Strategy and the Virtual Controller

In this episode, Damien and Penny dive deep into the importance of organizational structure, service mix, and team building for accountants and bookkeepers who seek to build intentional businesses. They share their experience with new hires who bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the table, emphasizing the importance of surrounding oneself with competent individuals to grow a business. The conve...

In this episode, Damien and Penny discuss the impact of tax season on their workload, with the bookkeeping team being busier than usual. They stress the importance of vetting potential clients before taking them on, including reviewing their website and understanding their specific needs. This helps them provide tailor-made services that meet each other client’s unique requirements. Today's conver...

In this episode, Damien and Penny discuss their recent travels and their experiences with outsourcing and hiring employees. They share their stories of exploring different cultures, meeting new people, and experiencing new things. They emphasize the importance of proper organization and onboarding processes when it comes to hiring employees or outsourcing work. They discuss how clear communication...

In this episode, Damien and Penny discuss how accounting and bookkeeping firms have been impacted by the pandemic. They discuss Penny’s recent trip to Chennai and how people are shifting towards remote work, businesses have had to adjust to a high rate of turnover, and schools have been on Zoom for two years. They delve into gender inequality and unequal representation in the workforce, as well as...

We have a treat for you for our 51st episode. You may have heard Penny talk about her business partners Nirmala and Sharmila who run the accounting firm in Chennai, India. With Penny in Chennai, we figured it was a great opportunity to chat with them to learn about what inspired them to take the entrepreneurial leap and start their own accounting firm. Two women starting their own firm may not be...

We're trying to keep it positive here at Strategy & the Virtual Controller, and today we're discussing saying no to new clients at this time of the year. Of course there's new business to be won at this time of year, but are you set up to onboard clients and get the work done successfully? If not, then just say no. Most firms will fall into this category. Saying yes, just puts unnecessary stre...

Saturday Special! Today's episode comes to you 'live' from last year's QuickBooks Connect. We were lucky enough to get 8+ attendees in the room to discuss their thoughts not only on the return of QuickBooks Connect to live and in person, but also what's happening in their firm, common challenges and how they're tackling them. It was a great session of sharing and encouraging - hope you enjoy! Don'...

Happy new year! Will it be new year new you? Or will it be same old same old. We're back with a new episode of Strategy and the Virtual Controller and today we're talking about saying no to things that don't align with your vision for your business. But instead of the negative, let's turn it into a positive and focus on what we're saying yes to. Yes to specific clients, yes to increasing prices, y...

There's no need to wait until January to start specific tasks in the year-end process. It's the start of December, so why not start communicating with your clients about what's coming up. Whether it's W9s for the 1099 process or just helping your clients get better organized, we discuss tactics that will help firms get better prepared for a less stressful tax season. If you'd like to pick our brai...

In this episode we discuss how firms can better leverage technology to not only move tasks around the office, but also move knowledge around the firm. Regardless of where your team works - virtually, physically or likely a blend of both - you need to be able to capture all of the small conversations, the small tidbits that are critical to getting the client file completed. The working papers and l...

In this episode of the tax season pre-season mini-series we talk marketing! A lot of accountants don’t like to talk about marketing, Penny included. However, you can easily reframe marketing to communicating. How are you communicating with your clients? What’s the comms plan to get them organized before the year-end? What are the frequently asked questions you know you’re going to get? The lesson...

It's the time of year again - the tax season pre-season. You've now got a small window of opportunity to make changes in your business to create a better, smoother tax season. You can't change everything, so what are 2-3 things you will focus on? This episode kicks off the pre-season, and over the next few episodes we'll be deep diving into key areas including marketing, pricing, workflow, technol...

In this episode we get super specific and talk tools. We've had a bunch of emails come in from listeners asking about how to work with multi factor authentication (MFA) for all the different apps in and accounting tech stack. We talk about tools in Penny's workflow namely yodel.io which is is VoIP company that has a bunch of integrations including Slack and Relay Financial which is a new fin tech...

There are many ways to define a workflow, but, put simply, it’s  the organization of work so you can see how it should move from one stage to the next . Today's episode we discuss key elements to consider when it comes to workflow. Most firms have recognized the importance of workflow software, but few have it fully implemented, let alone reaping the benefits of it. The benefits are ther...

We discuss two interesting conversations this week. Both with practitioners that are struggling to find people. Coincidently the firm is also struggling with going paperless and scared to introduce new technology to clients. Unfortunately the pre-Covid excuse of my clients won’t do that just doesn’t fly. So the question is who or ‘what’ is driving this bus? Are you in control or are you letting yo...

In this episode we discuss an interesting article about change and understanding that change will cause tension, and that's OK. In fact the author contends it's required and uses the analogy of rope requiring tension to perform its key task - pulling something/hanging something etc. We also discuss the importance of getting out of the way to allow change to happen, and recognizing that you will ne...

Too many times it's happened when we've ignored our gut, broken our own rules and taken on a client that we didn't feel quite right about. In this episode we discuss moving clients on or being forthright and saying no to a new client that you know doesn't quite fit. And no surprises, but the sooner you make the call the better. To ask us any questions or share any feedback, please connect with us...

We've got something special for you in this episode You might remember Rachel Siegel from a previous episode sharing how she has been building her firm. In this episode Penny and Rachel head into a firm that wants to better focus on their clients throughout the year rather than just tax season. Penny and Rachel really dig into the firm and it sounds like have some challenging conversations with bo...

According to the AICPA record numbers of students are graduating with accounting degrees, but accounting firms at graduate job fairs aren't seeing these candidates. In this episode we discuss what might be causing this dearth of graduate talent for public accounting firms. A common theme throughout this podcast has been that same as last year (or SALY) will not cut it when it comes to finding and...

As you start to build your CAS (or is it CAAS?) one of the things you'll need to think about is your organizational structure. Typical accounting and bookkeeping firms grow by adding more accountants and bookkeepers, however what we've found, for your CAS business to grow you'll need a different skill set in your next hire. We've named this person Beth, namely because that's her name in one of the...

So what is it? Client Accounting Services? Client Advisory Services? Or Client Accounting and Advisory Services? And does it matter? Well yes, because you have to be very clear to your clients as to what services you're providing and to your team what tasks need to be completed to deliver on your promise to clients. Without proper definition these services can quickly become everything that's not...

We've been on the road and in today's episode we share our insights picked up from AICPA's Engage Conference in Las Vegas, and Scaling New Heights and BKX in Orlando. Were you at any of the conferences? What were your key take aways? Plus we've seen a number of apps close their doors as funding dries up and we share some questions you should be asking your technology providers. To ask us any quest...

An interesting article on Accounting Today asked the question do you train accountants on tech, or technologists in accounting? Ultimately where we landed was agreeing with Geni Whitehouse who said hire the attitude and train for what you need. The old way of building an accounting firm was to hire more accountants and bookkeepers, but what we know is they're in short supply and they certainly don...

Today's episode we catch up following a few weeks of being on the road and attending conferences in real life again. We talk through the AccountingWeb Summit in San Diego and Intuit's Get Connected conference in Sydney. Not surprisingly, themes were consistent across both conferences - What's the new normal for the workplace? How AI and automation are continuing to advance; How to understand and m...

Early on when talking to accountants and bookkeepers about the cloud, we always got the question, well what happens when the internet goes down... Thankfully our look into the crystal ball proved successful (big gamble) and the internet got better and better, and faster and faster, meaning we got fewer of these types questions. And what happened this week? AWS went down. It happens and it will hap...