in places. One area is noticeably thinner than the rest, and that is where the next hour is best spent.
Thin in most places. Someone stepping in would be guessing about a lot of this. That is common, and it is fixable in a defined order.
Almost everything runs through you. Nearly nothing here could continue without you right now. Start with one area rather than trying to fix all five.
Each area is scored out of 4. Your lowest one is what the next step below addresses.
Knowing the gap is the easy part. Almost every owner who reads a score like this agrees it matters and then does nothing for another year, because nothing on the calendar makes them. That is the whole reason the Quickstart is four dated sessions with other owners in the room, and not a workbook you mean to open.
If the work stops when you stop, the first question is not who does your job. It is who is responsible for what, and whether that person knows it.
Do this next: Name one backup person for the three things only you do today, and tell them.
Don’t worry about yet: Cross-training your backup on everything you do.
Join the Quickstart waitlistA capable stand-in can do good work and still miss the thing that was due Friday. Priorities and commitments have to be visible outside your head.
Do this next: Write the next 30 days of client deadlines in one place someone else can open.
Don’t worry about yet: Building a full client service calendar for the year.
Join the Quickstart waitlistA plan nobody can open is not a plan. Access is usually the first thing to break and the slowest thing to fix under pressure.
Do this next: List your five most critical systems and confirm your backup person can actually get into each one.
Don’t worry about yet: Documenting every system in your business.
Join the Quickstart waitlistMoney keeps moving whether or not you do. Payroll runs, bills come due, and clients still need invoices.
Do this next: Pick the one payment that would hurt most if it was missed, and arrange who can make it without you.
Don’t worry about yet: Handing over full financial control or rewriting your bookkeeping.
Join the Quickstart waitlistSilence is what clients notice first. Someone needs both the words to send and the authority to decide.
Do this next: Draft the two sentences your backup would send clients in week one, and say who is allowed to send them.
Don’t worry about yet: Scripting every possible conversation.
Join the Quickstart waitlistYou don’t need to solve everything at once. You need to know what matters first.
What absolutely cannot wait?
Who needs to know, and who takes responsibility?
What work, clients, money, and deadlines must keep moving?
What has to be true for the business to run without you?
People know where the information lives.
A reasonably capable person can follow it.
The right people can actually get what they need.
It tells people what to do, not just what exists.
You’ve found what breaks before an emergency does.
Jennifer Dymond, CPA is the founder of Spire Consulting Services. She brings 8 years of accounting firm experience and 15 years running her own consulting practice, helping business leaders improve processes, financial visibility, operations, and decision-making.
Her approach combines accounting and business experience with a practical focus on communication, systems, and making complex problems easier to act on.
The goal isn’t to make you anxious about everything that could go wrong. It’s to identify what matters most, create enough structure for someone else to step in, and build confidence that the business keeps moving when life doesn’t go to plan.
Start by finding out where you stand. Identify what matters most. Pick the first thing to fix. Then build from there.
