Does Your Bookkeeper Know What Your CPA Needs

How many employees are asked to handle the basic bookkeeping needs of their employer even though they aren't technically trained to do so? For the small business, my estimate is about one in every office. After all, they have Quick Books. Unfortunately, the assumption that once you can create an invoice and print a check does not mean your accounting system is functioning properly.

Most business owners don't understand accounting and many of them are quite successful. Seems logical then that they believe a bright employee of theirs should be able to figure it out, especially with a highly touted computer program like Quick Books. Well I can tell you from 25 years of personal experience that 80-90% of those situations cost that employer when it comes time to work with his/her accountant or CPA. There seems to be so little focus or importance placed on the accounting records even though every business owner knows they need them. At the very least the business owner knows they need to file tax returns every year. They also know the tax return is derived from their accounting records but yet the importance placed on those records is so little.

When importance is place on a function, it normally performs well. When it isn't functioning well, people are trained or hired that have the skill set to make sure it is performed well. I guess thats what the CPA is for...they/we should be able to figure it all out. And figure it out we do, but at what cost? Doesn't it make sense to spend a few dollars training your bookkeeper to do a better job so that the CPA can focus on high value services like tax planning instead of cleaning up Quick Books files?

I have trained many bookkeepers during my 25 years but never developed a training program for them. With the recession in full force I have put together a series of three webinars that teach bookkeepers the practical side of bookkeeping and finally explaining to them exactly what the independent accountant/CPA needs from them. The goal is for employers to get more for the dollars they are spending on their staff and more for the dollars they are spending with their accountant/CPA. As good as Quick Books is, it falls way short on explaining how crucial it is you understand the accounting that happens on the on the back side of those invoice and check transactions and how expensive it is for a trained professional to clean it up.

The first webinar, titled "Understanding What Your CPA Needs From You", launches this month and the rest will launch in January, stay tuned for the details. Get your house in order, invest training dollars wisely and I wish everyone a fantastic holiday season and a tremendously prosperous new year!

Share The Knowledge

One of the most important things we can do to help our organizations, associates, employees, and any one else we care about is to share what we know with them.  After all, that is what teaching is.  At R&A we have recently taken this to a new level.  Just this month, our efforts in an international collaboration with other CPA firms went "live".

R&A is a member of an international organization that teaches CPA firms how to provide consulting services to small and mid-sized businesses.  This group provides us with phenomenal training and "best practice" tools and techniques to deliver these services.  With Ran One's

assistance, a group of about 12 CPA firms from across the globe launched a new website to assist business all around the world during the horrific economic crisis.  Please visit the site at http://www.economicrecoveryresourcecenter.com.  The information on this site is as valuable as you can find any where.

Keep the American dream alive, stay focused and use the resources around.  We are all in the same boat, and we all need each other to make it through to better days!

Victor Puchi, CPA

Managing Shareholder

R&A CPAs

www.RandAcpas.com

People Care

So I've been pretty quiet on the blog front for quite some time. I was just recently inspired to continue by one of my staff members that said "I miss reading what your thoughts are". If one person is interested, I suspect there are more, so here I am.

In todays market place, the accounting profession is still experiencing a shortage of qualified professionals. This environment causes businesses to be extra efficient and excellent at retention if they are to compete. We've been struggling with this for years now and every day we get better at transforming our young and not so you team from takers to givers.

Last Friday we launched the annual R&A Employee Retreat. For the first time ever, we closed the office and took all employees to a resort for a day of education. The key was that the education had nothing to do with accounting but everything to do with personal development and what R&A CPAs was all about and how or why each individual makes a difference. We had a great guest speaker, Robert Van Arlen, that started the day off and really got things moving in the right direction. For eight straight hours we educated and learned like never before. Sometimes all you have to do is ask and you'll find out where the interests are and even more important you find out where you can help. People really want to do the right thing for the most part and in order to help/teach them you must listen. In this case it helped by asking away from our typical environment in a setting that was built to show we care. We learned that we have a lot of very special people that care too! Everybody there on Friday won a very special prize and we all will benefit.

If anyone out there is in need of a keynote or motivational speaker Robert Van Arlen is your guy! Check him out at www.robertvanarlen.com. I need to make sure I let you all know that I met Robert through Main Corridor, www.maincorridor.com, another great organization you should check out.