You run a retail store or product brand, and somehow every good month ends up back on the shelves. Profit First for Retail is the cash flow system built for businesses that live and die by inventory: pay yourself first, fund inventory on purpose, and know exactly what's safe to spend.
See where your cash is going, and the first move to make this week
You've worked too hard to feel this unsure about your money. Here's what retail owners tell us. Maybe you've said one of these this week:
We had a great sales month, but I still don't know where the money went.
Money vanishes into purchase orders, freight, and end-of-season markdowns. The top line grows. The bank account doesn't. You're watching revenue when the real story is in the allocations.
Inventory eats all the cash.
Every dollar of profit is sitting on a shelf, hoping. That's the Inventory Stress Cycle™: sell, restock, sell, restock. It doesn't break on its own. It breaks when inventory gets its own funded account.
I pay everyone else before I pay myself.
Vendors, rent, payroll, the next order. Everyone gets theirs first, and you get what's left, which is usually nothing. Profit First flips the order: your pay comes out before the next purchase order does.
I want to grow, but I'm afraid growth will make the cash pressure worse.
Your instinct is right: more sales just push more cash through a broken system, faster. Fix the system first, and growth starts funding your life instead of consuming it.
You're not alone, and you're not broken. This isn't a sales problem or an effort problem. It's a cash flow system problem: the system most retailers were handed simply ignores inventory. That's fixable, starting with your very next deposit.
Profit First for Retail adapts the method trusted by hundreds of thousands of business owners to the realities of a product business: purchasing cycles, lead times, seasons, and all. It runs on bank balances, not accounting reports.
Start with the free retail profit assessment. In three minutes you'll see, in plain numbers, why the register can ring all day while the bank account stays flat.
Open a small set of bank accounts with one job each, including the two every product business needs and most advice ignores: inventory replacement and inventory growth.
Move money by percentages, timed to your purchasing cycles. Profit and your paycheck come out first. Inventory gets funded from what remains, not the other way around.
Run the Weekly Retail Scoreboard and the inventory buying checklist, so busy seasons have fallback money and every purchase order passes a test before it goes out.
Every engagement gets logged the same way a sale does: what came in, what changed, what the owner finally kept.
Client story coming soon. Where they started, what changed, and what life looks like now.
Client story coming soon. The money shift first, then the human one: the vacation, the night they stopped checking the bank app.
Client story coming soon. Dollar amounts, months, and firsts are what make these believable.
Profit First for Retail takes the method trusted by hundreds of thousands of business owners and rebuilds it for stores that live and die by inventory. Fourteen chapters, ten working appendices, and a free companion workbook. You'll learn how to:
Read the book, work the free companion workbook, and put the system in place at your own pace. Worksheets, checklists, and the 90-Day Retail Reset included.
Start with the bookImplement Profit First in your store with CanDee guiding every step, from your first allocation to ongoing CFO-level support as you grow.
See how it worksWant the whole thing handled? CanDee's sister firm, eComm Financial Services, runs Profit First bookkeeping for retail and ecommerce businesses.
Visit eComm Financial ServicesYes, but not straight out of the original book, and that's the honest answer most retailers never hear. Standard Profit First doesn't account for the cash that inventory swallows: purchase orders, lead times, and seasonal buys. Profit First for Retail adapts the method to those realities with dedicated inventory accounts and allocations that follow your purchasing cycles.
Mike Michalowicz's Profit First gives every business the core discipline: allocate income to profit, owner's pay, and expenses before you spend. Profit First for Retail, by Mastery-certified Profit First Professional CanDee Baker, rebuilds the system around inventory: separating replacement inventory from growth inventory, timing allocations to purchasing cycles, and giving you retail-specific tools like the Weekly Retail Scoreboard and the 90-Day Retail Reset.
A small set of accounts, each with one job: Income, Profit, Owner's Pay, Tax, and Operating Expenses. Then add the two accounts most advice ignores: Inventory Replacement (to restock what sells) and Inventory Growth (to expand on purpose, not on impulse). The book walks through the full setup in Appendix A.
That's exactly when to start. You begin with small percentages, even just 1% to profit, and grow them each quarter. The point isn't the size of the first allocation; it's installing the habit that creates a pause between money coming in and money going out. Take the free assessment to see your starting numbers.
No. Profit First for Retail is built on bank balances, not financial statements. If you can check your bank account, you can run the system. No accounting degree, no spreadsheet gymnastics. The discipline lives in how the money moves, not in how it's reported.
Take the free retail profit assessment, or book a 30-minute conversation. CanDee will look at your situation and tell you honestly what to do next, whether or not you ever hire her.
No pressure, no pitch deck.