scrapping traditional accounting<\/span><\/h3>\ni started summit cpa in 2002 with the goal of changing the way people think about accounting.<\/strong><\/p>\n\ni wanted to change the way we worked with clients<\/strong> and the value we were offering them as accountants.<\/li>\ni wanted to offer a better working environment<\/strong> for accountants than the traditional, boring roles that were out there at the time.<\/li>\nand i wanted to change the way the industry viewed us.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\none of the first things i did was hire adam hale who became my partner and summit cpa\u2019s chief operating officer. adam was able to help take all of the ideas rolling around in my head and put them into place. we chose to name the business summit cpa group, rather than grunden & hale because we always wanted the firm to be bigger than the two of us.<\/p>\nadam hale, cpa, and coo of summit cpa group<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nwe wanted to do more for businesses than simply help them file their tax returns and provide them with historical financials that nobody understood. we started out by meeting with clients on a monthly basis to go over their financial statements and try to put everything into layman\u2019s terms. we wanted to help them understand the financial side of their business on a deeper level.<\/p>\n
“we quickly came to realize that whenever we started talking about the past, clients\u2019 eyes would gloss over. clients don’t care about the past. they want to know about the future.”<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nso, in 2004 we started to implement forecasting into our service. we would teach our clients how to read their financial statements and understand how their actions on a monthly basis were impacting their future.<\/p>\n
dynamic forecasting: happy clients<\/span><\/h3>\n <\/p>\n
with dynamic forecasting, we\u2019re not just talking about the income side of things \u2013 net profit, gross profit, etc.\u2014we\u2019re also talking about the cash and debt position.<\/p>\n
\nhow much cash is the company going to have in two months, six months, twelve months?<\/li>\n when are we going to have to rely on the line of credit?<\/li>\n when can we pay off debt early?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nwe create a plan and then monitor our situation monthly against the plan, changing assumptions on a regular basis. that’s why we call it a dynamic forecast.<\/p>\n
we found that our clients were really intrigued by this. instead of, \u201cugh, i\u2019ve got to go meet with my accountant for two boring hours,\u201d it became,\u00a0\u201ci\u2019m going to meet with my accountant, and we\u2019re going to talk about strategy and the future of my company!\u201d at that point, we were only meeting with our clients monthly, and they actually wanted to meet with us more often.<\/p>\n
we started meeting with them for an hour every week to go over cash flow, forecasting, and overall business strategy.<\/p>\n
no stress-filled busy seasons!<\/span><\/h3>\n one of the biggest benefits for us was that when the end of the year came, it took a lot less time for us to do our clients\u2019 taxes because we\u2019d already been on top of things and handling their questions throughout the year.<\/p>\n
this provided a natural solution for the crazy busy season most accountants endure. and, personally, this was great for me because i was a hockey coach at the time. with hockey season happening at the same time as tax season, i\u00a0selfishly wanted to be able to work a reasonable schedule year-round. changing the way we worked with clients made this possible.<\/p>\n
keep in mind, in 2002 the internet didn\u2019t really exist yet, at least not like it does today. from 2002 to 2007, we were providing these services by going out to the client, which meant all of our clients were local. we would show up at their office, or they would come to ours, and there was a lot of inefficiency with this model. commuting and losing time due to forgotten\u00a0appointments or last-minute changes created constant challenges. long term, this limitation was not going to allow us to grow in scale.<\/p>\n
we knew that if we\u00a0really wanted to grow our business, it had to become bigger than adam and me.<\/p>\n
no in-person meetings!<\/span><\/h3>\n with the advances in technology at the time, we were able to shift from in-person meetings to video conferencing.<\/p>\n
the shift to remote work allowed us to expand our client base in at least six ways:<\/strong><\/p>\n\nsaving<\/strong> on drive time opened up our schedules,<\/li>\nenabling<\/strong> us to take on more clients. and,<\/li>\nexpanding<\/strong> beyond our limited geographical location.<\/li>\ntraining<\/strong> new virtual cfos became easier and much more cost-effective.<\/li>\nturning clients over to them<\/strong> once they were up to speed on everything.<\/li>\nstart bringing on new clients<\/strong> \u2014 nothing outrageous at first. but to us, the growth was significant.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\ngoing all-in on internet advertising.<\/span><\/h3>\nwhen it came to advertising, we tried everything. we hired a direct marketing firm to do cold calls, we sent out email blasts, direct mailers, etc. advertising for cpa firms at that time had been primarily restricted to the yellow pages and the local area.<\/p>\n
we made a big decision in 2007 to stop putting money into that kind of advertising and instead shift to internet-based advertising.<\/p>\n
everybody told us we were crazy!<\/span><\/h3>\n and they were partially right. i think you have to be a little crazy to run your own business. despite what people thought at the time, i created a website and came up with the term \u201cvirtual cfo\u201d to describe the services we were providing. we were determined to grow beyond our local area, and in order to do this, we needed to think bigger when it came to marketing.<\/p>\n
it took four years before we picked up our first client, but eventually, we got our first call in 2011 from a company in rhode island called lullabot (a website design firm that specializes in drupal).<\/p>\n
they found us online and contacted us by email.\u00a0 i reached out to them, and they asked if we could provide our services to them remotely. we said absolutely! that’s how lullabot became our first truly virtual cfo client, where we couldn\u2019t actually drive to their location for a weekly meeting. lullabot loved the service so much that they started referring us to their friends! we ended up with a client from texas, and then one in new york city, and our business just kept expanding.<\/p>\n
“we went from two to four new clients a year,<\/span>\u00a0to two to four new clients a month<\/span>.”<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nthe biggest success of all was that as we were growing, we were truly helping the companies we were serving to grow as well.<\/p>\n
what’s next? going global.<\/span><\/h3>\nwhat started back in 2002 with just adam hale and i has now grown to a team of 40-plus individuals working remotely across the united states (and, hopefully soon, across the world), providing services to hundreds of companies.<\/p>\n
we went from a general focus to providing virtual cfo services to finding our niche within a specific industry\u2014digital services agencies.<\/p>\n
we added 401(k) audits to our service offerings and again went from general audit to benefit plan audit to limited scope 401(k) audit.<\/p>\n
we are growing at lightning speed, consistently adding about eight new employees per year. it\u2019s been a really fun ride!<\/p>\n
we\u2019ve accomplished what we originally set out to do\u2014offering more valuable services as accountants, and creating a sustainable, family-friendly work environment for accountants. we look forward to continuing our mission of changing the way people think about accounting!<\/p>\n
so join us!<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n the purpose of this book is to share what we\u2019ve learned along the way in our journey to becoming a virtual accounting firm offering virtual\u00a0 cfo services and 401(k) audits. advances in technology are disrupting the accounting industry\u2014in a good way. <\/em><\/p>\nwe\u2019re telling our story not to gloat or\u00a0brag, but to give you insight from our side after having already done this. we hope that knowing all of this is possible will alleviate any fears that you have and open the doors for you to take a similar journey. <\/em><\/p>\ntraditional accounting firms will need to accept these changes and prepare for how they will affect the way they do business, or they are going to get left in the dust. <\/em><\/p>\nmaybe we can help you envision and become the firm of the future, and together we will change the way people think about accounting!<\/em><\/p>\n \nhow we became a distributed company<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\u201caccountants love change!\u201d<\/em>\u2026 said nobody, ever.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\nimagine how my office of 18 people, mostly accountants, reacted when i suggested that we close down our brick-and-mortar office and start working as a distributed company.\u00a0the accounting industry was changing and we needed to change as a company in order to stay ahead in the industry. they didn’t buy it.<\/p>\n
here are some of the excuses they gave me:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\u201cwe won\u2019t be able to.\u201d<\/li>\n \u201cwe can\u2019t meet with people face-to-face.\u201d<\/li>\n \u201ci\u2019ll be distracted at home because my kids are around.\u201d<\/li>\n \u201ci don\u2019t have an office.\u201d<\/li>\n \u201cmy internet at home isn\u2019t good \u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nyou name it, i heard it. so, i caved.<\/strong><\/p>\nso, i decided to focus on the building we were already in, making the office a really cool, space we could grow into as a company nearly double our size at the time.<\/p>\n
the renovations were going to take six weeks. i had to tear down the walls and there was going to be construction everywhere \u2014 how else could we get a 250-gallon fish tank inside? so, i asked everyone to appease me and work from home for just that short period of time so we could complete the project. then we\u2019d all be back in our fresh, new offices.<\/p>\n
guess what happened after six weeks? when it came time for those 18 people to return to the office, 12 asked if they could continue to work from home.<\/p>\n
“turns out, they really liked working from home, once they got used to it.”<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nwhat their hesitancy really came down to was a fear of change or a fear of the unknown. but our temporary time out of the office helped give us a new perspective on our ability to work remotely.<\/p>\n
how our perspective on remote work changed:<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\ncollaborating remotely: <\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
we found out we were able to collaborate when working remotely just as much as, if not more than, we were when we were in the office together by using tools like sococo and slack.<\/p>\n
\n\nremote meetings: <\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nwe were able to conduct face-to-face meetings using video conferencing tools such as gotomeeting, sococo, and zoom.<\/p>\n
\n\nworking at home with kids: <\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nthe employees with kids realized the kids could still go to daycare or they could bring someone into the home to babysit while they were<\/p>\n
\n\nhome office space: <\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nthose without office space in their homes were able to come up with creative solutions. we realized one of the main keys to being productive when working from home is to have a door so you can close yourself off and focus on your work.<\/p>\n
\n\ninternet speed: <\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nemployees with concerns about internet speed were able to contact their internet companies and upgrade their service or change to another isp in order to meet the minimum upload\/download speed requirements for running the video conferencing tools and cloud-based work.<\/p>\n
after all of those renovations, $100,000 \u2013 and a 250-gallon fish tank \u2013 only six people were left in the office.<\/p>\n
now we\u2019re down to just four, and we\u2019ve grown to about 40 people, distributed all over the country. we are now going global with our team, adding members outside of the united states.<\/p>\n
if we had stayed confined to our brick-and-mortar space, we would have outgrown it by now, and i believe we would have had to make some tough business decisions that could have significantly affected our ability to grow.<\/p>\n
now it’s in our dna<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\ni wanted to share this story with you upfront because being distributed is a major part of our dna.<\/em><\/p>\nwe are a distributed accounting firm.<\/strong> this makes us very unique in our industry. and our willingness to embrace advancements in technology has transformed our client base from a limited local area to a nationwide one. running a distributed accounting firm comes down to three key areas: people, technology, and process. i\u2019ve structured this book to cover each of these three areas in detail.\u00a0let\u2019s dive in!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \n\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/em>table of contents<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\nwith step-by-step practice aids, checklists, tech guides, illustrated examples, personnel policies, scripts, letters, processes, and procedures.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nas told by the people who are actually making it happen<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\npart 1 \u2013 people<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\nchapter 1: core values & remote work culture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n126 core values every organization should consider<\/li>\n we settled on six:\n\nhumor<\/li>\n empowerment<\/li>\n adaptability<\/li>\n collaboration<\/li>\n curiosity<\/li>\n candor<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 2: using disc styles to work together effectively as a remote team<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nthe four behavioral styles every firm needs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 3: developing a leadership team<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nthe biggest mistake a leader can make<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 4: accountability vs. organizational chart<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nwhen the old-fashioned “org” chart goes wrong<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 5: running effective leadership team meetings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nthe three-letter formula that assures success<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 6: build trust through transparency<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nwhy you must share your financials with all employees<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 7: the hidden cost of running a distributed company<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nno, just because you’re paying less rent, doesn’t mean you’re pocketing more profit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 8: thinking outside the\u00a0<\/strong>(geographical) box and hiring remotely<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nthe secret to getting 700 great resumes for one job opening<\/li>\n determining a candidate\u2019s true potential: 10 sample interview questions<\/li>\n the four success traits that have nothing to do with accounting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 9: employee retention \u2013 keeping the right people on the bus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nwhat’s your team saying about your firm?<\/li>\n and why are you afraid to ask?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 10: traditional benefits for remote employees<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n\n\nwhy you can’t build a great firm with only independent contractors<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nchapter 11: creative perks for remote employees<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nhow an extra $325 a month pays off in productivity and profit<\/li>\n and don’t forget birthdays, anniversaries and holidays<\/li>\n why you need this extra channel in #slack<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\npart 2 \u2013 technology<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\nchapter 12: innovation \u2013 becoming the firm of the future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nno! to billable hours.<\/li>\n yes! to flat-rate pricing<\/li>\n why clients love it and we do too<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n