Turning a $12K tax shock
into a $2M future.
The Southern Tree Solutions story
The company at a glance: Southern Tree Solutions
Perry & Tessey Glanton are the owners of Southern Tree Solutions, LLC in Georgia.
We’ve worked with them for a decade now. Over that time, we’ve watched their business fundamentally change.
It’s gone from an unpredictable, stressful side hustle into a million-dollar business, projected to reach $2million next year. The business now has stable profit margins and a team that Perry and Tessey can trust to leave in charge every time they go on vacation (and it’s been good to see them go now more regularly than ever!).
Did all this happen through accounting?
For a short time, at the beginning of our relationship, we prepared Southern Tree Solutions tax returns – but they hadn’t hired us to do anything else yet.
A little more detail, in case you’re curious:
Back when it was small, we actually filed tax returns for two businesses owned by Perry – a lawncare company called Perry Glanton, LLC, as well as a new tree service, which he’d founded with a business partner. This new company would become Southern Tree Solutions – and through our support, it became an unexpectedly profitable venture, but not before a shock came.
They needed the Arcus Method™ to change everything for good
The exact moment all came to a head
We prepared the 2017 tax return and Perry and Tessey owed over $12,000. At the time, their revenue was only around $43,000, so this tax bill was more than an inconvenience. It threatened their company’s stability. We called Perry to deliver the news while he was out cutting trees.
Perry was soon cussing – furious and overwhelmed by the surprise
“I’m working my tail off”, he said, “and now I owe all this tax. I don’t even have the money.” Why wasn’t his hard work translating into a stable business?
We called again later to calm things – and we had a very honest conversation
“Look,” we said, “you’re going to keep getting blindsided by tax – sadly it’ll be surprise after surprise, year after year – unless we can bring clarity to your monthly financials.” Perry agreed something needed to change.
This small conversation set the stage for everything that came next.
In case you need a little more convincing, see what Tessey Glanton shared in a Google review:
"Curtis, and the Arcus team, have been a game-changer for our business! They’ve done an outstanding job helping us get organized, and providing clear, actionable advice for our future.
Their expertise and attention to detail have given us the confidence to move forward with solid financial planning and business strategies. Highly recommend their services!"
ALIGN - Get clear
Clarity creates safety. Before we try to fix anything, we slow things down and get clear about what’s really going on. That means we get to the truth of the business owner’s goals, financial reality, and the systems that might be holding them back.
For Southern Tree, this phase was confronting – but necessary.
Like we’ve said, there was no bookkeeping system, no reporting, and no shared understanding of how the business was actually performing. The only source of insight was the bank balance.
So our first move was non-negotiable: we required QuickBooks Online and monthly bookkeeping instead of year-end reconstruction. Perry and Tessey weren’t thrilled about paying for software, but they trusted our lead.
The noticeable shift came when Perry and Tessey saw clean financial reports for the first time.
We still remember pulling those numbers up on the TV in our office. You could feel the change in the room. Like their eyes were open for the first time – they went from feeling anxious about uncertainty to feeling grounded in clarity.
They weren’t guessing anymore.
The actions we took, in summary:
- Set up of QuickBooks Online, connecting bank feeds
- Financial clean-up and categorization
- Creating and reviewing the first clean financial reports together
- Began completing tax returns earlier (February) to create tax awareness
Perry and Tessey were excellent business people in many respects.
They were working so hard – Perry made ends meet by working as a full-time firefighter. He’d work long days for the service, and then he’d be cutting trees on his off days.
This left little time for bookkeeping or financial problem-solving. Hiring accountants to prepare their tax return saved them some time but it didn’t solve the problem.
His business was meant to be a route out of firefighting, but instead it had become a different kind of firefighting – and trying to put out the flames was exhausting.
They were trapped in a restless way of life – unless something changed.
The business relied on an unreliable partner and a loose collection of helpers. Everything felt urgent, but nothing felt secure.
Perry was giving up a lot to make the business work, but he didn’t fundamentally know if it was working. What was meant to be a source of freedom and income became a source of stress instead. Perry and Tessey were forced to be constantly reactive. They didn’t know what was ahead, so they had to deal with financial surprises when they happened. They also couldn’t make future plans with any degree of certainty.
The diagnosis: Hard work wasn’t paying off
The state of Perry and Tessey’s financial setup needed attention.
Bookkeeping was nonexistent
At year-end, they’d hand over bank statements and we’d reconstruct the numbers just to file a tax return.