How Piper’s Ice Cream Bar Built Stability Beyond the Seasons

For Chip Adkins, winter used to be a season of stress. As the co-owner of Piper’s Ice Cream Bar in northern Kentucky, he spent the winter months worrying about paying bills and eating into their line of credit during months when his shop was closed. For a business built around the sun-soaked months of spring and summer, the off-season felt like a financial deep freeze.

But a few years ago, Adkins transformed his business’ approach to money. Thanks to the Profit First methodology and Square Savings,¹ he’s been able to weather the slow season with confidence.

What is Profit First?

Created by author Mike Michalowicz, Profit First is a cash flow framework that prioritizes taking profit out of every sale, rather than waiting to see what’s left over. The idea is simple: move a percentage of income into separate bank accounts (or Square Savings folders) for profit, taxes, operating costs, and other key expenses. Even small percentages add up over time, creating healthier — and more predictable — finances.

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The radical act of paying yourself first

Adkins, who discovered the Profit First method through the Square Readers Book Club, a former group in the Square Community, was fascinated by the radical cash management system that was designed to pay the owner first. “One of the things I’ve always struggled with is paying ourselves,” Adkins said. “The bills always got paid, but paying ourselves always seemed to get relegated to the end, and it was never quite what it should have been.”

Instead of covering all expenses and hoping something remains, Profit First encourages you to allocate money to profit, taxes, and owner pay right upfront, forcing the business to operate on what’s left.

“The concept is simple: If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind,” Adkins said. “Square Savings helped me do exactly that.” He labeled multiple Square Savings folders to reflect the categories recommended in the framework. He created separate folders for:

1. Profit: Money he could take as an owner draw.
2. Taxes: A safety net for quarterly tax payments.
3. Operating expenses: Funds for day-to-day costs.
4. Equipment: Cash to cover unexpected repairs.

Then, he allocated a percentage of every sale automatically into those folders. While the setup was straightforward, the mental adjustment took time. “In the beginning I was scared every month,” he said. “[I’d think,] ‘Am I taking out too much money?’ But now I don’t even think about it. I see what’s in the owner draw account and think, ‘Yep, that’s good.’”

Putting the Profit First system into action

The Profit First method transformed how Adkins approaches his business finances. “This system changed the way I think about money,” he said. By putting a percentage of every sale directly into these folders, he ensures that profit is never an afterthought. 

The system also gave his team the information they needed to make a huge operational decision: “We realized it wasn’t hurting us to be open in the winter months,” he said. “No matter what, winter bills need to get paid, so it’s better to make a little bit of money than to spend a lot of money and not make any.”

Smoothing out seasonal cash flow

With Profit First, Adkins has the ability to make informed decisions — and it gives him a predictable framework for slow periods. 

For example, Piper’s only withdraws from the Profit folder during profitable months. “If I’m drawing on the line of credit to keep the business running, which we do for four months out of the year, then we don’t do owner draws those months,” he said. 

Adkins has also adapted the Profit First system to his seasonal business. He’s created a spreadsheet that projects expenses for the next 18 months. “It highlights the months that I would want to use Square Savings to put money back for owner draws and for sales taxes,” he said. “So I budget expenses based on what I have left after my projected owner draw.”

Using this spreadsheet, Adkins can also plan for unexpected issues such as machinery repairs before they happen. 

Visible results: lower costs, stronger business

By making his paycheck nonnegotiable, Adkins says he’s forced to scrutinize every new expense. He recalls joining vendor membership programs that cost $50 a month, but saved him $20,000 on freight and shipping over four years.

Now, any time he adds a new expense, he asks himself: Will this impact my profit draw? “If it does, it’s a red flag, and I really need to think about it,” he said.

This critical eye has led to real results: “For the first time since we opened, we managed to cut our year-over-year operating expenses by 12%, which is a lot of money,” Adkins says. The year before he began using the Profit First method operating expenses, including payroll and supplies, were around 70% of gross revenue. “I was able to reduce that to 58% — and each year gets a little better,” he said.

For Adkins, the Profit First shift wasn’t just financial — it was philosophical. Paying the business first reframed success from just “keeping the doors open” to actually building wealth and stability.

“One thing that all business owners do is get into this mindset that the business should come first,” he said. “We go into business to make money for ourselves, but we all get distracted from that goal, and Profit First has allowed me to not be distracted from that goal.”

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Editor’s note: the following columns were first featured in the Square Banking newsletter. Aylon Pesso’s views expressed in his article are solely those of the author and are not endorsed by Square.

Inside scoop: Four tips to survive the off-season freeze 

Aylon Pesso was the owner and ice cream chef of Pesso’s Ices & Ice Cream in Queens, NY. He now works at Square, and is a small business advisor helping owners better run their businesses.