Alisa McCabe
Visionary/CEO/Founder
Alisa’s passion is assisting small business owners in achieving success. As the proud owner of First Steps Financial for over a decade, she has effectively collaborated with business owners, providing expertise in tracking cash flow, streamlining processes, and organizing financials. Alisa firmly believes that every business owner can achieve success with the appropriate tools.
Experience/Education
- 15+ years accounting experience
- Bachelor’s Degree, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Certifications
- Intuit Certified QuickBooks Level 2 ProAdvisor
Areas of Focus
- Small business cash flow management
- Financial organization and reporting
- Process development and optimization
- QuickBooks Online training and support
Awards
- 2023 NJBIZ Empowering Women Award
- 2024 Princeton Mercer Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year
Our Latest Insight
Choosing new software can overwhelm any accountant. The options feel endless, and each one costs real time and money to test. Building the right accounting tech stack takes years of trial and error. We know, because we have spent over a decade doing exactly that. Our firm has been fully remote since 2012. That means we have tested, rejected, and adopted these tools inside real client work. Here is the stack we trust, so you can skip the guessing. You will notice we left AI off this list. We use it where it helps, but that is a topic for another day.
For consulting firms, project profitability represents the critical margin between engagement revenue and the actual cost of delivery. This gap is fundamental; firms can be entirely booked yet face cash flow constraints if profitability isn't managed at the project level. Project-level tracking is more than a financial formality; it is a strategic tool that enables leadership to optimize pricing, staffing, and capacity. To assist in this process, this guide introduces a practical framework: the Project Profitability Scorecard.
In the construction industry, managing cash flow presents significant hurdles, and the nuances of work deposits often lead to underestimated complications. Mastering construction accounting entails a precise grasp of how these upfront funds navigate your ledger, the timing for revenue recognition, and the strategies to prevent financial pitfalls that could jeopardize your business. For any contracting firm, proper deposit accounting is a necessity rather than an option. The accuracy of your financial statements, job costing, and overall cash liquidity depends entirely on it.
