Accounting is not tax!

Why doing your accounting is like giving your business a regular massage

by Anna Mitchell

If you’re like most massage therapists, when you hear the word “accounting”, your mind probably flashes to that dreaded annual income tax return.

Yes, those fugly forms designed by a tax bureaucrat who’s surely a closeted sadist, daydreaming about single-handedly destroying humanity with indecipherable paperwork. (What the hell is ‘low-value pool deductions’ anyway? My kiddos’ splash pool? My inground pool that’s nowhere near as expensive as the neighbour’s infinity pool?).

There’s the stress of getting it lodged in time, probably because you avoided doing your accounting all year long and, Holy Spiky Massage Balls, Batman! It’s July already! And the looming dread of that “love letter” from the tax man that’s going to decimate your bank accounts if you haven’t been setting aside money each month to cover your tax bill.

If this is where your mind goes, I’ve got a surprise for you:

Accounting is not tax

Accounting is not tax

Tax is just a form you fill out to let the grubbyment know how much of your hard-earned money it can get its grubby mitts on this year.

Yes, you have to do some accounting in order to be able to fill out that tax return. But they are not the same thing. Not even close.

Think of tax returns as the invoice you issue a client at the end of a treatment. It must be done but, beyond perhaps helping the client get a bit of coin back from their health fund if you don’t have a HICAPS machine, is it of any real use? If you’re audited by the ATO – sure – but of use to you in running your business?

Accounting, on the other hand, is more like your business’s financial equivalent of a personal massage therapist.

It’s the regular, loving attention that loosens the knots, eases the tension, and keeps everything running smoothly, so your business stays flexible, healthy, and strong.

You’re doing for yourself (the business owner) what you lovingly do for your clients. Even those clients you don’t particularly like …

Why doing your accounting is a game changer

When you do your accounting yourself, you stop flying blind in business. You get to:

• Feel the pulse of your business in real time. You’ll know exactly how much money is coming in, where it’s going, and how much is left over for you. No nasty surprises.
• Make smarter decisions. Want to hire an assistant, invest in new equipment, get extra training, or take a well-earned break? Your numbers tell you when you can afford it.
• Avoid nasty cash flow jams. No more wondering if you have enough to cover rent or bills this month. Your accounting acts like a gentle stretch that prevents business cramps before they happen.
• Spot trouble early. Is your spending creeping up without you noticing? Supplies, training, subscriptions, it all adds up. Your accounting shows you the financial niggles before they turn into business injuries, like catching tight traps before they restrict your whole neck.
• Save time and stress at tax time. When your books are in order, tax returns become a breeze not a panic attack. It’s the difference between having clean towels, a warm bed, and all your cupping cups/hot stones and other gear lined up and ready to go at the start of the day, and realising as your client arrives that you forgot to restock a bunch of stuff, and scrambling through cupboards to get it all while they’re undressing.

DIY or outsource?

Should you DIY this stuff or leave it to the professionals? There are pros and cons to each path. I recommend a middle-of-the-road approach to maximise the pros and minimise the cons, where you do the day-to-day basic bookkeeping after some good quality training and practise, then use the professionals for oversight and for their more advanced Mad Skillz^TM.

Accountants, and even some bookkeepers, can do heaps more for you and your business beyond doing your bookkeeping and filling out those tax forms. Who knew?

Here’s what they can do for your business once the bookkeeping and tax returns are done:

• Tax

Strategically structuring your income, expenses, and timing so you don’t hand over more to the ATO than necessary.

• Virtual CFO (Chief Financial Officer)

This is like having a finance boss in your back pocket without hiring a full-time employee.

• They:
  • monitor your business performance regularly
  • help you set financial goals and stick to them
  • run reports and interpret your numbers for decision making
  • spot trends before they become problems (e.g. declining client retention or over-reliance on one income stream).

• Structuring advice

An accountant can advise on whether you should stay a sole trader or move to a company or trust setup, weighing up risk, liability, admin cost, and tax implications so you don’t get stung down the line.

It’s a smart idea to talk to an accountant about what legal structure you should start your business with, as it can sometimes be difficult to switch from sole trader to another structure.

• Benchmarking

They can compare your numbers against industry averages. This is great if you’re wondering things like “Am I charging enough?” or “Why is my rent eating so much of my income?”.

• Succession or exit planning

If you ever want to sell your business, semi-retire or just stop one day, accountants can help you plan how to do that in a way that’s financially sound.

Of course, accountants can also do your day-to-day bookkeeping but, if you’re not registered for GST and have an uncomplicated sole trader massage business, that’s like going to town on a client with a Theragun when a hot pack and a night off would have easily sorted them out.

So don’t waste your accountant’s time and your money on basic bookkeeping you can do yourself. Get some good training so you can do it right and not create a mess for whoever you outsource it to in future! Then you can use your accountant for oversight and for their superpowers that help make your business next-level.

But But But

If the little voice in your head just went, “I want to, but …”

“I don’t have time to do my accounting.”

I get it. Running a massage therapy business is already a full-body workout. The laundry alone is practically a part-time job.

But here’s the thing: not doing your accounting is costing you more time than you think. Lost receipts, mystery transactions, tax panic, and wondering where all your money went is like ignoring that pile of laundry until it’s a towel monster that eats your living room.

Doing your books regularly is also like doing 20 minutes of stretching after a long day. It feels like a chore when you’re tired and just want wine and Netflix. And it doesn’t feel that big a deal to skip it this time, this week, this month. Until you wake up one day and it’s a year (or nine) later and the towel monster has you in a jiu jitsu death grip.

“Accounting is too complicated. I don’t understand it.”

If your brain tends more right than left, accounting can feel like trying to massage your own back from the foetal position. But if you have a simple sole trader business and aren’t registered for GST, it’s actually not that complicated.

It’s just that nobody ever bothered to explain it to you. Not your parents. Not your massage school. Not your accountant. Or they didn’t explain it in a way you could understand: those accountants do be talking to clients as if the clients are accounting graduates.

I’m happy to say I’m not one of those accountants. When I was in Planet Office sorting out the accounting messes of large corporations, one of my co-workers from outside the Finance Department once said to me, “You’re the only one from finance we want to talk to because you’re the only one we can understand!”

And I’d be more than happy to explain this stuff to you in plain English.

“Accounting is boring. I’d rather work on my clients than my books.”

Well, of course you would! You’re not crazy. Who amongst us wouldn’t rather be doing literally anything than our accounting?

Even I can name at least 50 things I’d rather be doing than my accounting – and I’m an accountant. In fact, I once spent nine years doing the 50 other things instead of my accounting. Guess where that got me? Nine years behind on lodging my tax returns and a “please explain” letter from the ATO when they finally noticed. It was a three-month, almost full-time job to sort that mess out … and that was with guidance from a registered tax agent. Not doing that again.

Here’s the thing: did you know that most small businesses fail? And the reason they fail, according to Michael E. Gerber in his legendary business book, The E-Myth Revisited, is because most small business owners are technicians who are great at their craft but not trained in running a business. The “E-Myth” (Entrepreneurial Myth) is the false belief that being good at the technical work means you’ll be good at building a business around it.

There are five aspects of business – collectively called working on your business (while the technician part is called working in your business) – that you need to do in addition to your craft, to have a successful business:

1. Leadership / vision (entrepreneur role)
   Setting the direction of the business: where it’s going, why it exists, and what kind of business you actually want to build. It’s the big-picture thinking most therapists are too busy to do.
2. Management (manager role)
   Creating systems, processes, and routines to make the business run smoothly, so it’s not chaos every time you get busy, hire someone, or take a day off.
3. Marketing
   Understanding who your ideal client is, how to attract them, and how to keep them coming back. This includes branding, messaging, and communication, not just ads and promos.
4. Sales
   Turning interest into bookings. This is about how you talk about your services, build trust, and guide clients to say yes (without feeling icky about it). And finally, yep, you guessed it …
5. Finance / money management Knowing your numbers so you can make decisions that aren’t just based on vibes. This includes pricing, profit, budgeting, and yes, accounting.

Neglecting your accounting is like ignoring a persistent knot in your shoulder — it might not hurt right away but it will cause bigger problems down the track. Which just might see you become one of those small business failure statistics. And I don’t love that for you.

“I don’t want to make mistakes and get in trouble.”

That’s totally understandable when you don’t know how to do something. That’s why I recommend getting some training so you know the basics, then having a bit of professional oversight – a quick check every quarter if you’re lodging a BAS return, once or twice a year if not — and leaving the more complicated stuff to an accountant.

And if you’ve tried to learn bookkeeping from YouTube, blog posts and bookkeeping courses that are designed for people who want to become a professional bookkeeper and you’re still no wiser, boy do I have a lovely surprise for you!

“I just want to help people.  I don’t care about all that money stuff”

I get it. You didn’t start your business because you’re a greedy capitalist pig. You started it to help people and make a positive difference in the world.

But here’s the thing: when your finances are messy or you’re constantly stressed about money, it creates an energetic weight that’s hard to shake. That kind of energy ripples out and your clients can sense it, even if they can’t name it. And it can limit your business success.

Getting on top of your accounting isn’t about becoming obsessed with money; it’s about clearing that energetic clutter so you can show up fully and confidently. When your financial life is organised and calm, you free up your energy to focus on what really matters: service. And that lets you help people more, and help more people.

Being on top of your accounting doesn’t just help you

When you know your numbers, you’re not just helping yourself. You’re helping the whole massage community by being able to provide the data AMT needs to better support its members in its annual Workforce Survey.

The more AMT understands what it really costs to run a practice, the better it can fight for fairer policies, better funding, and support that actually fits how massage therapists work.

What AMT could do with member financial data:

1. Set realistic industry benchmarks
   Members could compare their income, expenses, and profit margins to others in similar situations – solo vs multi-practitioner clinic, rural vs city, full-time vs part-time – and know whether they’re doing okay or need to course correct.
2. Fight for better conditions
   With real data, AMT could advocate more powerfully for fairer rates from NDIS or private health insurers, better small business support policies, or even inclusion in mental health frameworks.
3. Develop targeted resources
   If the data shows a trend (e.g. lots of therapists undercharging or spending too much on supplies), they could create workshops, templates, or price guides to help.
4. Promote massage as a viable career
   Clear, accurate income data helps fight the “you can’t make a living doing massage” myth. That means more people choosing it as a long-term career and better public understanding of its value.
5. Help members grow and sustain their businesses
   When the association knows what their members are struggling with financially, they can support them in a much more meaningful way beyond CPD and compliance.

You’re not just a business owner, you’re part of a profession. When you keep good records, you give your association the power to see the whole picture: what’s working, what’s not, and what support massage therapists really need.

One therapist doing their accounting might not seem like much but a whole community? That’s powerful.

Treat your business to a regular accounting massage

Just like your clients benefit from consistent care, your business thrives when you regularly check in on the numbers that keep it alive and growing. Think of accounting as the gentle, attentive massage your business needs to stay pain-free, flexible, and thriving in a tough market.

Doing your own accounting isn’t about geeking out on numbers. It’s about taking control, building confidence, and setting your business up for long-term health and success.

If you’re ready to treat your finances as well as you treat your clients, I invite you to check out my accounting courses designed specifically with sole traders who suck at the accounting stuff in mind. They’re quick. They’re easy. They’re holistically designed, and ADHD friendly. And they’re fun, with learning techniques you’d never expect to find in an accounting course, like fridge magnets, memes, singing, rapping, glitter pens, and Harry Potter costumes.

If you’d like to make learning accounting an adventure not a chore, come find me at That Accounting Stuff.

About the author

Anna Mitchell is a degree-qualified accountant who was also a massage therapist for a few years. She worked for corporate wellness agencies on an ABN and avoided her accounting like massage clients avoid doing the stretches you recommend.

All that sticking her head in the sand got her was nine years behind on her tax returns. Nine Years. If an accountant can mess up her accounting that bad, maybe you’re not such a loser after all.

After untangling that mess in 2019, she built herself a system to make sure it never happened again. That turned into That Accounting Stuff, online courses for sole traders who would rather eat a book than do their books.

Now she helps people like you go from Accounting Zero to Accounting Hero so you can ditch the tax-time panic, stop those nasty cashflow-destroying surprises, and finally feel like a ‘proper’ business owner who knows their key numbers (and is way more likely to succeed).