Most employees I meet still treat a second income as an emergency plan, something you open only once the steady job is gone. Ido Neuman, a CPA and financial planner who works with businesses and the self-employed, thinks the exact opposite. "I think today it's a must for everyone to be both," he wrote during our community interview, meaning both employed and independent. "Don't rely on your workplace, and always have the ability to earn additional income, even if it's small."

That line didn't come from a career coach. It came from someone whose job is to show business owners their numbers as they are, including the moment they approach the red line. In other words, the case for the hybrid professional, made by an accountant.

An Accountant Who Starts With Emotion

Ido Neuman is 45 and a half, lives in Herzliya, married with three kids. His title: CPA and certified financial planner (CFP) for businesses and the self-employed, covering both taxation and control of the numbers, growing profits and what owners actually take home. "Because we all want the business to make us more money and pay less tax."

His morning doesn't start with spreadsheets. It starts with answering questions clients sent overnight. "With me there are no working hours. When something bothers you, it bothers me."

What guides him with a client, he says, is "the sensitivity, understanding and identification with the emotional state of the person in front of me." Facing a business owner who struggles to bring home what he needs, Ido knows that sometimes money is secondary. What's really on the table is self-worth, in the mirror and in front of the family. His role, as he defines it, is to understand the emotional whirlpool, take it apart, and build a path to a solution and to growth together.

AI in Accounting: Less Sisyphean Tracking, More Decisions

Asked how the AI revolution is changing the way businesses are built, Ido didn't sugarcoat it: most of his clients aren't there, not in adoption and not in mindset. "In the press it looks like everyone is there in full force. In practice, not at all." Part of it, he says, is a matter of generations and age.

He himself is there. He built tools that help businesses make sure they've sent in all their expenses, a tool where you upload a Visa or bank statement and it shows where each invoice should be, and a tool for tracking how much VAT to set aside. For tech clients who "rent out heads" to companies, he builds breakdowns of employee costs, employee profitability per client, and whether that employee would be more profitable at another client. In forward-looking financial analysis he shows when it's right to make another investment, and when a loan can be taken and repaid.

"I'm not developing a tool for a competitive advantage across an entire market," he stresses. "I'm aiming for an advantage in value for my clients." How they'll pay less tax, how they'll control their money better, and how to find where money is leaking out. The goal is for the business owner to remain the craftsman he is, and to move from tracking data to the level of insight and decision-making. That's exactly the shift from doer to operator, seen from the finance side.

Dinosaur Accountants, and Why One Piece of Advice Is Worth a Decade of Fees

Will AI make the accounting firm obsolete? Ido separates a personal tax return from a business one. As long as the business environment works the way it used to, it won't replace 100 percent, or even 90 percent. Even today, AI invoice intake requires manual intervention and approval, because of errors, because of judgment calls, and because the authorities' own instructions "aren't adapted to the year 2000 at all, let alone 2026."

What is happening, already over the last five years, is that a firm can handle more clients with fewer employees. Most of the work shifts from routine bookkeeping to a top-down view and analysis. And the price for those who don't wake up is clear: "Firms that don't adopt tools to work with will definitely be wiped out." Businesses that don't ask where technological progress meets them as clients will end up with "dinosaur accountants who can't really bring you added value as a business."

And he has one request for business owners: stop looking at accounting, and at the fee itself, so simplistically. "One small, correct piece of advice can save you in taxes ten years of your accountant's fees."

Employee and Freelancer at Once: Being Both as Insurance, Not a Hobby

This is where the interview hit the heart of the community. For Ido, extra income isn't a romantic side project, it's risk diversification. And when he talks about employees who open an independent business, he points straight to the practical tools: invoice tracking and how much VAT to set aside. Anyone starting a business alongside a salary needs to know their numbers from day one.

I told him that's why we're all here. That's the essence of a portfolio career, opening your mind to an option that's so obvious to Gen Z and still foreign to many people over 45.

For those who want to diversify income from abroad, Ido's advice is not to be scared off by the bureaucracy. It all depends on the situation, on what you want to achieve and on your appetite for risk, and not all types of deals are the same. "Yes, it enables growing your capital. The taxes will sort themselves out."

What You Learn From Closing Companies

Ido has also handled company closures, and what he learned there wasn't technical: "The owners' indifference to what's going on, procrastination in dealing with things, the wish to close your eyes because nobody is knocking on the door right now. That's not the solution." His analogy is simple: "Just as you care about the health of your wife or your mother, care about your finances. You don't have to master them in depth, but you do need to understand and know."

He doesn't believe in the cost-cutting knife either. Expenses should be what's needed, and total cutting "shrinks your mindset and doesn't allow growth." In his words, "Every minute you spend on over-scrutinizing expenses, instead of on how I grow revenue and improve my work and my marketing, means you're still thinking small." The focus should be on growing revenue, partnerships, systems and recruitment.

And on the red line between the business and the home, he knows the limits of his role. He reflects the situation, the forecast, the options. Only the entrepreneur decides, because he's the one taking the risk, maybe he has something up his sleeve, and maybe his own beliefs push him to stretch. What the guidance provides is a bird's-eye view, so the decision is informed rather than a gut feeling "without knowing where he stands."

What Ido Offers the Community

Ido didn't ask for a specific connection. He extended an invitation: "You're always welcome, with love, to consult." Anyone weighing their bottom line, expansion abroad or AI adoption in their business, and especially anyone starting independent work alongside a salary right now, can reach out to him directly. His recommendation for every entrepreneur is the podcast "Businesses That Think Big". And if he weren't an accountant? A hotel manager. If you know one employee who is debating whether to open a freelance file, send them this post.