2022世界杯足球排名 today<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n“i’ve always been interested in technology and, and you know, efficiencies,” verity said, always wanting to know how his firm could produce more and work more efficiently. “that means less hours that we have to spend in the office ourselves.”\u00a0<\/span>the managing partner of verity cpas–based in honolulu–was surrounded by a team that obviously felt the same about getting out of the office and on the beautiful beaches of hawaii.<\/p>\nhowever, verity said while hope played a role, he had to be sure any new technologies would be the right fit for his firm.<\/p>\n
“i did do due diligence,” verity said of one of his current technology service providers. “i read through all their agreements, i did all their demos, and i talked to some of the existing clients as well, and that was, you know, other cpa firms that they had partnered with. and that was so huge.”<\/span><\/p>\n“and so we just, you know, took that leap of faith,” verity said.<\/span><\/p>\nand finding the right fit allowed exponential growth.<\/p>\n
after starting his own firm as a sole practitioner 10 years ago, verity said his firm, verity certified public accountants has more than doubled its team–and profits.<\/p>\n
“we went from 30 to, you know, 20- to 30% margins on that work to about 40- to 60%,” he explained. “so more than just about doubled.”<\/span><\/p>\nhow? verity said his firm made the choice to invest in technology when they decided the right technology could eliminate one salaried position and pay for itself, but it would also show the staff the firm was willing to make smart investments to allow the staff to work on projects that were more engaging and that allowed them to do the work they wanted to do.<\/p>\n
verity said he always feels like there’s a better way to do things. “like there’s some improvements to be made constantly, like to reevaluate the process over and over just to kind of see where the kinks are, where we can troubleshoot where we can make the process better, where we can streamline,” he explained. “and, then another component i always see is just the ability to integrate technology and to make the process smoother to reduce some of the redundancies, smooth out some of the kinks and really try to get away from having a professional sitting there.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nmore takeaways from dustin verity<\/strong><\/p>\n\ntechnology is his firm’s second-largest expense. verity uses tech as an investment to enable them to spend more time away from the office. get rid of the drudgery work and menial tasks and get your people to review the work instead and turn that into more meaningful work.<\/li>\n his firm has doubled its margins on bookkeeping work by optimizing technology.<\/li>\n his firm has optimized offshoring for cas and tax work.<\/li>\n his firm uses a flat staffing model to offer more direct interactions between staff and partners, which has made his team more efficient. additionally, the client gets more face time, too.<\/li>\n get out of being the bottleneck as the managing partner by hiring and outsourcing hr, admin and it.<\/li>\n allow your team to do what they’re good at and what they want to do versus trying to force them to do tasks or manage projects they don’t want to do.<\/li>\n use personality tests to help identify the skills and talents people have, as well as learn how they tend to work most efficiently.<\/li>\n be part of a group or association so you can network and be able to talk to others about what they are doing, how they are overcoming obstacles, learn about their experiences with vendors or technology and build your professional network.<\/li>\n it’s also important to network so you can refer work to others who won’t steal your clients, and you can return the favor.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nverity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nabout dustin verity, cpa, cgma \n<\/strong>dustin verity has over twenty years of providing accounting, tax, audit, and attest services to small and middle-market businesses and organizations. dustin serves on the aicpa\u2019s accounting and review services committee, which is a standard-setting body for accounting and review standards and is limited to seven experienced partners nationwide. dustin is an alumnus of the aicpa technical issues committee, which advocates for accounting firms and their clients in the standard-setting process with the fasb, gasb, asb, arsc, and peec.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\ndustin also serves as a technical writer for the aicpa and has contributed to such practice aids as, the real estate ventures and construction contractors audit risk alert, the construction contractors audit and accounting guide, the employee benefits plan audit risk alert, internal control for today\u2019s smart businesses, and, the auditor\u2019s report: comprehensive guidance and examples.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\nadditionally, dustin also serves as an adjunct professor at shidler school of business, university of hawaii.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\nprior to forming verity cpas, dustin was a principal at pkf pacific hawaii llp and a senior manager at grant thornton llp. dustin is licensed to practice as a cpa in the states of hawaii and california and is a graduate of chapman university with a bachelor of science in accounting. dustin is also a licensed chartered global management accountant. dustin serves as treasurer & director of the board of governors of shriners honolulu hospital. dustin is a member of the aicpa and hawaii society of cpas; an executive member of the california society of cpas; and serves on the executive peer review committee for the state of hawaii.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\ntranscript \n<\/strong>(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)<\/em><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>00:18<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nwelcome to transformation talks. i’m your host bill penczak. i’m the chief transformation officer for the center for accounting transformation. during these episodes, we’ll visit with a spectrum of practitioners who are successfully navigating their own changes within their firms, their real-life examples of transformation in the accounting profession. and today with me is dustin verity. he’s the managing partner of a firm in hawaii and let him talk for a little bit. we’re going to talk about some of his journey in the firm’s journey in terms of transformation. so, dustin, tell us about your background and tell us about the firm.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>00:50<\/span> \n<\/span>oh, thanks, bill. sure, i actually started my career off grant thornton, in their southern california practice. and, you know, after working there for several years, you know, i really, really enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, but just spending, you know, two to four hours a day on the <\/span>405 j<\/span>ust, you know, can wear a person down on top of the long hours. a friend of a friend put me with a real estate developer in hawaii, and they paid for the move. and after doing that, for several years, i rejoined grant thornton, but in their honolulu office. i had a much shorter commute, which made it a lot more, a lot nicer. and then when they pulled out of the market, i eventually ended up starting my own firm and you know, initially it was just me myself. and in february, we hit 10 years, and now we’re up to about 22 full time employees. so, it’s been quite a journey.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>01:50<\/span> \n<\/span>i guess so! so, when we first talked, i guess about a month or more ago, you were telling me about <\/span>some of the technologies that you all are already using, which i found kind of unusual for a firm your size.\u00a0c<\/span>an you talk about why you’ve made some of those investments and some of those adoptions now, early on, versus later on, when you’re at a bigger scale?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>02:11<\/span> \n<\/span>i’ve always been interested in technology and, and you know, efficiencies, and to the extent that, you know, we can produce more work more efficiently, that means less hours that we have to spend in the office ourselves, right? and then we can go out and enjoy this beach and the sun and so forth here in hawaii. over the years, technology has kind of grown to our second largest expense, right under compensation. and, you know, sometimes, you know, get so interested, get so wrapped up into it, that, you know, we’ll jump in there and commit for a year or so and experiment with a tool and find that it doesn’t work. or maybe it is too big for our firm. and then we’ll move on and try something new. but there’s so many choices out there. and there’s so many new tools coming out just for the different service lines, right? tax has its own tech stack, and cas has its own and then audit. there’s a lot of exciting things happening in audit now, which is great, because that is such a labor-intensive service line. so, it’s great to see things kind of moving to greater efficiencies in that practice as well.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>03:36<\/span> \n<\/span>was that a tough decision to make these investments? are you personally predisposed to understanding, appreciating, and using technology yourself?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>03:49<\/span> \n<\/span>right, exactly. i’m always looking for new gadgets, and i like to, you know, play with the new toys as they come out and so forth. and, you know, it’s just one of those where just, you know, really i’m kind of drawn towards it. just the different tools and the different technologies out there. you know, always kind of feel like there’s a better way to do things like there’s some improvements to be made constantly like to reevaluate the process over and over just to kind of see where the kinks are, where we can troubleshoot where we can make the process better, where we can streamline. and, you know, there’s always training training training with the professionals. and then another component i always see is just the ability to integrate technology and to make the process smoother to reduce some of the redundancies, smooth out some of the kinks and really try to get away from having\u00a0a professional sitting there. tying invoices out to a general ledger or an ar schedule. and then tying that to a bank statement when there’s tools out there now, that can help automate that process. and it’s entirely<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>05:08<\/span> \n<\/span>i call that smart people doing stupid work. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity<\/span><\/b> \nexactly, exactly. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak<\/span><\/b> \nbecause you think about you get the people that you get working in this profession, in my opinion, are smarter than the average mayor. and, you know, especially the ones that are in there. so their cpa, it’s not a, it’s not an easy test\u00a0to take. and so you put you get they graduate, and you put them in any firm puts them into a staff position, and they’re doing the kind of menial tasks that you just described, right? probably wondering, why the heck did i make this career choice. and i really appreciate the fact that firms like yours are making that investment, to be able to take that drudgery work away from people and let them do higher value work for their clients.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>05:52<\/span> \n<\/span>right. i mean, you know, nowadays, if you look at it, the professionals coming out of college, you know, it used to be the starting salary was maybe around 50,000, and then it you know, all of a sudden, it was 55, one now is closer to 60,000, you know, straight out of college, and to have, you know, somebody do that level, you know, being paid that level and have that level of you know, background and education and enter put on doing something that menial, you know, just didn’t make any sense to me either. and so one of the technologies that we adapted around that this really helped that process that was data snipper. and so yeah, expand, you know, a cost to 10 grand every year. but if you’re saving $50,000 and labor costs, they totally make sense, right? the cost benefit is there. and that helps out with some of those, those menial tasks like that.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>06:52<\/span> \n<\/span>are you doing anything on the client accounting services side from a technology standpoint?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>06:57<\/span> \n<\/span>oh, yeah. that we do… we do… that’s probably the more tech heavy service line on all because, you know, we, you know, we’re everything, every client needs to be an online accounting application, and we’re more of a quickbooks online and xero shop. and then from there, you know, it just depends upon what the clients need. if they need payroll, then we integrate gusto with either of those platforms. if they need help with budgeting, and managing costs, you know, we introduce them to divvy. if they need help with ap, it’s <\/span>bill.com. a<\/span>nd then we get all those systems integrated with all their bank feeds, and so forth. and then we partnered with the botkeeper to help automate that process altogether. you know, and\u00a0here, again, it’s letting them do the menial bank rec tasks. and, you know, tie this to the bank statement, so forth, let them do all those real processes. and they take care of all that they let us know if there’s any one-off transactions that we can help with, we review the financials, we review the ap, you know, and build out calm, and we do all the higher-level reviews. but here again, you have professionals reviewing the work and preparing the financial statements, versus, you know, inputting an invoice in ap, or doing a bank recon, or updating somebody’s hours for payroll.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>08:28<\/span> \n<\/span>do you feel like there’s been–because of those investments or resulting improvement–in your retention of people? or is it hard to tell? you know, the market is kind of goofy right now, overall, but what do you think people are staying around? because they’re doing more challenging work, rather than those other labor-intensive tasks?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>08:50<\/span> \n<\/span>oh, absolutely. they feel like it’s a lot more worthwhile. they feel like they’re able to put their degree in the practice, and they get better value out of the work. and then we as a firm, get greater efficiency. so instead of having, like, someone out of college, you know, sit there and work on three to five accounting clients every month. now, they can supervise 15. so, it makes a huge difference. and yeah, you know, initially botkeeper looked like it was going to be, you know, probably outside of our price range. it was a hard pill to swallow. they were kind of newer at the time. it was a new service line that we were getting into. and so it was really, it was really just a leap of faith. but, you know, i did do due diligence. and so, you know, i read through all their agreements, i did all their demos, and i talked to some of the existing clients as well, and that was, you know, other cpa firms that they had partnered with. and that was so that was huge. and so we just, you know, took that leap of faith. and here we are, i think we’ve been with them about five years or so now. and it’s just been a very rewarding partnership.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>10:16<\/span> \n<\/span>so have you been able to track with any kind of level of detail, any kind of improvement in margin contribution as a result of some of the investments that you’re making? you know, obviously, obviously, firms look at, we want to be more efficient. and, you know, you just you said it yourself, there’s an expense that goes with that. but if you look at the before and after, are you satisfied that your overall margin has been improved? because of those technology investments?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>10:44<\/span> \n<\/span>oh, yeah, no doubt, we went from 30 to, you know, 20- to 30% margins on that work to about 40- to 60%. okay. so more than just about doubled.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>11:01<\/span> \n<\/span>that’s impressive. any other technology like on the date, you want to talk about, like on the audit side, maybe?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>11:07<\/span> \n<\/span>the audit side has a lot of, you know, interesting stuff for exciting stuff coming in, i already mentioned data snipper. very looking forward to the das, the dynamic audit solution, very much looking forward to that. we’re starting to do a lot more with caseware cloud right now. and i believe that’s the platform that das has built on as well. so really looking forward to that. we had previously piloted pcr for the prep constant reviews. and we really like that tool and how it made it a more interactive experience with the management, set them as up as a user on the platform and let them participate in the audit, so to speak. as well, so that they could, you know, respond to the inquiries, you know, populate it, and the audit tool or the pcr that tool, we could review it, follow up with them, and so forth, and just made that whole process a lot more streamlined. the only reason we didn’t fully adopt it at that time is we needed the full solution. we also needed the audit solution. and that wasn’t available at that time, but very much looking forward to das. and then, of course, we probably pick up pcr as well as the ebp tool at that same time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>12:35<\/span> \n<\/span>i meant to ask you this earlier, what’s the split among audit, tax, and client accounting services?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>12:42<\/span> \n<\/span>so we initially started off as an audit shop, because that was my background at grant. and then, over the years,\u00a0it’s just changed, and now it’s shifting to where it’s more tax and cas heavy. two years ago, would have been about 60% audit, and now it’s about 50\/50. audit and then cas…kind of group cas and tax in the same bucket.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>13:08<\/span> \n<\/span>is there a great degree of overlap between the tax clients and the cas clients?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>13:13<\/span> \n<\/span>exactly, a lot of times, it’s small businesses that will do\u00a0their accounting for and and also their tax work as well. and then we’ll do the owners tax returns, as well. so that’s why there’s a lot of overlap. so, it’s really hard to kind of segregate those out a little bit. so yeah.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>13:29<\/span> \n<\/span>so, you know, one of the big issues in the industry today is finding\/retaining talent. in fact, the center did a little piece of research for one of the associations. and guess what, like the number one and two issues had to do with finding people or holding on to the people that they had, and the resulting cost increases that went with that. and and you’re in a comparatively small market in terms of population. and so how–my understanding is you’ve been using offshoring–how has that worked for you? and how does that alleviate some of the capacity issues? and then also, did you have to overcome, you know, some of the bias that i think a lot of firms have against offshoring, either because they’re concerned about what clients are going to think? or the cultural differences? or time differences? maybe not, in your case, the time difference so much from you sitting in hawaii, but what are some of the thought processes that you went through? and what are some of the outcomes that you’ve seen as part of that, that that part of your transformation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>14:31<\/span> \n<\/span>so that was another one of those leaps of faith? and honestly, before the pandemic, we were, you know, we were one of those that were one of those firms that are very much hesitant, reluctant…were very much like, you know, \u201cwhat are the clients going to say, you know, just every, you know, what you were mentioning, but i think, you know, now that you know, we’ve been through the pandemic and you look at the people working virtually you know, what difference is it really from, you know, somebody working for an east coast firm in california? how much different is that really then, you know, somebody on the mainland working for, you know, a hawaii firm. so, we, you know, and it’s kind of the…now that that box has been opened, so to speak, the line, the geographical lines are kind of blurred. and it’s all just on technology now. so, we do, we started onshoring a lot of our tax returns where it made sense. and then i’ve already talked about the accounting services and how we partner with botkeeper there. and then they have, you know, folks overseas and so forth, as well as their technology. and but yeah, i mean, i think really, it was the there was a whole paradigm shift because of the pandemic. and now, you know, i see no reason why not to embrace it. i was reading an article, it might have been in accounting today or somewhere they were talking about 30% of all tax and accounting work is is offshored. nowadays, and i just see that number getting bigger, it’s, we don’t necessarily, like i mentioned, we don’t have the folks that want to do that data entry, we don’t have the folks that want to be doing the grunt work. so, to the extent that there are those folks and different geographic locations, that can fill that void, and then have our folks do more meaningful work, then, then that’s great. you know, there are some time zone constraints here and there. but at the end of the day, we’ve been able to work with our partners to make sure that we have regularly-scheduled meetings, and everything’s lined up and so forth. and i actually see us do more offshoring in the future as well, when it comes to the tax and cas\u00a0practice. the audit side is a little tricky, just because there’s judgment that goes there into it. and, you know, i know that some firms are doing it now. and i’m kind of interested to see the outcome of that. but for the most part, on the audit side, we’ve been more readily embracing technology to help fill some of that, you know, take on some of that menial work. but i would like to be able to to offshore, more audits, but it would get you know, it’s just, i don’t think we’re quite there yet. but i think within the next couple of years, especially once you know more of these online audit platforms come out, that will be a lot easier to offshore that work and so forth.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>17:58<\/span> \n<\/span>are you–in terms of the offshoring like you’re doing now for tax and for cas–are you using a like an aggregator or a company to find people? or do you have a separate operation setup that’s your company? or how did you structurally do that?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>18:16<\/span> \n<\/span>right now, we’re, we’re going through–well, i’ve already used plenty of work. right now, we’re going through cch. they have a program. and we’re really interested in you know, revisiting sureprep and gruntworx, as well in the future. we’re not to the size yet where we can set up our own firm, you know, in the philippines or india, but i know there are other larger firms that have offered, you know, us partnering with them and them helping us get set up, and so forth. so, there are those relationships that are available. but right now, we’re pretty comfortable going through, you know, the service providers that are already established and already have, like a set program in place.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nbill penczak\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>19:08<\/span> \n<\/span>one of the other cool things that we talked about in the prep for today’s call dealt with making the organization more flat. and i think we’ve talked about an article about firms in general companies in general, are trying to eliminate managers. and and you kind of were talking about you guys have done that already. can you talk about the decision to have a flatter staffing model and what the benefits have been to the firm and to your clients?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ndustin verity\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>19:38<\/span> \n<\/span>yeah, i don’t know if it was a determination that was made or just the reality of our situation. it was we had a top and then we had, you know, folks coming in straight out of college. and i guess…\u00a0so there wasn’t, wasn’t necessarily any like, h\u201dey, we’re gonna flatten this organization.\u201d you know, that was that was how we ended up. but it is, you know, there’s pros and cons to it, just like everything else. it’s, and, you know, the joke always is, you know, hey, we’re gonna spin, you know, we’ve been looking for that five-year audit manager for five years kind of thing, right? and so, we’ve always been in the process, like, hey, let’s, you know, develop a great internship program, look to hire from that program, and, you know, develop folks over time, and, you know, make sure they’re doing meaningful work, make sure that the, it’s, you know, a happy work environment that everybody enjoys being here. everybody has fun. and, you know, hopefully, though, they’ll stick around, you know, just treat everybody well. and that’s happened. so now, the interns have started with this, you know, maybe they started three years ago as an intern. and now, they’re senior associates, you know, and they’re all doing well, and they’re all progressing, and we’re encouraging, you know, get their cpa license and continue moving up. but, you know, as a result of having the flat organization, it’s, i think there’s a lot more hands-on that the staff has, of course, with the partners now, because there’s no, you know, do not go into a manager, and then there’s a manager review, and then they go to the partner and as a different partner review. so, the partners are much more involved. there’s less level reviews, it’s a little bit more efficient. you don’t have one manager, say to do one way, and then the partner saying it to do another, you just cut out that, that middle all together, the clients get more face time, because they’re also not dealing with a middleman. and, honestly, it results in a much more efficient audit. and, i think, a much better experience for the staff, right? of course, maybe not as nice of an experience for the partners, because now they’re, they’re training, reviewing, networking, selling client issues, and they have their hands full, a little bit more than what they normally would have. but you know, at the end of the day, we monitor that, and we try to make sure that nobody’s working more than they need to or should be, and so forth. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n