LOVING EARTH 
How a farmer ends up with a CFO
I run Loving Earth Compost in Greenwich, New York. Indigenous woman owned. Food scraps become soil, and the loop stays local. For five years I was also the driver, the bookkeeper, the salesperson, and the collections department, and midnight admin lost to sleep every time. It should.
This year Devon built me something I didn’t know I was allowed to have: a folder on my own computer that boots up as a full back office. My finance department is an agent named Giuseppe. He treats money like compost, nothing wasted, everything transformed. His standing advice for me, in his words: "Now drink your water. Raise your prices. And let Giuseppe handle the spreadsheets."
The first receivables audit crossed my inbox against my delivery tracker and found four delivered orders with no invoice behind them at all: money earned and never billed. Fifteen months in, the full count stands at $33,456 found: misbooked, unbilled, double-expensed, or leaking. That is more than I paid myself all year. It also helped me structure and write a five-county state grant application in three days, awarded that September. Tasks that took me six or eight hours now take one or two.
Then came the repricing. When the Live Nation account came up for renewal, we rebuilt the rates from a cost-engineered floor instead of a guess, and that account is now up 59.4 percent year over year. Giuseppe reported that number from our books. One of my big, big wins is increasing profit by creating more powerful contracts with clients. Giuseppe likes to say that profit is not greed, profit means the mission survives. I believe him now.
"I am not playing with AI. I am using it like a founder, strategist, grant writer, marketer, operations manager, CFO, creative director, and administrative assistant. I have used AI to win money, find money, save time, write better, sell better, organize better, think bigger, and create real leverage in my business."
From the wins list I wrote this JuneAll of it grounded in actual small business chaos: compost, invoices, grants, payroll, customers, routes, events, kids, land, and real deadlines. So take the next sentence as a report off my own books. If I can do it, you can too.
+59.4%
our largest account, year over year after repricing, reported from our books
30%
of revenue: how wrong my books were. A reported $9,868 loss was actually an $18,561 profit
$33,456
found in fifteen months across invoices, payroll, pricing, and orders: 149% of the owner's annual pay
6–8 hrs → 1–2
what my big admin tasks take now. The hours went back to the land and my kids
Every number above comes from my own books and the wins list I wrote myself on June 30. The contract figure is as reported by the finance department that keeps our books. If I can’t receipt it, I don’t say it.
Hope LaBonty · Loving Earth Compost · Greenwich, NY