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Small Business Doctor

Delivering honest value through deep expertise to small business owners like you.

Decorated Coast Guard Financial Advisor. Economics PhD. Finance MBA. Harvard & Johns Hopkins Grad.

Bookkeeping  

Small Business Doctor is an Intuit Quickbooks ProAdvisor certified firm with reasonable rates. Every bookkeeper is a certified bookkeeper. We can handle payroll if requested and can clean up your books if needed.

Learn more about Small Business Doctor's bookkeeping and accounting

Advisory  

Every small business has a limiting factor. It could be leads, cash flow, capacity, almost anything. The Small Business Doctor diagnoses and develops a treatment plan for your bottleneck.

From business plan analysis to routine small business checkups to strategy sessions, the Small Business Doctor provides the full-suite of strategic fractional CFO services.

Learn  

Learn all about accounting, finance, business strategy, economics, and financial math from the basics to the advanced. I've taught and tutored these subjects for years, helping everyone from teens to postdocs, CPAs and MDs.

I want us all to grow. It's never too late to learn something.

Leverage our expertise for your small business


  No hidden fees or lock in contracts ever

  Fantastic personal service from smart seasoned experts

  Exclusively dedicated to small businesses

  Always a text, call or an email away

  100% of all work is done in America

Dr. Matt Carter

Hi there! I'm Matt Carter. I'm a Christian, husband and father of four. I'm a graduate of Calvin, Harvard, Cardiff and Johns Hopkins Universities. I have a PhD in Economics, an MBA in Finance and an MS in Data Analytics. I'm a numbers guy who can communicate well.

I began this service to work directly with the small and mid-sized business owners who grow our great country's economy. Since 1999, I've worked with owners across industries from high tech IT and robotics to small farmers and artists. I've also helped and advised nonprofits from churches to civic organizations.

I also served as a Finance Staff Officer and eventually as the National Division Chief for Measurement Research within the US Coast Guard. The research and methods I created there continue to guide their financial and strategic decisions to this day.

I enjoy being active outdoors, especially in wild lands. Hiking, biking and fly fishing are some of my favorite pastimes.

I also love dogs! I'm a volunteer AKC obedience evaluator, and I train service and therapy dogs for those in need.

Lois Caron Late Owner of The Caron Collection in Stamford, CT
"Matt has helped grow my business since 1999. He is quick to answer all my questions and has never once let me down. I always recommend Matt."

Jim Bonino LTR Automotive of East Liverpool, OH
"Every company needs financial expertise. Dr. Carter is an actual expert who will help you understand what is going on both within your company and in the economy. His advice has been very helpful to our small business."

Old Fashioned Service

I Tailor My Services To Align With Your Needs

Over the years, I have happily and confidentially advised a wide range of clients from a plumber near Pittsburgh to a robotics startup to a multi-state pediatrics practice. I am always your primary point of contact and hold myself accountable for your success.

The initial consultation is always free. My billing goal is to always provide clients with a high return on investment when working with me irrespective of their budget.

I am not a salesman. I will only take on a client when I can provide genuine value for them. Reach out if you need expert advice, assistance or have a question.

The Small Business Doctor is an Intuit ProAdvisor
The Small Business Doctor is a certified bookkeeper
The Small Business Doctor is QuickBooks Level 1 ProAdvisor Certified
The Small Business Doctor is QuickBooks Level 2 ProAdvisor Certified
The Small Business Doctor is QuickBooks Payroll ProAdvisor Certified

Monika Vainius Pilotfish Technology of Tampa, FL
"You guys are the best to work with and have always delivered. Even when we've needed something rushed, you've always been reliable. Thanks so much!"

Rich Talarico Pittsburgh Gas Grill & Heater Company of Pittsburgh, PA
"Amazing management of the backend of our business! More revenue and increased profitability! Thank you!!"

Case In Point

Small Church

How Valuable Is Expert Financial Advice?

A small church had just reached a legal settlement to leave their denomination with their church building by agreeing to pay them $100,000 every year for the next 10 years. If they ever missed a payment, the building would revert back to the big denomination.

The church had fundraised the entire $1 million prior to the settlement. Its board wanted to payoff their exit fee immediately to avoid the risk of future nonpayment. They were worried, frustrated and felt out of their depth.

So I advised them to purchase a 10-year annuity that pays $100,000 every year. The cost of that annuity was only $930,000, and the nonpayment risk was now covered.

By saving $70,000, my advice was theoretically worth that much to them. But a few years later that same small church had a significant cashflow problem and that $100,000 annual payment would not have been paid. Thanks to my annuity advice solving their risk problem, their building was saved. The real life value of expert finance advice can be the organization's continuing viability. My personal takeaways are that stochastic processes are real alongside a reaffirmation of my father's advice that a failure to prepare is a preparation for failure.

U.S. Coast Guard

How Do You Value A Volunteer Organization?

The US Coast Guard Auxiliary is an all volunteer uniformed part of the US Coast Guard formed by Congress during WWII. There are more than 30,000 Auxiliarists spread across all 50 states.

The only Coast Guard tasks that an Auxiliarist is prohibited by law from performing are law enforcement and combat ones. So these Coast Guard volunteers perform an incredibly wide array of jobs from flying their personal planes to vessel inspections to research and development.

For years Coast Guard leadership wanted a valuation of their Auxiliary's diverse contributions of manpower and equipment, but they hadn't been able to perform this valuation in a way that passed DHS or Congressional scrutiny. I took over this project and created a valuation methodology that passed all Washington DC scrutiny so well I literally received a big medal for it.

The Auxiliary valuations I performed made their way into the Commandant's speeches and the first significant budgetary increases for the Coast Guard from Congress in years. The methodology I created is classified and still in use by the Coast Guard to this day.

From my award pinning ceremony: "You applied remarkable expertise in quantitative research to formulate a new statistical methodology for analyzing Auxiliary activity data. Exercising exceptional insight, you ... helped keep the highest levels of Coast Guard leadership clearly appraised of the extraordinary value of the Auxiliary's uniformed volunteers."

Mike Zeffiro Manager at PGGHC of Bethel Park, PA
"Perfect. When I'm away from the shop, I now pull the leads then contact those people next time I return. This is gonna make it much easier for me to track with nothing falling between the cracks. This is great. Thanks."

COMO Fred Gates Worcester, MA
"Matt, you rock! Just anticipating questions from NACO and NEXCOM and you supplied exactly what I need."

Learn About Strategy, Finance and Accounting

business finance learn

Big companies are incentivized to increase product specialization and complexity. Why?

Our culture values specialization. Having specialized skills often leads to outsized material benefits. It also often results in praise and social status. Consider the social recognition that would be given to a medical doctor who is a primary care family medicine doctor compared to that given to an orthopedic surgeon. They are both highly educated, […]

British Economist Ronald Coase

Transaction Costs in the American Economy from 1870 to 1970

What Are Transaction Costs? Transaction costs are often overlooked in economics and textbook finance. In real life economics, however, they play a very significant role. In corporate finance, you can see many of a company’s transaction costs located in the selling and administrative categories within the Selling, General and Administrative (SG&A) section of their Income […]

Nobel Prize Winning Economist Ronald Coase

Coase’s Theory of the Firm

During the Great Depression, British economist Ronald Coase wrote a famous essay on the nature of the firm or company. As with America at the time, many free-market economies were also enduring a severe and difficult economic depression. The Soviet Union, however, was growing to become a significant industrial economy. This led to a debate […]

business economist cfo learn training

Transaction Costs and SG&A Expenses

Selling, General or Administrative Expenses One way to see how economic transaction costs are internalized within a company is in the SG&A Expense lines of a company’s income statement. All of the selling and administrative expenses are internalized transaction costs, and so is the insurance expense within the general expenses category. This is not the […]

Balance Sheet

What Is the Balance Sheet? The Balance Sheet is one of the primary financial statements used in accounting. The Balance Sheet shows a snapshot of a business’s financial position at a point in time. There are two sections: Assets and Liabilities & Equity. Not only does the Balance Sheet show individual and composite account balances, […]

Statement of Comprehensive Income

What Is the Statement of Comprehensive Income? The Statement of Comprehensive Income is a financial statement for items that are not included within Net Income from the Income Statement but nevertheless do affect the equity section of the Balance Sheet. The Statement of Comprehensive Income shows total comprehensive income. The Statement of Comprehensive Income includes […]

Learn More

Accounting   Book   Coase   Finance Math   Economics   Corporate Strategy   Decision Making   Economic History   Finance   Managerialism   Math