From Side Hustle to Full-Time Brand: How Old Bones Therapy Found Financial Clarity with Finaloop
Challenge
- Lack of confidence in financial data
- Needed reliable financials to feel comfortable making the leap to ecommerce full-time
- Under-utilization of financial data
- Couldn’t track cash flow accurately
Solution
- Implemented Finaloop's real-time accounting platform
- Found fractional CFO through Finaloop to provide ongoing financial guidance
- Established weekly financial reviews focused on cash flow management
- Automated expense tracking with proper categorization
- Monthly P&L analysis using percentage-based metrics
Financial Stack
- Finaloop for bookkeeping & accounting
- Fractional CFO for financial strategy (Finaloop partner)
Meet Old Bones Therapy
Brandon Fields, a former software engineer and lifelong skateboarder, started Old Bones Therapy to solve a problem he knew intimately - chronic pain from years of skating. The business began in 2016 with a single product: a back brace with an ice pack pouch. From there, the company grew to a line of over 20 products to treat chronic pain.
His product philosophy is straightforward: "Anything I can think of that helps with the aches and pains that I typically have, I just create products around that and hope other people will appreciate them.”
Challenge
As a full-time software engineer building his business on the side, Brandon tried out various online accounting tools and DIY bookkeeping but the figures were unreliable and the process too time-consuming.
“I'm 100% sure we weren't doing things correctly before,” he said. "My financial stack was really terrible. I've gone through a few iterations of not having proper books and accounting and proper financial statements."
Working without proper bookkeeping was hard, but as his business scaled, he saw the opportunity to make it his full time occupation and understood that he needed financial reporting he could trust.
“I just didn't feel confident in where things were before,” he said, referring to his pre-Finaloop accounting software. “I didn't understand their whole chart of accounts.”
“I really wanted to move out of my full time day job and do this full time,” he continued. “It came down to finding someone to clean up our accounting and our finance stack so that I could really understand the numbers and feel comfortable enough to leave a job in tech."
Solution
Brandon turned to Finaloop to gain control over his finances and cash flow.
Finaloop provided accurate, real-time financials, eliminating the need for spreadsheets and manual updates. Finaloop’s ecommerce-native accounting helped categorize complex transactions automatically based on best practices for brands like his.
He now has trust in his numbers and actual financial visibility into the health of his business. He runs an in-depth monthly review of his P&L to track his margins, something that is easy to do because his expenses are all categorized and his sales and COGS are all properly recorded.
"When we really look at the P&L, we're bucketing different categories of spend, like how much of our revenue went towards ad spend, operational expenses, things like that. So we tend to try to make sure that things are within acceptable percentages.” Now that all this information is readily available to him, he can stay on top of this easily and make better decisions for his business.
In addition, given the complexity of ecommerce cash flow, Brandon established a process of regular monitoring:
"Cash flow is super important for an ecommerce brand,” he said. “We have a lot of inventory where our cash gets tied up, basically paying suppliers for goods that might be sitting on a boat from overseas for a month.”
Brandon said he holds a weekly call with his CFO to make sure he has the cash to cover all of his upcoming bills. They run through all the major spend categories, especially his customer acquisition costs. ”We have large Google Ad bills, Meta bills, things like that for ad spend—and that's probably a big one."
"Our CFO uses Finaloop to track stuff that's already been categorized….Finaloop definitely helps us stay on top of that and keep an eye on things," he said.
Results
With Finaloop, Brandon moved from reactive to strategic financial management. He now has a real-time view of cash flow, understands his numbers down to the SKU, and can confidently forecast and make informed decisions.
Restored Confidence in Financial Data
“I'm feeling a lot more confident now that we have Finaloop in place,” Brandon said. “I feel like I can trust the numbers. Whereas before, things were not easily understandable. I just didn't feel confident in where things were before."
Proactive Cash Flow Management
With Finaloop, Brandon can track cash flow patterns so his bills are covered without surprises.
"Our bank account will be super flush, but then we'll have this huge Meta bill due. Then this huge credit card bill, and then payroll at the same time... if you don't know what's coming, you could be in a situation where all of a sudden you don't have enough cash in the bank."
Strategic Focus on Key Metrics
With so much of his outgoing cash going to ad spend, it’s essential to the business to track the return on the investment.
"Ad spend and efficiency and optimizing our ads are a huge one because if you don't do that, a lot of your revenue can get eaten up by ad spend."
Foundation for Product Expansion
Brandon has grown the business from one product to dozens across multiple categories, reinvesting profits into expansion: "We started out with a back brace... we took all of our profits, and we keep rolling it into expanding into other product areas... we went from one product to now we sell 20 different products."
Looking Forward
Brandon said he’s excited about Finaloop's newest features and is planning to explore InventoryIQ and the SKU Analysis dashboard to help manage the complexity of sourcing products from all over, including China, Taiwan, and the US given the uncertain tariff environment and tracking cost of goods on a SKU by SKU basis.