Ask the Expert: Julia Nikishina - Webinar Q&A. Solving Your Toughest Studio Designer Questions
In this session, Julia from New Age Financial Consulting walks through what interior designers and showrooms need to focus on during tax season, using Studio Designer as the foundation.
She explains that tax prep isn’t just about meeting deadlines—it’s about making sure your financials are clean and accurate before filing. That starts with reviewing your income statement and balance sheet and ensuring everything ties together properly.
A big focus is on reconciliation, where she highlights the importance of matching your bank and credit card accounts to the system. If numbers don’t align, it signals errors that need to be fixed before moving forward.
Julia also calls out common problem areas like accounts receivable, outdated inventory, and vendor deposits, emphasizing that these balances must reflect reality. Old unpaid invoices, unsellable inventory, or incorrect deposits can distort your financials and even lead to overpaying taxes.
She introduces suspense accounts as temporary placeholders that should always be cleared out before finalizing reports, and stresses the importance of properly tracking client payments through Studio Designer’s system.
Her overall message is simple: clean books lead to accurate reports, and accurate reports make tax season smoother.
When everything is reconciled, reviewed, and properly recorded, you can file with confidence and actually trust your numbers.
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Julia from New Age Financial Consulting shifts the focus from operations to something a little more behind-the-scenes—but just as critical: getting your financials clean and accurate for tax season.
She walks through what designers and showroom owners should actually be doing as the year closes out, using Studio Designer as the working example. And the tone is very real—this isn’t just about filing taxes, it’s about making sure your numbers actually reflect what’s happening in your business before you hand anything over to your accountant.
What she keeps emphasizing throughout is this: tax season isn’t where the work starts—it’s where all your previous work gets tested.
Why Clean Financials Matter Before Filing
Julia starts by grounding everything in the basics—deadlines. March 15 for partnerships and S-corps, April 15 for others, and yes, extensions exist—but they don’t delay your tax payments.
From there, she immediately shifts the focus away from deadlines and onto reports. Because in her view, the real priority isn’t just submitting on time—it’s making sure what you’re submitting is actually correct.
She points to two reports as non-negotiables: your income statement and your balance sheet. If those two don’t make sense, nothing else will.
And because Studio Designer runs on an accrual basis, she reminds everyone of something easy to overlook: revenue doesn’t exist until it’s invoiced. You can have done the work, ordered the product, even received payment—but if it’s not invoiced, it’s not showing up properly in your financials.
Understanding What Your Income Statement Is Really Telling You
When Julia walks through the income statement, she does it like she’s reading a story, not just numbers.
She breaks down revenue into product sales, time billing, and miscellaneous income—things like commissions or reimbursements. Then she looks at cost of sales and margins, calling out when things look “healthy.”
But the key point she makes here is simple: none of this matters if your accounts aren’t reconciled.
You can have a beautiful-looking profit number, but if your accounts don’t tie out, it’s not reliable. And that’s where she pivots into what she clearly sees as one of the most important steps in the entire process—reconciliation.
Reconciliation: Where Most Problems Actually Show Up
Julia spends a good amount of time here, and you can tell this is where a lot of real-world issues happen.
She explains reconciliation in a very practical way: you’re matching what’s in Studio Designer to what’s actually in your bank and credit card statements. Month by month, line by line.
If something doesn’t match, it’s not something to gloss over—it means something went wrong at some point. Maybe last month, maybe six months ago.
And while she acknowledges that tiny discrepancies—like a dollar or two—might not be worth chasing depending on volume, anything meaningful needs to be investigated properly.
One thing she points out that’s easy to miss: Studio doesn’t “lock” prior periods. So if someone makes a change today, it can affect last month’s reconciliations. That’s why internal controls and permissions really matter.
Even credit cards get their own nuance here. Since they sit as liabilities, their balances behave differently, and even something like a positive balance can signal an overpayment or refund—not income.
Reading the Balance Sheet Like a Reality Check
If the income statement tells the story, the balance sheet is where you verify if that story is actually true.
Julia walks through this almost like a checklist. First, does your net income match between reports? If not, something’s off.
Then she starts spotting common issues—like accounts that should be closed but still have balances sitting there. Or things like undeposited funds and incorrectly set-up accounts that just don’t make sense.
Her approach here is very hands-on: fix it. Use journal entries, make sure debits equal credits, document what you’re doing, and leave a clear trail.
Because at the end of the day, someone—whether it’s your accountant or your future self—needs to understand why that adjustment was made.
The Hidden Trouble Spots: AR, Inventory, and Vendor Deposits
As she moves deeper, Julia starts highlighting the areas where problems tend to hide.
Accounts receivable is a big one. She stresses that it’s not enough for AR to exist—it needs to be real. If you have invoices sitting there from years ago that will never be collected, they’re overstating your income and potentially increasing your tax liability.
She even walks through an example where the AR report doesn’t match the balance sheet, showing exactly how discrepancies like that need to be investigated over time, not just patched.
Inventory is another major focus. She strongly recommends doing a physical count at least once a year, ideally at year-end.
Because your system might say you have $100,000 in inventory—but is it actually there? Is it sellable? Damaged? Outdated?
Adjusting inventory down isn’t just about accuracy—it can actually reduce taxable income, which makes it both an operational and financial priority.
Vendor deposits come with their own complexity. Money paid out for items not yet invoiced needs to be tracked carefully, and if something looks off—like large deposits for items already completed—it’s a red flag that something wasn’t recorded properly.
Suspense Accounts: Temporary, Not Permanent
At one point, Julia touches on suspense accounts, and her stance is very clear—they are not meant to hold balances long-term.
They’re a temporary solution for unclear transactions. A place to park something while you figure it out.
But by the time you’re closing your books for tax filing, that balance should be zero.
If it’s not, it means there are still unanswered questions in your financials—and that’s not something you want lingering when taxes are being filed.
Managing Liabilities and Client Funds Carefully
As she wraps through the balance sheet, Julia highlights other key liabilities—sales tax, client deposits, accounts payable.
Client deposits, in particular, can get large quickly, and they need to be reviewed carefully to make sure they’re still valid and tied to real projects.
She also walks through how Studio Designer handles incoming payments, explaining the difference between applying payments directly to invoices versus holding them as “funds available.”
It’s a flexible system, but that flexibility comes with responsibility. If you’re not tracking it properly, it’s easy to lose clarity on what’s been paid, what’s been applied, and what’s still outstanding.
Closing Thoughts: Getting It Right Before It Matters
By the end of the session, Julia brings it back to the bigger picture.
Tax filing isn’t just about submitting forms—it’s about confidence in your numbers.
That means:
Your accounts are reconciled
Your reports tie out
Your receivables are real
Your inventory is accurate
Your temporary accounts are clearedBecause once those pieces are in place, working with your accountant becomes much smoother. You’re not scrambling to fix issues—you’re simply handing over clean, reliable data.
And that’s really the goal she keeps coming back to: not just getting through tax season, but doing it in a way where you actually trust the numbers behind your business.
