About · The founder · The thesis

A bookkeeping firm looks nothing like this.

Stacksmith is not a finance department, an outsourced bookkeeper, or an AI dashboard. It's a one-time build, run by the owner. Below is why.

01 · The founder

Matt McMichen.
CPA (inactive), SMB operator, builder.

Built by someone who has lived both sides of the problem — the outsourced provider and the owner-operator.

Matt McMichen, founder of Stacksmith Matt McMichen · Founder

Matt McMichen is a former CPA who has spent his career at the seam between the accounting profession and the small businesses it serves.

He built and scaled Margin CFO, a bookkeeping and fractional CFO firm serving startups and small businesses. Along the way he watched the same pattern repeat: either their DIY setup had become a liability, or they had a bookkeeper who kept the records but didn't give them real insight. Margin CFO was built for exactly that, but for the smallest businesses, the cost was out of reach.

The problem wasn't that those owners were too small to need financial insights. The problem was they didn't have the right system in place and couldn't afford to hire experts to fill that gap. Matt saw it firsthand as a small owner-operator himself — the difference being that he had the expertise to build his own system. After successfully scaling and exiting that business, it struck him: he was all the more successful because he hadn't outsourced his finances. Being close to the numbers made him a better operator.

Stacksmith is the answer to that observation. A one-time build, taught to the owner, owned by the owner. Not DIY. Not a subscription. Not a finance department that compounds in cost as you grow. Just the financial clarity small business owners need, without the dependency that usually comes with it.

CredentialsFormer CPA · Operator · Builder
PreviouslyFounder, Margin CFO
Based inAustin, TX
02 · The path here

Fifteen years between the books and the build.

From Big Four audit floors to running a CFO firm to building Stacksmith — the through-line is small businesses that deserve better systems.

2011 — 2012
Big Four · CPA
Audit and advisory at one of the big firms. Learned the discipline. Learned, too, what good financial hygiene looks like and how out of reach that standard is for most small businesses.
Foundation
2012 — 2022
Controller · Executive Finance Leader
In the trenches at hyper-growth companies. Built systems. Hired teams. Oversaw close. Learned what the best founders actually needed from their numbers to grow a successful business.
In-house
2022 — 2026
Founder · Owner-Operator · Margin CFO
Built and scaled a bookkeeping and fractional CFO firm serving startups and small businesses. Saw what it meant to a founder when they finally understood their numbers, but also the cost-prohibitive nature of high quality outsourcing.
Margin CFO
2026 →
Founder · Stacksmith
A different model: build the system once, teach the owner to run it, then step back. We're only there if you need us.
Now
03 · What we believe

Five beliefs that shape the work.

If you don't share these, we're probably not the right fit. If you do, we already agree about most of what matters.

01
Owners should understand their numbers.
Not in detail. Not in accounting language. But well enough to know what's happening in their own business without asking someone to translate.
02
Automation should reduce busywork, not create blind trust.
The point of automating bookkeeping is not to hide it. Owners should still know what the system is doing, and why, and when to question it.
03
A good system is simple enough to use every month.
If the close takes more than an hour, something is wrong with the system, not with you. Complexity is a tax we'd rather you not pay.
04
Not every business needs a CFO. Every owner needs clarity.
A finance department is a luxury. Knowing where cash is going is a necessity. The two are different problems with different price tags.
05
The best system is one the owner can actually run.
If you need an expert to run it, we built it wrong. We're not building clients. We're building well-informed operators.
04 · What we're not

A few things Stacksmith refuses to be.

Discipline is mostly about what you say no to. Here is our list.

Not this
A subscription bookkeeping service.
We build a system once. If you need someone to do the books every month, we'll happily refer you to a firm that does that well.
Not this
An AI dashboard.
Automation lives in workflows, not in marketing. We use it where it earns its keep, and we'll tell you exactly where that is.
Not this
A CFO advisory firm.
If you need strategic finance, board-deck preparation, or fundraising support, we're the wrong fit. We build systems, not slide decks.
Not this
A tax preparer.
We'll set the books up so tax season is painless, but filing the return is your preparer's job.
05 · The next move

If any of this sounds like you, let's talk.

Thirty minutes on the phone is enough to know whether Stacksmith is right for you. We'll be honest either way.

Book a fit call Back to the homepage
The bottom line We build the system. You run the business.