Accounting High

Episode 76 | Recorded April 15, 2022

Our first-ever, annual listeners survey; we’d love it if you took a moment to fill this out so we can continue to improve our show!

https://padgettnc.typeform.com/to/BSKZbvWk

FreshBooks MeetUps aka "The Lil Toddler '22 Tour"- check us out if you’re in the PDX area, at Ecliptic Brewery on November 10, 2022! 

register for the event here: https://bit.ly/3VHJ5mM

Our Guest: Terrell Turner, CPA

Scott gets a one-on-one with the content master, Terrel Turner. We get to know the man behind Business Talk Library and how a high school football varsity got into accounting, content-making and being awarded a 40 Under 40 award. This episode ain’t just for the content conscious out there but also for those who’re planning to start scaling their businesses. Terrell doesn’t shy away from giving out tips and how you can focus on your role to make sure your business drives the way you need it.

2 - My wife handles our taxes so I can focus on the client stuff

Shoutout to Jason Ackerman, CPA, CFP®, CGMA

4 - Terrell’s early days and the way he got into Accounting

10 - The Business Talk Library

15 - How Terrell used the pandemic to prepare and build his business

20 - Growing the network and finding our guests

23 - What were some of your inspirations to start in a lot of this stuff?

Shoutout to Gary Vaynerchuk

27 - Learning from Oprah and Larry King

Shoutout to Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Falon

31 - Getting into the nitty-gritty of content making - the editing process

36 - On the way to becoming the content master

Shoutout to StreamYard

37 - Terrell’s firm structure

Shoutout to Lola Turner, CPA

43 - Inside the firm: Tools that we use

Shoutout to LiveFlow

48 - From finding anybody to do business with to finding the ones we can create processes for. Finding your Niche

53 - When you have three older brothers, no matter what you do, you will never be the best at it for a very long time

57 - Focus on the wins that you do have and build from there

67 - 40 Under 40

71 - Something to get excited for? Terrell’s Pitch Analysis

76 - If you're doing a little bit of everything, you'll never be able to really scale it because you're doing so much

Shoutout to Adam Hale, CPA and Chad Davis

79 - Taking notes from #NiksTips and the ones ahead of me

82 - Terrell goes to Europe

Episode 75 | Recorded July 19, 2022 for more on Justworks check out justworks.com/partners

Episode 74 | Recorded April 11, 2022

Register for FreshBooks Partner Meet Ups and admission to the Lil Toddler World Tour 2022

Come hang out with us to enjoy food, drinks, and free swag. And an opportunity to earn some extra credit with the possibility of being featured on a fresh recording of Accounting High. Spots are limited so act now!

November 3, 2022 - Atlanta

November 10, 2022 - Portland

November 29, 2022 - Toronto

December 4, 2022 - Austin

Register for FreshBooks Partner Meet Ups and admission to the Lil Toddler World Tour 2022

Scott is joined by Sandy Johns of Revolution Financial Solutions. A laid-back chat about tax, the accounting space, the pandemic, Apple, subscriptions, and relationships. A real refresher of what has been happening in our world over the past years. Sandy shares her experience of growing up in a conservative household and how their shared grace made up the uniqueness of her family. Surely, our diversity brings us all together to continue learning from each other in making this space a great place to evolve and revolutionize.

2 - Tax season in 2022: Cushions from the past two years are gone now

Shoutout to Jason Ackerman, CPA, CFP®, CGMA

6 - Sandy’s Unique family

10 - It's important that we approach things looking for an opportunity to find common ground with others

13- the importance of bringing diverse points of view and life experiences to the profession so that we can learn from each other

17 - Outsourcing Tax

Shoutout to SurePrep LLC, Thomson Reuters’ UltraTax, Donna Bordeaux

22 - The more touch points you have with the client, the easier everything else is

26 - If you look at this relationship as purely transactional, you're probably not the right fit for us

29 - Doing sales gives us the ability to filter and get the kind of clients that we want

Shoutout to Ryan Lazanis, CPA

32 - How the Pandemic changed us

35 - The unintended bonuses (and consequences) that came with the changes we do to our firm

Shoutout to Karbon

41 - Connecting the community is a service to the profession

Shoutout to Xero, James Clear’s Atomic Habits

46 - 100 Days of No Code

Shoutout to Jason Staats, CPA, MBA, Airtable, Apple

49 - The Apple Empire Supremacy

Shoutout to Scott Galloway, Disney, Amazon

57 - One of Apple’s brilliance: Backing the right horse

59 - We don’t need to be afraid of pricing because pricing attracts the right clients

63 - a poor man and a rich man

65 - What Crypto brings to the Accounting space

Episode 73 | Recorded May 27, 2022

A Fresh Book Report @ Accounting High 

with Scotty Scarano and Twyla Verhelst, CPA

Today's Book Report is on Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Ever felt like you’re the king of the world? Or like you’re carrying the world on your shoulders? When was the last time you felt like you won? Or the last time you felt like you lost? What and who got you there? Our Ego, if left unchecked, clouds our vision and prevents us from reaching greater heights. It affects us not just in moments of success but in our failures as well. Do you have too much pride to ask for help? Look in the mirror and gauge yourself. Listen in as Scott and Twyla attempt to defeat their greatest enemies, themselves.

4 - Your biggest enemy is yourself and you’re more likely to be what gets in the way than anything else

7 - The three components: Aspire, Success, and Failure

Shoutout to Atomic Habits by James Clear, The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

8 - Aspire: losing touch with reality and letting your pride block what’s in front of you

Shoutout to Frank Shamrock

10 - Find your Plus, Minus, and Equals in life and in business

Shoutout to Catherine Graham, Angela Merkel

15 - You get confidence, but if you’re not careful, it takes you too far

17 - Once you taste that success and you feel like you know it all… That’s gonna lead to failure

20 - Beware of the disease of me

Shoutout to Pat Riley, Steve Jobs, Kanye West

22 - A lot of awareness and intention is required to keep us from becoming our own barriers

25 - A monk is separate from all and in harmony with all

27 - Failure: being defined by your success that you can’t even define yourself when you fail

36 - Was it them? Was it me? Or is it the circumstances that got us here?

37 - Every step of the way, Ego is the Enemy

39 - We may think that we're never equipped to get there, but there are definitely people like you that have gotten there and even past that

Shoutout to Kenji Kuramoto, Nikole Mackenzie, CPA

Episode 72 | Recorded October 6, 2022 

Guest: David Barrett 

Hosts: Nikole Mackenzie and Scott Scarano 

Scott and Nikole get to chat with Expensify’s David Barrett. Unfiltered, uncaged, unmasked talk with the SuperApp founder. For real, no summary would be enough to describe just how dope David is. Are you ready to be shaken from your core beliefs? Go past your limit and be limitless just like how David and his team ushered their company to continuously evolve with the times. Familiar with Expensify? Think you know what they really are? Guess you’ll be dumbfounded to know where they’re really headed. This is definitely an episode you wouldn’t want to miss as David shares his experiences and imparts his way of thinking that’ll make you say “Guess it’s time to let the alien in me take control” 

"The story we tell ourselves about who we are, that story can change. The ink should never dry on the novel you're writing about yourself. You should reinterpret your history." 

2 - Who inspires David?... the fictional Mr. Darcy 

5 - Tell me something you fucked up, “Confident I do the best I can with the info I have” and “I’ve made some very expensive mistakes” 

6 - What is the root of all evil? Altruism 

9 - The secret to happiness and success is purpose. Do you believe that your actions are advancing you to some sort of long-term personal purpose? “Real change happens with a business model - that's the only way to save the world” 

16 - Expensify’s structure? It is like a garden, a magical, mysterious garden where everyone, every day is planting seeds that we've never seen before “Live rich have fun and save the world  - Every day should be awesome - Work-life balance is almost toxic” 

19 - A comp model determined by your peers? Do you worry about unconfirmed biases? 

26 - It was never built to be an expense reporting product… We just happen to start with expense management because it has a number of great features to it “Perfection is unachievable. - I never want to leave my company - Be bizarre, be different” 

32 - What are the limits of Expensify as a superApp? Or are there limits? 

34 - Change is not intrinsically good. We don’t do anything without defining the problem we’re trying to solve 

39 - There are no rules. Only CONSEQUENCES: If I think it's gonna drive the business and help us leverage, have fun, save the world, we're gonna do it 

41 - Self-doubt got burned out of David throughout his career 

47 - How to make your company an environment for creativity? 

62 - We haven’t even launched yet, in my mind. It’s just that our prototype is so valuable 

69 - We’re alien in many respects, not because we seek to appear alien. It’s just that we don’t see the same constraints that others do 

70 - Failing to mind the imagination gap was my biggest fuck up 

71 - I am limited by what I can convince people to do 

72 - Grappling with notions of identity.  Don't look into your self-identity The ink should never dry on the novel of your life. 

73 - A creative mother fuckin force Everything bad is good for you - link to this book  

74 - Evolution of books, radio, tv, and internet - the screen time battle 

75 - Negative patterns. Experts are only experts in historical events 

76 - The business model of social networks. Expensify as a social network? It’s for people who wanna get shit done 

82 - Scott RAPS UP the episode

Episode 71 | Recorded April 11, 2022

Guest: John Briggs

Hosts: Jason Ackerman & Scott Scarano

John Briggs, the man who created an accounting firm where accountants make more money and work less cause traditional firms suck. Scott and Jason got great insights on how John manages his firm and you can too! This is an episode that firm owners wouldn’t want to miss. Not a firm owner? No problem cause you never know what you’ll get here until you listen to John’s stories and how his team is getting the best out of their professional lives

2 - Too many accountants seem like they end up working for the government instead of their clients

7 - 100K belt buckle?! Aggressively writing off your expenses for your business

10 - Focusing on taxes, is it the opposite way now?

Shoutout to Intuit TurboTax

14  - In-depth discussion of CFO work/advising services

18 - Ever heard of the PITA box of clients?

20 - Incite Tax’s take on pricing their services

25 - I think to save the industry, we have to be aware as firm owners of the burden we're putting on our team

29 - John’s secrets to efficiency

Shoutout to Insightly, Canopy

38 - Incite Tax’s management structure: Breaking away from the norm

47 - All of our audience understand that revenue is not the same as profit. Right? Right?

Shoutout to Padgett Business Services, Dark Horse CPAs, Breakaway Bookkeeping & Advising, High Rock Accounting

52 - The challenges that come with Incite Tax’s structure setup for it’s licensees

57 - Too much more to learn but too little time with John.

58 - Interested in becoming a licensee of Incite Tax? Reach out to John at [email protected]

Shoutout to Greg Kyte, CPA, Reach Reporting, Justin Hatch

Episode 70 | Recorded July 12, 2022

Purpose - the reason for which something is done or created.

What is your reason for doing or creating something? In this episode, Niks and Scott share their own purposes and give us an insight into how we can find ours. Our passion defines us but our purpose defines who, what, and where we want to be. Listen in and get a better look into yourself like our hosts did and you might be surprised at what your true purposes are.

1 - A lot of things I do are by accident, but accidentally on purpose

2 - Be sure to check out liveflow.io/sons

6 - How do moments in our lives fit into our purpose

8 - Figuring things out as they come along. Does that work out?

Shout out to Jason Ackerman, CPA, CFP®, CGMA, Blake Oliver, CPA

10 - The moment we realize it’s always about money until it’s not

Shout out to Dave Olsen, Jay Shetty, Madeline Reeves

14 - Living in your Dharma is a certain route to fulfillment

Shoutout to Liz Mason

16 - Purpose. What is it really? How do we know what ours is?

19 - Quadrants of potential

24 - Niks goes through an exercise about finding her Dharma

Shoutout to Ashley Carroll

25 - The 4 types of people: Creators, Makers, Guides, and Leaders

27 - Creators are always on the move. Work hard, play hard

32 - My passion where I really want to help people is to learn from my mistakes and that’s doing this podcast

36 - Makers work hard but always maintain balance. The best right hand

Shoutout to Christopher Leon

38 - Guides use their knowledge to help people find their purpose

Shoutout to Ryan Lazanis, CPA, Kenji Kuramoto

39 - Leaders govern, inspire, and engage others

Shoutout to Ron Baker

45 - Most of the reason we're so serious is that we're so worried about what somebody else will think if we do different

Shoutout to Zachary Call, CPA

49 - Helping others is a lot easier when we’re comfortable in our own shoes

Shoutout to Mary Delaney, Karbon

54 - Nobody’s going to tell you what your purpose is. You gotta figure that out

56 - Our purpose can change. It evolves with us

Shoutout to Chet Buchman, CPA, CVA, CEPA, CGMA, CNC

60 - Your passion is for you. Your purpose is for others. Your passion becomes a purpose when you use it to serve others

74 - Everybody has something that they are great at and that's part of their purpose

75 - This podcast became a platform for Scott to find purpose

77 - Making the accounting world a better place one ear at a time. Thank you!

Episode 69 | Recorded April 4, 2022

Guest: Ryan Lazanis, CPA

Hosts: Jason Ackerman and Scott Scarano

Let’s bring our focus on the Accounting Messiah, the Righteous Lazarus aka Ryan Lazanis, and how he started impacting the accounting space. Ryan shares his internal process on how he started his accounting firm, so far ahead of the curve he practically created the curve. What is your end goal? Why not start with that end goal in mind? As for us, we aim to keep you informed, entertained, and educated until the last minute of this episode so be sure to make space for all the insights that Ryan, Scott, and Jason share.

2 - Accounting is the language of business

3 - Accounting, you’re going to need it no matter what profession you go into

6 - Ryan’s path to starting up his own accounting firm

8 - The Accounting Messiah from Montreal

13 - Xen Accounting’s early days

14 - Growth and Scale difference

Shoutout to Xero, ReceiptBank (now Dext)

18 - To scale professional services, it really starts at the offering level

21 - Creating a factory that could replicate it without you there

24 - How selling his accounting firm came about

27 - My purpose was really about helping advancing the accounting profession. Modernize the profession in some way, shape, or form

31 - An accounting trip to the tax havens

33 - Future Firm provides coaching, training, education, and community to modern accountants that want to create a scalable systematic firm that improves their lifestyle

36 - Biggest mistake traditional firms make? The firm’s structure

40 - What’s hotter than a million-dollar cloud firm with low churn

43 - What is a healthy profit margin? No lower than 30%

Shoutout to Jeff Phillips, Padgett Business Services, Dark Horse CPAs, Chase Birky, CPA, Marie (Phillips) Greene, CPA

47 - Ryan’s take on the changes coming to the accounting world

50 - Bringing the relationship back to accounting while scaling your firm

57 - Want Ryan’s tips and tricks directly in your inbox? Checkout futurefirm.co/newsletter

58 - Ryan’s advice for firm owners? Start with the end in mind

Accounting High (aka Sons of CPAs Podcast)

Season 3 Bonus Ep | Recorded July 26, 2022

this is our reaction episode to one of the latest Expensify emails...

Okay.  So if you are on Expensify's email list. You probably get emails from David Barrett all the time. He's known for sending really long opinionated irreverent emails... and we got an email directly from David with an invite to ExpensiCon.

now, now granted his emails come from David Barrett. It's got his picture on there in my Gmail, it always looks like a very personal email... 

here's the email 

It can be hard to look past the grim headlines that seem to pummel us daily, but beneath the bad news are some good trends. The worst of the pandemic is behind us, the markets have stabilized and are recovering. Good days are on the horizon, and as we all scramble to stay afloat, it's easy to overlook the slow tectonic shift happening in the accounting industry around us: the Age of the Preaccounting Superapp is dawning. And just like we did at previous moments of transformation, we're heralding this dawn by hosting our third ExpensiCon - and you're invited!

In May 2023, 100 accounting titans will gather in the pristine Puglian countryside at Borgo Egnazia to experience the finest in Italian food and wine - by the pool and around the table - while swapping stories, sharing best practices, and planning the future of our industry. If you haven't been to ExpensiCon before, here's a quick glimpse of what it'll be like:

...

We don't host ExpensiCon every year; we only do it when there is something important to discuss. Join that discussion at ExpensiCon.com.

-david

PS: Remember that Tesla contest for Approved! Accountants? We have a winner! Learn how Casey from AirCFO won a shiny new Tesla just by helping her clients adopt Expensify!

PPS: Are you an Approved! Accounting firm (or would you like to be)? Reply to this email to learn how to get significantly discounted client pricing, a dedicated account manager, and live onboarding for your clients by chat and video!

Episode 68 | Recorded March 28, 2022 

Guest: Drew Carrick aka The Rapping CPA aka Petty Ca$h 

Hosts: Blake Oliver and Scott Scarano 

Sponsor: Jirav - head over to jirav.com/sons 

PBC. If you don’t know what that means, it’s not for you. Or, go ahead, and watch the show made by accountants for accountants. Scott, Blake, and Drew dive deep into the accounting revolution that we’re currently in and bridge the connection between accounting and mainstream media. How, when, and where did this start? Where are we headed? How do we keep up with all this? Find out and listen. 

4 - Petty Ca$h’s hardcore self-introduction, give it up for The Rapping CPA 

Shoutout to Mike Whitmire, CPA, FloQast 

6 - Scott as The Rapping EA… What chu think huh? 

10 - PBC: The Office, but it’s hyper-focused on the accounting department 

Shoutout to The Office, Kate Flannery, Creed Braton, Michael Gallagher 

12 - Get insights of some upcoming projects for the accounting demograpics from Drew 

15 - Accoutant Drew vs Entertainer Drew 

22 - You create your own luck by going into the business world and making the connections 

Shoutout to Earmark 

25 - How Blake got into accounting? He didn’t want to be a starving musician 

29 - The Accounting Revolution 

33 - If you could change one thing about accounting, what would it be? 

36 - Accounting: deemed the most difficult of the school of business majors 

Shoutout to Jay-Z, NAS, Jason Ackerman, CPA, CFP®, CGMA 

40 - Public Accounting Anthem’s purpose 

43 - Drew’s taste of fame 

Shoutout to Lil Dicky aka David Burd 

45 - The multiverse of Drew Carrick 

Shoutout to Marissa Jones, Logic, EMINƎM, Weird AL Yankovic 

51 - The goal is not to make money off of this. It’s to make something that the accounting demographic can relate to 

Shoutout to Phil Mickelson, KPMG 

56 - PBC Season 2? 

Shoutout to Josh Sims, Joshua Glassman 

61 - I haven't really felt like it's over my head cause like I said, I think I've been preparing my whole life for this specific job 

65 - Can I have your attention, please? 

71 - My entire life is built on this notion of balance… it’s been this balancing act 

Shoutout to Joe Rogan, Jamie Fox 

77 - Nobody could ever come close to being you, so always stay true to you