Accounting High

Episode 40 | Recorded November 22, 2021

Real Life in the Accounting Profession (feat. Rita Keller)

Shout out to our sponsors this week:

Xero and Gusto

Some of Rita's Wonderful Quotes:

“I blog about CPA firm management, I've blogged every business day for nearly 17 years. The content out there is, and then I've got it, you know, by category.”

“our partners, I think did it the right way. They let us manage the firm. And they took care of clients.”

“I think that's right too many cooks in the kitchen, I always say. if you're going to have a managing partner, give him some power, and that's basically how we grew.”

“We opened an office cold, which I do not recommend, never opened an office cold, cause it takes a long time to build up your visibility and your reputation.”

“I don't know how many headaches I see with billing and collection, which to me that's a foundational issue that shouldn't be, nobody should be worrying about that.”

“I think smaller firms like yours, what I've seen over the years are much more progressive than the larger firms”

“you have to build that brand is what I tell my clients that on the college campus and in the community, you know, you want that brand to attract clients and who attracts employees.”

“you should show your clients by example, how to run a good business. When it comes to billing collection, all that sort of stuff. They look to you to set the example and to tell them, but a lot of CPAs don't clearly define the expectation for clients. They just want to keep them happy.”

shout out to:

Gary Shamin, Mark Rosenberg, Chris Frederiksen, August Aquila, Allan Koltin, Gary Adamson, Jody Padar, and Shayna Chapman

2day is Twosday 2.22.22 happy 2sday, brought to you by the number 2 ... we present 2 you, part 2 of #NiksTips on Podcasts

Sons of CPAs Podcast bonus episode drop feat. Nikole Mackenzie, CPA and scott scarano, ea 🥶😈

shout out to all the co-hosts Jason Ackerman, CPA, CFP®, CGMA 🔥 Michael Ly and Zachary Call, CPA

mini show notes:

2 if you want to see the Pop! Cover Art that corresponds to the episode you’re listening to, check it out on Spotify Podcasts

3 Sons of CPAs title explained again…

4 finding balance in all our lives with a little bit of weed

6 Atomic Habits and The Bible both come highly recommended by Scott's clients and prospects

7 stay tuned for CPAliens

9 language isn’t always a barrier with people

10 a how-to-guide on podcasts… at least a start

11 a list of filler words that Descript will search for… “but you know” “hm” “I guess” “I mean” “I suppose” “kind of” “like” “mmm” “or something” “right” “so” “sort of” “uh” “um” “well” “you know” “you know what i mean” “you see” and repeated words

13 the difference between kind and nice

15 don’t lie to people ...podcasts are truth serums

16 Podcasts to check out Make it Count w/ Marcus A. Mire, CPA and Summit CPA Group of 3 podcasts w/ Jody Grunden, CPA

18 Scott's not high enough to indulge in the metaverse talk today

Episode 39 | Recorded November 15, 2021

A Balanced Futurist (feat. Donnamaree Ryder, CEO)

tania.ai

"everyone can look back, but the actual Magic is when you're able to look forward and start to forecast what things might look like in your business" Donnamaree Ryder

And a very special thank you to our Sponsors this week:

Gusto & Xero

Sons of CPAs Bonus episodes where Nikole “Niks” Mackenzie and Scott Scarano share a small but useful piece of practical advice as it relates to running their professional accounting firms. This episode is brought to you by the letter P

this one's a 2 parter... on Podcasts

3 shout out to AICPA Engage, best conference of the year 2021

5 Marcus Mire, Make it Count Podcast

9 Ryan Lazanis, Future Firm Podcast

11 Xero’s What Led You Here w/ Steve Vamos Podcast

12 how has the podcast enabled you to move the industry forward?

13 David Barrett, Expensify big ass Table Podcast

15 Gusto’s Caleb Newquist and Greg Kyte’s Oh My Fraud! Podcast

18 the Process to Producing this Podcast

19 Cloud Accounting Podcast, David Leary & Blake Oliver

20 The Scallion Pancake, Jason Ackerman’s food Podcast

22 Cover Art explained, shout out to Scarano, Ackerman, Niks, LySki and Zachary

Episode 38

Author of What’s Your And | whatsyourand.com | Recorded November 8, 2021

Shout out to our sponsors this week:

Xero and Gusto

Zachary’s Takeaways

Scott’s Takeaways

shout outs:

Simon Sinek “search your soul and find your why”

Jay Leno “makes you feel like you’re part of the group”

Mark Winburn “breath in happy”

Rebecca Berneck “breaking motorcycle land speed records”

Matthew Heggem “the dance of business”

Tony Nitti “mountain backing and extreme skiing and surfing”

Rumba Bwerinofa-Petrozello “karaoke in Berlin”

Dawn Brolin “NCAA champion in softball”

Lorilyn Wilson “NCAA champion in softball”

Ben Westbrook “a degree in opera”

Steven Pressfield “The War of Art”

Sons of CPAs Bonus episodes where Nikole “Niks” Mackenzie and Scott Scarano share a small but useful piece of practical advice as it relates to running their professional accounting firms. This episode is brought to you by the letter P

we do not rise to the level of our goals.  

we fall to the level of our systems and processes.

#NiksTips on Processes

Episode 37

The Evolution of Finance…as a Service (feat. Dan Gertrudes, CEO) | Co-Founder of GrowthLab FaaS | growthlabfinancial.com | Recorded November 8, 2021

Shout out to our sponsors this week:

Gusto's People Advisory and Karbon

“I didn’t fail out of the school of hard knocks, I’m still getting schooled in that school, it’s a hard knock life that we live…that’s the moral of this story”

0-10min

Figuring shit out at the ripe age of 38

Attributing equal parts luck and intention to our situations

What’s your tolerance to risk when investing in yourself

We as Americans have to keep up with ourselves and everyone around us as we fill the holes in our souls with more stuff…in the Economy built on Credit

Dan’s higher education journey of 3 schools to obtain 1 diploma

10-20min

Finance as a Function.

“[Dan] If I were you, I would probably never take on another bookkeeping business [at GrowthLab] unless they were an FP&A customer” - Ian @ Karbon

The hardest thing to sell to small businesses is Planning… it’s intangible, it’s hard to put a bookend on it

This notion of billable hours is nonsense, my challenge is how do we productize FP&A?

We need to stop having this ‘backward v forwards’ thinking conversation… planning is so back in vogue right now

“If accountants, CPAs, accounting firms can figure out this FP and a function, just like we all did 20 years ago with the cloud accounting. We're just going to become more of that trusted advisor. Like everybody talks about being the trusted advisor, but you're not a trusted advisor. If you're not on a cadence like if you're only talking to your customer once or twice a year, that's not a trusted advisor.” DG

“… and then I came across guys like Michael Ly, also not a CPA… and one of the first people I met that looked and felt a little bit more like us” DG

20-30min

“there are only two ways to make money, you leverage capital or you leverage people…we’re in the business of leveraging people” DG

Step 1 Technology and Leveraging our FP&A Function… shout out to Jirav

Step 2 Cadence and Implementing our FP&A Function… shout out to Karbon

Step 3 People and Executing our FP&A Function… shout out to our people at GrowthLab

“one thing that has kept me real is knowing that [people] leave Friday afternoon and you just don’t know if they’re coming back on Monday” DG

30-40min

“There needs to be continuity between each of the value streams…you need to replicate bookkeeping, accounting and FP&A…there needs to be a flow of information from left to right”

“my number one job as a people manager is to de-risk the people factor in what we do, which sounds totally counter-intuitive to everything we probably just talked to prior to this” DG

“I think you could argue that what you've done is you've created the processes first, before the pillar of people.” S²

The 3 Pillars of GrowthLab: Cadence, Rigor, and Team

40-50min

“if your margins aren’t great it’s either a pricing problem or a cost problem… or you’re just paying your people too much” DG

“The hourly billable model puts the onus on managing your gross margins on the customer. Fixed price, the onus is back on you as the vendor. And that's the challenge and it's very uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable place for business owners or managers of accounting firms” DG

“We have to get uncomfortable sometimes to grow, right? A lot of growth comes from being uncomfortable and, for us to grow as an industry …we're all the change agents [in an industry fraught with money and inertia]” S²

Sons of CPAs bonus episode where Niks and Scott share a small, but useful piece of practical advice as it relates to running their professional accounting firms. 

Today we're talking about Payroll with, Ms. Nikole Mackenzie of Momentum Accounting. 

let's talk about payroll...  

Episode 36

Shameless Edutainment (feat. Michael Kravshik, CPA and CA) | Co-Founder of LumiQ | lumiqlearn.com | Recorded November 1, 2021

Shout out to our sponsors this week:

Botkeeper and Reach Reporting

Some Notes:

“you need financial statements to be free of material misstatement” MK

“history is the only thing that actually happened” MK

“only fools learn from their own mistakes, the wise learn from the mistakes of others” OVB

“people don’t actively look for work until they’re extremely miserable in their job” MK

“i hope that we have created a slightly better world for accountants” MK

“a lot of times school can ruin learning and i felt like we can make learning fun and interesting…when we launched our tagline was enjoy CPE” MK

two key components to LumiQ

“what’s in-between the ears of very successful professionals is a lot more valuable than what’s in-between the covers of textbooks” MK

shout out to some guests that have been featured on LumiQ

"the creative constraints that Ethics courses pose...a lot of times the way ethics is taught is very black and white, but what’s really interesting about Ethics are the gray areas, that’s what makes it a compelling and difficult and challenging topic" MK

“Shamelessness is the key to running a startup, you just gotta forget what other people are telling you... and make waves. how do you get guests on a podcast? how do you make an impression on people? it’s by doing things that other people won’t do” MK

“Welcome to Winnipeg, we were born here, what’s your excuse?” The Simpsons

#NiksTips on Priorities…

Sons of CPAs Bonus episodes where Nikole “Niks” Mackenzie and Scott Scarano share a small but useful piece of practical advice as it relates to running their professional accounting firms. This episode is brought to you by the letter P

Maslow’s Hierarchy of an Accounting Firm

***shout out to Mike Michalowicz and his book Fix This Next***

to get really existential the number one priority is us as owners

put your mask on first then tend to others

so it’s the owner, the team, then the clients

the importance of peers and colleagues and communities

putting a priority on positive socialization

we see technology companies lose their perspective and forget about their core product by prioritizing new features over strengthening their core product

work on your core!

eat right, sleep right, and work on your core

the number one priority is taking care of yourself

eat. move. sleep.

the fundamentals. that’s what matters most in a business. because when all else fails, at least you can fall back on that… and you won’t actually fall if you’ve tied your shoelaces