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• Contact : Connect with Trevor McCandless. Find him on X and LinkedIn.
• Now: What Trevor McCandless Is Working On : CPA and Fusion CPA CEO Trevor McCandless on his current focus: multi-generational family wealth, year-round tax planning, and stronger finance functions.
• Speaking : Trevor McCandless speaks to entrepreneurs and family business owners on estate planning, succession strategy, and multi-generational wealth.
• Start Here : Trevor McCandless is a CPA with 20+ years in law, healthcare, real estate, and private equity. He holds a B.A. in Accounting and an M.S. in Taxation.

Best Posts

If you are new here, start with these. I am Trevor McCandless, a CPA in San Juan, and these are the pieces I would hand someone first. They cover what I have learned about running a firm, building intentional relationships, and the work that matters most.

• The Family Blueprint: How to Plan 20 Years Ahead Without Losing the Next 12 Months : Trevor McCandless describes the Family Blueprint: a framework that ties a 20-year family mission to quarterly decisions on business, estate, and goals.
• Why My Wife and I Hold a Quarterly Family Meeting : Trevor McCandless explains the structured quarterly review he and his wife hold to cover family highlights, shared vision, and the year ahead.
• Building Your Financial Castle: A CPA's Guide to Protecting What You've Built : Trevor McCandless explains why concentrated ownership creates family risk and how entrepreneurs can separate personal wealth from operating exposure.
• One of the Most Eye-Opening Moments in My Career : Trevor McCandless recounts watching a mentor nearly lose two decades of equity and the lesson it crystallized about minority ownership and control.

Business

Business lessons from a CPA who has seen a lot of things go right and a lot of things go sideways. I write about what I have learned running a firm, managing teams, and working with family. "Building Your Financial Castle: A CPA's Guide to Protecting What You've Built" opens with a harsh stat: 65% of businesses fail within 12 months of a founder's death. I wrote it because most business owners do not want to think about this, which is exactly why they should.

• Tearing the Operations Manual Down to the Studs After 15 Years : Trevor McCandless on rewriting his accounting firm's SOPs after 15 years, using a beginner's mind and a daily-win framework to rebuild how the whole team works.
• Why DIY Bookkeeping Almost Never Works for New Franchise Owners : I got off a call last week with a guy starting a franchise. Career salaried employee, first time owning a business. Smart, prepared, good questions. He…
• Your Tax Return Isn't the Finish Line. It's the Starting Line. : Trevor McCandless on why your tax return is the starting line, not the finish: a roadmap of the whole year you can use to plan the next twelve months.
• Multi-Generational Wealth Strategies: Beyond the Trust Document : Trevor McCandless explains why most family wealth plans fail at the cultural layer, not the legal one, and how transparency with heirs helps.
• 5 Common Wealth Mistakes Families Don't See Until It's Too Late : Trevor McCandless outlines five structural mistakes he sees in practice, from missing buy-sell agreements to entities that own appreciating assets.
• Why Calling Your CPA a Week Before the Deadline Costs You More Than a Penalty : Trevor McCandless on why calling your CPA a week before the deadline costs more than a penalty: proper review and planning take real time.
• The Family Blueprint: How to Plan 20 Years Ahead Without Losing the Next 12 Months : Trevor McCandless describes the Family Blueprint: a framework that ties a 20-year family mission to quarterly decisions on business, estate, and goals.
• The Quarterly Retreat: How High-Performing Families Run Their Wealth Like a Business : Trevor McCandless explains the weekly, monthly, and quarterly cadence he uses with family clients to keep wealth plans executing rather than idle.
• Why Most Firms Stay Behind After Tax Season (And What We're Doing Differently) : Trevor McCandless on why most firms stay behind after tax season, and how reviewing what broke, the bottlenecks and handoffs, sets up a better year.
• Tax Optimization vs. Tax Risk : Trevor McCandless draws the line between legitimate tax reduction and positions that carry audit exposure, covering the IRS economic substance test.
• Why Tax Season Is the Best Teacher for Young Accountants : Trevor McCandless argues that tax season pressure accelerates learning for junior accountants in ways that classroom or low-volume work simply cannot.
• Why Intentional Networking Beats Casting a Wide Net : Trevor McCandless reflects on shifting from mass networking to curated relationships and why the focused approach yields stronger professional results.
• Why In-Person Relationships Still Win in Business : Trevor McCandless argues that face-to-face connection cannot be automated and that founders who prioritize in-person time build more durable ones.
• The Enterprise Agent System Is Knocking at Our Door : Trevor McCandless shares what founder groups are saying about AI arriving faster than expected and the tension between opportunity and immature tooling.
• Tax Season Is More Than Filing Returns: Here's What We're Really Doing Right Now : Trevor McCandless explains how tax season CEO conversations cover whether last year planning held up, what changed in the business, and what to adjust.
• The Tax Season Bottleneck Between CEOs and Bookkeepers : Trevor McCandless identifies the communication gap between CEO and bookkeeper as a leading cause of tax season delays and missing documentation.
• Why Every Question on Your Tax Organizer Matters : Trevor McCandless explains that every tax organizer question surfaces life changes, from marriage and divorce to business formation and property deals.
• Planning Ahead of 2026 Liquidity Events : Trevor McCandless outlines approaches clients use before exits, including tax loss harvesting and QSBS structuring, and explains why timing matters.
• Building Your Financial Castle: A CPA's Guide to Protecting What You've Built : Trevor McCandless explains why concentrated ownership creates family risk and how entrepreneurs can separate personal wealth from operating exposure.
• How Fresh Talent Resets Team Energy (And When You Know It's Time) : Trevor McCandless describes hiring in early 2026: new teammates asked questions that challenged assumptions and re-engaged the existing team.
• What December Teaches Us About What Really Matters in Business : Trevor McCandless reflects on how December returns attention to the relationships, family, and legacy that underpin the work done throughout the year.
• Family Business Changed My Mind : Trevor McCandless describes how having children shifted his view of family business from tension to a vehicle for passing on values and ownership.
• October 2025 Business Updates : Trevor McCandless on Fusion CPA's shift into year-end tax planning, the value of client referrals, and the conferences sharpening the firm's strategy.
• Why You Should Check In With Your Business Partners : Trevor McCandless argues that regular check-ins, not blind trust, catch small problems with service providers before they become costly issues.
• Why Your Accountant Should Be Your Confidant : Trevor McCandless explains why effective tax work depends on open client relationships and how that shifts the dynamic from transactional to advisory.
• The Future of Accounting : Trevor McCandless argues the best accounting firms will be lean and tech-enabled, focused on ongoing client advice rather than stacking billable hours.
• The Five-Figure Tax Mistake on a Cruise Ship : Trevor McCandless recounts spotting an RSU misreporting error on a colleague return and how to amend those returns and correct years of overpayment.
• The $30K Lesson That Almost Cost Me Everything : Trevor McCandless tells the story of a golf club rental business at 25 and the delegation failure that reshaped how he now works with families.

Personal

The personal side. Family, travel, tech, food, and life in San Juan. This is where I write about everything that is not accounting. "Embracing 2026: Leadership, Family, and the Power of Strategic Relationships" is about heading into the new year with respect for what it will demand. I wrote it as a way to set my own intentions publicly.

• WORLC CUP 2026: A Christmas Gift That Turned Into a Trip : A Christmas Gift That Turned Into a World Cup Trip My wife bought me a soccer game for Christmas. Here’s my experience, and a few pics I want to share.…
• The Art of Deciding What Deserves Your Attention : Trevor McCandless discusses building a personal filter for new tools and strategies, separating what aligns with long-term goals from temporary noise.
• Brain Dump Your Ideas to Find the Real Opportunities : Trevor McCandless describes the brain-dump method his team uses to get every idea on paper and then separate real opportunities from passing excitement.
• Why My Wife and I Hold a Quarterly Family Meeting : Trevor McCandless explains the structured quarterly review he and his wife hold to cover family highlights, shared vision, and the year ahead.
• My Professional & Personal Tech Stack : Trevor McCandless walks through the software running Fusion CPA, from UltraTax and Karbon to NetSuite, plus personal tools he uses outside the firm.
• One of the Most Eye-Opening Moments in My Career : Trevor McCandless recounts watching a mentor nearly lose two decades of equity and the lesson it crystallized about minority ownership and control.
• The One Thing I’d Do Differently In My Career : Trevor McCandless argues that investing in sales and marketing earlier is the single change in his career that would have compounded the most over time.

Tax Strategy

The technical side of keeping more of what you build. I write about structuring entities, trusts, and the timing of your moves so taxes do not quietly eat your wealth. "Operating Entities and Trusts: Structuring for Wealth Transfer Without Killing Cash Flow" walks through how to pass assets to the next generation without choking off the cash flow that keeps the business running today.

• Operating Entities and Trusts: Structuring for Wealth Transfer Without Killing Cash Flow : Structure operating entities and trusts for wealth transfer without killing cash flow. Entity choice, holding companies, trust types, and common pitfalls.