Offline training · demo file only
The giveaway, the demo, and the hours — stapled.
Interns learn the Friday X-ray on Harbor Painting before they ever see a name. Teaching-hour prompts are in this staple. The live client is not.
Fieldstone Advisory
Montgomery County, Texas · Fieldstone Advisory · 23 September 2026
AI drafts. Human review. Then send. We are not a CPA firm. We are not a law firm. Circular 230 did not get an AI exception.
Giveaway
The Friday X-ray
Free. One page. Not a close.
The front end Ferriss would recognize: a small, finished thing that makes the $1,000 Transition obvious.
Not a webinar. Not a PDF course. Not tax advice. Not a 1040. Not Kitchen.
- Cash
- Open AR
- Unbilled draws
- Retainage, separate from income
- One job margin, with the retainage pulled out
- The sentence: what Friday is still arguing about
Intern fills the page from the demo. Steward red-pens. Nothing is emailed. A live X-ray waits until ten demo papers pass.
Demo file
Harbor Painting (demo)
Conroe, Texas — fictional. 12 painters. One owner. One bookkeeper who quit in January.
QuickBooks Online. Eight months dark. Jobs never tagged. Classes also on. Both wrong.
Progress billing. 10% retainage on two commercial jobs. Retainage booked as income.
No EIN, no bank, no SSN, no real legal name. Every dollar in the intern’s paper is [SAMPLE].
| Line | Sample |
|---|---|
| Cash in operating | 42,000 |
| AR open | 86,000 |
| Unbilled draws | 18,000 |
| Retainage (should be a receivable, not income) | 31,000 |
| Job margin the owner believes | 22% |
| Job margin after retainage is pulled out | 9% |
How to run the demo
- 1. Read Harbor out loud. Twelve painters. Eight months dark. Retainage booked as income. No identifier exists. If they ask for the EIN, the answer is: there isn’t one.
- 2. X-ray. Five numbers plus the argument sentence. Retainage $31,000 is not in the margin. 22% becomes 9%.
- 3. WIP line. Two commercial jobs, unnamed (Job A, Job B). Billed, cost, retainage, cash. Untagged labor goes under Untagged.
- 4. Decline. Owner wants $250 because a mill is $399. Named floor $1,500. Wrap $6,500 if they buy the dark months. Invoice. No card.
- 5. Stop. No email. No portal. No “I’ll just check a real file.” The demo is the whole world until ten passes.
Four sessions
Stack them. Do not skip to the model.
Session 1 · Half day · paper
Rules before software
Read house rules out loud. Copy the red-pen card onto one sheet they keep. Name the four desks. They do not open a model.
Leaves the table: A signed intern card: I do not send, sign, price, or paste a live identifier.
Session 2 · Half day · Harbor numbers on the wall
The giveaway, blank
Fill a Friday X-ray by hand from the six sample lines. Mark every dollar [SAMPLE]. Write the one-sentence argument.
Leaves the table: One X-ray. Expected miss: they leave retainage inside income. That miss is the lesson.
Session 3 · 90 minutes · clock on the wall
Teaching hour, trade only
Run the four Friday Close prompts: chart, WIP, decline the $250 mill, intake flags. Seven minutes each. Stop even if ugly.
Leaves the table: Four short drafts. Pair red-pen. Steward does not type for them.
Session 4 · Half day
What leaves the building
They assemble X-ray + decline + WIP into a stapled pack. Steward marks pass or redo. Pass does not mean send.
Leaves the table: A staple with a pass stamp, or a redo list. Ten passes before a live name.
Teaching-hour prompts · Friday Close
Session 3 runs these. Seven minutes. Stop.
Job-cost chart of accounts
You are the Friday Close desk. Redacted QBO export, 8 months dark, progress billing and retainage, jobs never tagged. Draft a 12-account job-cost chart. Do not invent an EIN or a legal name. Mark every figure [TO CONFIRM].
WIP snapshot
From the tagged jobs, draft a one-page Friday WIP: job, billed, cost, retainage, cash in. If a job has no tag, list it under Untagged. Do not net retainage into revenue.
Decline the mill
A painter wants $250/mo because Bench is $399. Write the decline. Named floor is $1,500. Catch-up wrap is $6,500 if 3–8 months dark and on calendar. Invoice after the call. No card.
Intake flags
Quote out loud: 300 txns, 4 accounts, AP-heavy, payroll 6–20, one LLC, job cost, 8 months dark, on calendar. Named floor $1,500. Founding wrap $6,500. Score 7/12. Do not say 2–3× monthly as the price.
Pass / fail
Ten passes before a live name.
- Retainage is not inside income.
- Every dollar is marked [SAMPLE] or [TO CONFIRM].
- The decline names $1,500 and does not apologize.
- No EIN, bank, SSN, or real company appears.
- The argument sentence is one sentence.
- They can say which desk this is (Friday Close) and which desks they will not sell (Kitchen, a will).
Intern rules
- Offline. The demo file is Harbor Painting. It is not a client.
- Consumer chatbots stay off. If a model is used, it is a team seat, and the paper still gets a red pen.
- Interns do not quote a live price, send a note, or say “we file.”
- An invented cite or an invented EIN fails the session. Redo. Do not negotiate the miss.
- One intern until ten X-rays pass. A second intern is a later vote, not a vibe.
- The giveaway they practice is the same page a prospect would hold. Sloppy demo, sloppy market.
Red pen, same card as the room
- 1. Facts. Is every name, date, and job in the source — or marked [TO CONFIRM]?
- 2. Cites. Did it invent a Code section, Pub., or court? If you cannot find it, it goes.
- 3. Numbers. Do dollars, months, and due dates match the file? Sample figures stay marked.
- 4. Tone. Would this firm send it? Short sentences. No hype. No apology for having a calendar.
- 5. PII. Any identifier the model should not have seen? Redact. Do not paste it back.
- 6. Sign. Would I sign this? If not, it does not leave.