Accounting for Midsize v Solo Law Firms

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge. Hosted by Lynda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Stephen Libhart.

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. And this week we're having an interesting conversation and it's going to be about working with a mid-sized firm as opposed to working with a smaller solo lawyer and why you would want to do one over the other. And the difference is really when you do, start working with them 'cause the whole way you work with them is different. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that and also probably bring in a little bit of the Clio trend report for mid-sized firms, which just came out. So I'm gonna let Sarah start a little bit about what's the definition? So we know with Intuit, they look at 10 or more employees is considered a mid-sized firm overall. And this is not just specific to law, but overall 10 or more employees. And what would you say, is what your definition of a midsize firm as opposed to a, a small or a solo.

So that boutique firm kind of idea is, you know, 1 to 3, anywhere from, uh, you know, maybe a part-time paralegal. So maybe 1 to 5, let's say. And then if you get more partners and that grow, cuz obviously if you're even one partner with a growth potential with a, a whole bunch of staff, Let me just qualify this. I should say if we're doing it by people, because revenue is the other— The other way. Right. Okay. I mean, that's why— so, and you can let me know if I'm off base here, but I do feel like maybe 1 to 5, 1 to 8, somewhere in there could still be considered boutique depending on how they're positioned and depending on the work that you're doing. Now, if you are a firm that's sneaking above that, let's say you're sneaking, sliding in between 7 to 15 or more, you're starting to edge to that middle gray spot of mid-market. But we have had firms in our space that are around 5 total that pump out equivalent to what is considered a mid-market in revenue.

Mm-hmm.

And they've learned to streamline and automate. Obviously, I am, we are a back office accounting support here, so we're running that so we can see it. But there are some really big wins in those moments. So if you're talking software, you're talking users for subscriptions, and that's what the qualifier is in that space. If you're talking revenue, that's another qualifier. And then if you're talking people, you could be a very lucrative firm. You might have a lot of staff, but because of the price point you're charging and the intricacies of the way that works, you have to have more touches, that might be something. I do feel like in this day and age too, and I don't know if Stephen and Lynda, if you feel this way, automation goes to a point, but there is this human piece of it that really needs to be in the mix. And what does that look like? You can't just— we're not cookie-cutter robots in this space. And same with attorneys. So that's kind of my little spin on it. It's never really quite— I'm always a gray space, I guess you could say. Never black and white truly in some ways. So how about you?

I think too, like, well, in this report from the 2023 Legal Trends for Midsize Law Firms, I think in that respect, you're looking at this report defines it as 21% or more employees. So they're looking at a much larger definition of a larger— Huge. Right, they're looking at it 20, 21 or more. It's a lot more than the 10, right? So it's interesting. What do you think, Steve?

Might be doing that is because they're looking at subscriptions for their business as well. And that might be what they're basing that on. But I'm with Sarah on that. It depends on, for me, it depends on the kind of law that they're practicing and the type of staff that they need. You know, as an example, we've got one client who's, he's 84 years old. He's been practicing law for almost 60 years and he is the go-to person for mediation and those sorts of things here with corporate transactions and mergers and acquisitions and things like that. I mean, he charges over a thousand an hour and he's generating that revenue by himself. That some firms take 3 and 4 people to do.

Yeah.

And he has breaks in between his special work that he does and gets to do fun things. And that's why he's still practicing law. It's kind of cool. So to me, revenue-wise, he's a mid-sized firm.

Mm-hmm. And that's how, when I did, when I obviously, my book is actually being edited now as we speak. When I looked into this, 'cause that's a subsection of the book, Google and Small Business Association, they all, they looked at it in a, in a number base. So they looked at it as revenue, but they don't look at it as people. So really that's kind of part of defining this. But what do you think, Sarah, because we have some small firms that we've kind of acquired along the way, uh, not our market, but we have them. What do you think the benefit of working with a small firm is over a larger firm?

So sometimes it's just you feel the pain of understanding and you're empathetic to the bootstrap feeling. Or maybe we've hit a maturity level of age in the middle section of owning the business. And there's now you're reaching this conversation point in operations of like, you know, I don't wanna wear 15 hats. I wanna wear 2 and I'd like to have somebody else do the other. That's actually kind of a nice thing to be a part of someone's roadmap, if you will, in that space. I will say there's nothing from the accounting side, from the accountant profession. You're no easier. I mean, you are just as hard as working with a larger firm, because cash flow is a lot more of the forefront. Just as much as it would be in a mid-size firm. Just a little bit, you haven't matured into a cash flow space in the way that maybe some firms have been able to do with certain savings plans and so forth and capital that they can lean upon or leveraging what they have in lines of credits and so forth for those crunches. But yeah, I definitely curious what you have to say, Steve, as well, and Lynda. But I do feel that— I didn't expect it, Lynda. I do feel that small-size firms, your window of opportunity to work with them, if they're open to it, that's the thing. You're running and gunning. So the respect line of understanding your availability of time, the resources capacity to understand our questions, where they need support. It's a little bit more broad, I feel, than it is in a—

One of our firms that we absolutely love, which we're not supposed to love any of our clients so much, but we do have one, and he was actually a small firm when we met him in the beginning. I would think he'd be classified as—

Yeah. Small in revenue in, in the sense of where he stands today. Yeah. Yeah.

I agree. Oh yeah. Today he's definitely not small anymore.

Not small.

He kind of grew into our sweet spot of the client we wanna work with. Steve, what do you think is the perks of working with a small firm?

I like to, to, to feather out and sort out and sift the small firms and the solos and find that group of people that really has passion for what they're doing, as opposed to the ones who are kind of more afraid to be who they are and afraid to succeed, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

You know, the ones that are the tire kickers versus the ones that want to get in there and work and really make a successful firm for themselves. And you've heard me say many Oftentimes I like to watch them and I've done this over the years. You know, Lynda and I, we've said many times we've been doing this for so long. I like to watch them and then, you know, 2 or 3 years later you see them in another firm. They've partnered up with somebody.

Yeah.

You know, and then 2 or 3 years later that's grown into a bigger firm. And, you know, so to answer your question, I like to find those people and hone in on them, the ones that have the passion and also the type, you know, for those of you out there that are, that are serving attorneys in the accounting environment, in the bookkeeping environment, you know, your niche within a niche. We've talked about that before. You know, I love civil rights attorneys. I love criminal law. I love personal injury. I love all those sorts of things. I like to partner up with those types of solo firms and watch them grow because they really have passion.

Are you a Murder, She Wrote fan?

I got to be. I love it.

No, I, I love that you—

Side part of that path.

To your point, and I remember when I was trying to decide on a, on a specialization or a niche, I can remember liking startups because in my career I had my exposure to so many businesses and starting with somebody who has a dream and bringing the dream to fruition was like helping them along the way was so such a It felt good to help the person and share what you know. And then I quickly tossed that one aside because I knew that half the time I was giving it away for free because I felt bad because they didn't have money to pay for me. And I was like, that's not a great niche. But inside of working with lawyers, if you meet somebody, we meet them sometimes that they just left a big firm. They don't know what to do.

Right.

And they find you because they're smart enough to know they need to get some kind of financial assistance in setting things up. Even if they plan on doing it themselves, they're like, I know I need somebody to do this right. And then you kind of become their guidepost along the way in the beginning. So you don't actually, if you specialize, you don't actually always have to take that off the table. But also when you start to work with these smaller firms, this in to start it, if you're just starting in a specialization and you don't know a lot about it, working hand in hand with a smaller boutique firm, you're working mostly with the directly to the partner. Right. Or the owner of the firm, and you can learn a little bit they'll share things with you more as you start going, especially if they're kind of new to it. They'll share it from their perspective and you grow with them. I think of my first law firm client I still have today. Mm-hmm. It's the same thing. He's got a sweet spot, spot in my heart, but also he gets charged less still, which he probably shouldn't be doing. But I, I've, I've had him for so long and I learned from him. He helped me understand the concept of trust accounting and from his side, his perspective. I think that that's a bonus.

So I have a question in that space that you just brought up. When you're coming from a larger firm and you're starting your own firm, do you feel that the perspective of appreciation for some, not all, because we've seen the ones that do it wrong. Do you feel that the perspective is I've had always somebody doing this for me. So that's— I need that.

Yes.

Okay.

I just went to a consultation I did this week, and I limit my consultations much shorter than this one, but it was 2.5 hours of talking about this law firm that's being developed with these two individuals, type of law that they're doing. And oh my gosh, I used lots of subjects from our podcasts that we've done and from the Law Lab and those sorts of things.

Yeah.

To share things with them and get them on a path and get their homework assignment going for everything they need to do and what I can do behind the scenes and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, you two have always inspired me in the way that you handle your smaller firms and the strengths that you bring to the table. You know, Sarah, you're such a great inspiration in how you really dive in. And when there's a challenge, you know, warrior that jumps in. I love that. And, you know, I, and that's what they're looking for. They're looking for that back office support, setting things up. And, you know, we've brought to the table just through this podcast how to invest your money.

Yeah.

How wellness, you know, all those— we have all these tools that we can talk to these newbies about.

Yeah.

They, they really feed off of that, and it really opens the door to setting it up right from from the get-go.

Yeah. Well, even if you're not starting it at the beginning, which Lynda and I have talked about this privately, you can have the reset. It was oddly an opportunity on one of the flights, met this fairly well-to-do individual who really never thought once to discuss this with any sort of wealth person because of the cliché, right? Because of the, and I feel like sometimes with attorneys, it's like, when do I engage an attorney? Is this the time to do, like the starting and the non-starting and understanding the procrastination that goes on in it. You just don't know what I think, what legal moment will occur in your life or, and so forth. So I feel like what you're saying, Steve, is right in the sense of, and to Lynda, what you're talking about is, I'm gonna get started. I'm gonna start this firm. But if you have that forethought and that kind of vision that you've been in— I've been one of 7 in a firm, right? And I've always had a paralegal. I've always had an accounting space. And you lead with that, you're 10 times more likely to probably see through and do things more successfully because you're writing that out in a very methodical way. where it's okay to jump in, but you might find that, okay, I'm spinning my wheels, I'm working too late. Like Lynda says, are you doing this work and it's not causing you to sleep? Are you doing this at 11 o'clock at night? Because you should be doing accounting at 11 o'clock at night.

Let me just— And you can call them out on that in a discovery call and they'll be like, oh, are you spying on me? Because that is exactly what's happening. But, and you'll find that even sometimes in the, small firms that are kind of starting to grow a little bit bigger than they realize. It's the ones that, how about the ones that start with a spreadsheet? Because that's easy to understand their trust account and then all of a sudden it becomes a beast that they can't control anymore. Oh yeah. They know that and they want to move to software and then you get that migration. But Sarah, I'm going to ask you this question.

Oh, okay.

What makes it better? What, why do we love mid-sized firms more than we love the smaller ones? Now at this point in our journey of working together, I mean, we started out together with a bigger firm. So that was our first job together. And then we were like, oh, let's do another one. But what in— what about we have both? What do you think is better about the midsize firms? And I know this is going to be— so she's not going to have to think as hard for this one.

Actually, you've been so kind to ask me this question over the years. I'm dying to know what you think, Lynda.

What I think?

Yeah.

I think, well, when we first started to do this, we thought we were going to do a data migration. They don't need us. They have somebody in the chair already doing the bookkeeping. What would they need us for? And then we did the data migration. We showed them all this data that they never had before in their old program that was just— At a shop center. Old product. And they're like, oh, your trust really isn't balanced. And oh, this is this and this and that. And you have this. And we start and we separated it. We did it because it was bigger. We did it by We classified the, the details so they had information they never had before. And when we finished that job, we didn't become their ongoing accounting firm. We stayed on as a support person with the law. Oh, and wasn't long and Sarah looked at me and she goes, they'll be back, honey. And don't you know when she said this, cuz she's very good at this. They came back and they said, they said, you know, we— could you work with the person that's in the seat doing the bookkeeping because she's so overwhelmed because she's also the paralegal and she was at the time, I think, even answering the phone. And they've now grown even more and they've actually shuffled partners and stuff. But could you— would you think that you could come on and kind of assist her but take over the whole reconciling and make it— because you guys made it right. We don't want it to be wrong again. And that's what opened up the door for us to realize that we could work in this capacity with law firms as that supporting financial— you want to call it a CFO, whatever you want to call it, accounting services. And that relieved the person who had the job that really wasn't ever really a bookkeeper. And now we're that support staff for that person where if they've got retainer hit or whatever they call it, they will come to you and say, this, this is— I've, I've had this situation. I don't know how to put it in the, in the books or, you know, and they handle the deposits, they handle the day-to-day in the firm. But I think that working with this side for us doing this work is number one, you can offer that advisory piece and they have the money to pay for it and they don't think twice about it. Smaller firms will nickel and dime you to death. Exactly. And they don't value—

Sometimes.

—what you're giving them. Sometimes. This is generically.

Let's just generically.

Yeah. Yeah. Generically, this is what I've seen in our work with the bigger firms. It opens up a door too for us to— it challenges us when we're looking at the workflow and seeing, oh, how many people in this department work on accounts receivable? Wow, you got a lot of money here in, in this over 90-day category. And who's recording? We had it happen with one of the firms who were the person— there were people doing redundant work and it wasn't being done very well. And we had to shuffle all that around and implement the software to do some of the things that they don't even realize the software can do. And then when we started to add all those pieces, because we knew the software better, we knew other pieces we could put in to make it the, the whole workflow more efficient, it freed up somebody that was paralegal that could do paralegal work billable.

Well, Steve's got the honorable seat here where you've been inside in a firm working.

Yeah.

And now you're on the other side. Can you talk about what that looks like? Because to me it's like, it's like that same thought process of I'm an attorney in a firm, I'm gonna go out on my own. What don't I know?

Like it's— That, that is exactly what I just did with the consultation that I had this week. You know, they're, they're off into their own firm and I've worked in the firm. And so I was able to speak to that. I understand what the legal assistant does. I understand what the receptionist does. I understand what the office manager does, you know, what the associates do, what the interns do, all those sorts. I've seen it in so many different. Iterations, if you will. And it really helps to be able to customize that to that individual solo attorney.

Mm-hmm.

Or customize it to that mid-sized firm. And in the mid-sized firms, I find that they tend to have a little more experience and they're a little bit more business-minded. And the solos, bless their hearts, I just have a passion for them in that they don't know what they don't know. But they've got that passion to jump in and go.

It's their heart.

Yeah. So they're not going that avenue of being an associate and having to build 2,500 hours a year as a minimum ever and work 60 and 70 and 80 hours a week and bring all this new business in. But then the mid-size firms do still work in that environment. They have more manpower and more support staff to make those things happen. And working with the key performance indicators, with both of them. You need to tailor for your solos what's really going to help them rocket their growth a little more by watching those KPIs versus the midsize firm is looking for ways to maximize revenue and lower expenses because they're in that vulnerable stage.

Mm-hmm.

Everything going wackazoid as they grow. So, you know, it gives me the— I really have been blessed in that I worked in some really cool law firms. Yeah. Yeah. Friends. And I see a lot of stuff out there and I see them all moving around and it's just fun to watch them all grow.

I love that. The trend report, the indication was that the, the smaller firms bounced out better out of COVID because they retained their staff. Uh, they retained their staff. People weren't shuffling and leaving as much as you see in the midsize firms.

More open to working at home. Working out of the office.

They were more open. They weren't, or the hybrid model, right? So they still might come into the office, but maybe they always were at home, like our accounting firms, right? So they have that. And then they also, but the odd thing, which I think was odd in here, was that, so they had less cases. If they were mid-size firms, they tend to have less cases in the study on this report than the smaller firms had more cases, but the mid-size firms were billing and collecting more money. So they had a bigger bump in money than the smaller firms. So they didn't adapt as well when it came to like coming into work and all that, but they did collect more money and bill more money in this period of post-COVID or initially from post-COVID. That's fascinating, um, that they were able to bill and collect it. So that's a difference that I think is kind of unexpected. It was, um, so they had 33% collected revenue relative to 2019.

In the midterms.

That tells me fellows are still struggling with wearing a lot of hats.

That's exactly what I thought.

That's the biggest problem, right?

Which is true of, to your point, having been at a conference where the work-life balance, well, whatever, that's out the door, right? We just have to have some sort of balance, a simulation of balance. Some of the work that probably some of the attorneys or paralegals are doing are not client-facing hours.

Right. A lot of it.

We work in a global world right now of a lot of things. And so I do feel that, and the structure maybe, and that's kind of another thought I was just having just now is the structure of a firm is not the same as it once was. So your offerings, are not going to be the same.

Market. It's harder as a solo to attract a paralegal as it is compared to a mid-sized firm or larger firm. You know, where's the paralegal going to go? They're going to go somewhere that's got, you know, can afford more benefits, salary, and that's right. I see the solos really struggling finding, trying to find paralegal support.

You hear the questions in our profession. Lynda and I just heard a few people, the profession, the questions that come from this. Now I will say, if you are a staff member in a firm and you're going to another firm and you're in a space where you're sitting with other entrepreneurs that own firms, be aware of what you say. Yeah. You know, 'cause—

Never burn a bridge.

Yeah, never burn a bridge. And you never know what you may say I mean, kid pot, it happened to us. I'm not going to say the story, but I definitely was like, whoa, this is a conference filled with firm owners right now.

Well, the funny thing is in the report too is that they collected and billed more money, but they also raised their rates. And I think when you've got multiple people, it's multiple partner situation, it's easier to just say, carte blanche. We're raising our rates. So it was like $335 an hour is the average for the midsize firm. It was only $316 for the small firm. So that's interesting that they, the smaller firms are more apprehensive. Maybe they just have a different client base. As you probably know, local or regional, and they just feel, oh, I can't charge Mrs. So-and-so, you know, more. That's not too far apart though. Not too far apart.

But statistically, this report says that they maintained the 11% increase, whereas the other firms did not maintain that. They did these spikes to your point, but they did not maintain, which is interesting. So what are you discounting?

Yeah, I mean, that could be part of it too, right? They're writing it off or writing it down. Yeah. And then mid-size firms have more overhead by the fact that they're a bigger firm. They're going to have— That's the net. Well, we've seen some interesting ways that people have managed to do look of a bigger firm, but they're actually all in different places and they're working from home and they maybe have a collaborative office if they need to meet with a client in person, but nobody's really in an office per se. So we've seen that and it's kind of, I guess you would classify that as a midsize firm. I don't know. But it's interesting that that's one of those, the overhead's definitely more at a midsize firm as opposed to a smaller firm.

Well, and the smaller firm, back to the subject of the paralegal, Quite often they are fortunate enough to have a good strong paralegal. That person's doing the office supply ordering, they're answering the phone, you know, their job is watered down and so that they can't focus as much as 100% of being a paralegal. But then the flip side of that is you really need to watch their production. You know how much—

Yes.

How effective is the work that you're giving to them and what are they producing and turning back out? And compare that key performance indicator to what you're seeing in your midsize firms with the paralegals. And you're able to have an educated conversation with the client and say, you know, I see this out there. You know, I see a firm where it's this percent. I see your firm where it's that percent. You know, have you grown enough where it's time to really— maybe you hire an outsourced phone answering service or whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, so that your paralegal can do more and really thrive on what they went to school for, as opposed to, you know, they've helped you through your startup phase now, but it's time to do something different.

You know what's interesting, Steve, to your point, it says right here, lawyers in mid-size firms are struggling to find time to put towards billable client work, which to, to your point, and, and I'm presuming if we were to look at the boutique, the small firm in that same, way. It might have some structure to the same— you have the same problems, they're just in a larger space. Or you might have more different people doing different pieces, and you could realize you can accordingly smash that back up and could be one person.

I mean, you know what, how many times over the years have we seen the statistics on what percent of time an attorney actually bills? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Lynda knows that.

Oh, when I— how much time they aren't billing. And it's like, why?

Mm-hmm.

What's the—

Well, that's the thing too. I mean, in this report, it talks about the utilization rates in mid-sized firms has dropped. And so the performance has dropped. And that's one of the ways we as accountants can help these law firms because As you grow, it's hard to watch every single person that works for you.

Mm-hmm.

And it, you have to keep an eye on, are they collecting? So if you have a firm set up, and a lot of these firms are set up where the attorney does, gets the client, does the client work, bills the client, the client doesn't pay, they chase the, the money. And that last step gets stopped and doesn't drop and they don't do it. And then it just sits on the books. So yeah, if you're looking at utilization, You want to look at realization, what was paid, because if it's not being paid, what good is it? What good is billing if you don't collect on it? And I think that's a place that's obviously— we've done a podcast already about getting— you can outsource that to Colebox and have them take that step, you know, take that off your plate and do that work for you. So you're not having a $335 an hour attorney calling his own clients. You've hired an outsourced accounts receivable specialist to do that work. Now you're, you're making, you will have the expense of that where it's monthly expense, but you're gonna get the money in and it, and get that cash that's sitting there just locked in and locked out of the firm in. And that's important. And I think that that could be the reason, but also could be that the, the midsize attorneys aren't working as hard, or I don't know what that reason is. That's very surprising statistic.

Well, what is their, what is their pay structure like, Lynda Artesani? Are they an eat what you kill firm? Right. Pollutes the whole pot, if you will. It's difficult to get everybody rowing that boat in the same direction in many cases.

You know, you made me think of something. I thought this is pretty awesome in consideration. So with the new way of billing, the flat fee, the hybrid, if you call it, I would love to see these software companies come around to being able to display this on their revenue reports.

Yes.

What is the flat fee versus the hourly? Because you have to quantify it with the quantity. So specifically, you know, in the softwares we are using, I would like to see that on a revenue report in addition to some other things that are really tangible and pieces that we need because it changes this compensation model.

Well, and if you're tracking to your point, oh my gosh, you've got me really excited about this now. Yeah. If you're tracking by revenue producer, their revenue, their piece of the pie there, and then if it could be broken down to how much of it was flat rate, how much of it was hourly, and what is the effective hourly rate compared to everybody else. Oh, that's going to tell you so much.

Yeah, I— what needs to me, it's nice having these types of reports. What needs to happen in these softwares that are serving the community is there needs to be more tools within it.

Right.

We keep à la carte-ing a lot of these things with half-baked ideas or half-baked processes. But lo and behold, doesn't matter what firm you talk to, boutique, smaller, even large, you still have a dang spreadsheet somewhere. We're gonna find it.

Yeah.

It's gonna exist. No problem. I mean, we do it too. Not a big deal. But why? Why can these things that we need so much to measure to understand that helps us keep the community in the same space they want to be in, whether you want to stay with the firm or have to go out on your own because you don't feel the value or vice versa, the opposite way. Why can these things not be in these existing reports that we produce? And I think it goes back to like, So it goes back to the question of, are we by numbers a user? Depending on what you're looking at, are we revenue producing? What are we and what constitutes us? It's just different for everybody.

Well, also, one of the things it says in this report is that what's an easy way that you can get clients to pay you faster? Offer them ways to pay you faster. So stop the checks. Stop that.

Well, how many have we met? Just in the last 3 weeks, probably between the 3 of us. I don't know if we've openly talked about this. So much fraud on an IOLTA. Banks are figuring this out. It was so hurt— like painful to hear this, that the fraud. And at one point I think the IRS put out a notice about checks, about being careful with checks, sending money out. Yeah. We have got to fundamentally change this. Now, I really don't feel like the payment process, the whole merchant service dirty bird behind it with the whole fees and all that stuff. This has got to get changed somehow and simplified. But we can't— one bite-sized thing at a time. We just need to offer better tools for our clients. To your point, Lynda.

Make it easy. Less friction.

Less friction.

Go in and click it. This is why we like Gravity Legal. We prefer that one because it makes it simple and it allows for different payment plans and everything. And I think a lot of times we'll speak to the lawyers and they'll be like, well, I don't want pay those fees. Well, the fees, if you get paid, it's like 39% faster. Why wouldn't you want to do that? You factor it in your hourly rate. How do you pay me?

How do you pay your hairdresser? How do you pay the rent? I mean, some people pay the rent ACH. There's a fee on the back end. Yeah.

Wires. Yep.

It goes all ways to Sunday.

And if you have a trust account and you, you're using wires, you should have a wire account. You should not be exposing the trust account. That should be swept right into the, to the IOLTA, but you should not be telling people your IOLTA account routing and account number. This should never happen. And you think banks would kind of help with that, but I don't know if they actually do that kind of—

Please don't email your information over. Please don't send it via email.

Please don't email.

I can't believe we kill— we still, after 7, 8 years of doing this, we still have this conversation.

That's why we have Lysio. So if they send it to us in the messaging system, it's safe. But it's unbelievable what sometimes they will do. And you just— I think it's just not— I don't think it's they don't understand it. It's just easier.

It's easier. It is. It's a convenience thing. And we do as much as we can.

Which is exactly what it is when you send your client an invoice with a link on it. It's a convenience thing. They're more apt to open the email and right then and there pay it because they don't want to forget it than they are to print it or whatever they're going to do to write a check for it, an envelope and a stamp. Nobody wants to do that.

What do you— what were you going to say, Steve?

Well, one of my pet peeves with the software angle is, you know, these software companies that are serving large volumes of solo attorneys, and yet we as the accounting people do not have our own logins into their system. Then the client, our client—

Many of them, for many of these softwares.

And money for us to get our own seat or we have to use theirs and all the back of the house money that is spent on that gyrating monster there. And they don't have the money to pay, you're right, they don't have the money to pay for that extra.

Listen, I'm—

You know?

Yeah, I'm for it in some respects, not for just paying for it, but I'm understanding of it. What I'm— but what I don't understand is if we're a non-billable, we're an outside firm, a non-billable, you have someone inside the firm that's doing this work.

Yes.

That's a user. There's other ways to look at this. And I think it's just having the conversation to your point. But if you're not going to set yourself up, and this goes with banks too, if you are not going to set yourself up with the credentials that allow those of us outside accounting firms to work with you, we'll be asking people to move banks. And that's not an easy ask.

Right.

If you're in a payroll situation in the same vein, you have to be set up in a, in a school of thought of with bumpers and protections and allowing outside admins with particular rights that we'd follow any sort of like any sort of owner login would have. We'd have the same cadence to that. To your point, Steve, I agree. My gosh, we just talked about a whole bunch of stuff, but this was amazing.

It really is. I mean, I think if you're listening, these are things— please get the report. If you're an attorney listening or if you're a bookkeeper, these are valuable metrics and there's a lot more. We only scratched the surface of this report, but there's a lot more data in here about mid-sized firms. And I say, don't be afraid of them. We try to tell the folks at the Law Lab, like, don't be afraid of that work. It's the same work, but you're able to enhance some of the things that you can do for them. There's a lot more opportunity because there's more people and there's more things you can do and it's more, it's a little bit more challenging, but you're able to, and they are, it says in the report they're more likely to, mid-size firms are more likely to adapt cloud technology, but I don't know if that's necessarily, I don't think I've seen that.

I think it's from the account, from the attorney perspective, You're at a day and age now that needs to— things need to change for attraction and retention of the staff, for the way that oversight is happening, compliance, complexity, and all this accounting stuff. Things move fast. You need to change in the way that you're working. This is the way I see it. We hear it. It's not just me seeing it. We're hearing it because these are our clients. Right.

And we see it when we see the struggle because there's a lot of parallels between our accounting firms and the attorneys.

Exactly.

Finding good people to work for you, retaining the staff, which is something we can help with because there's a lot— when you have a lot more working parts, we can kind of help you with maybe your benefit packages. These are the things that we're able to do to help you because we see all these different firms. We have exposure to all these. We see what's working, what's not working. And when we have that knowledge, because we specialize, that we can help them with that. And I know we assisted one of our clients with that. And I mean, he's— first of all, he's forever grateful and everything, but he also appreciated that we kind of did an analysis of Sarah made this beautiful page where we had this analysis of what's the current trends, what's the salary in the area, and we kind of worked into that to give them that. And we've worked with other firms to try to show them that maybe you need to add benefits. Sometimes they don't. And maybe you need to, you know, don't make this person— 100%. Not the 1099, you know, it's sometimes you'll have— and explain why and get the control and, I think depending on the size of the firm, you'll— there's ways you can speak to your clients to have them understand in an advisory. And I love this from the— we just came back from a, a conference and it's simply put, advisory is advice. That's all it is. You can call it what you want, but it's advice. And we're giving them advice based on our knowledge, our breadth of knowledge here that we have in our brain. And we can help our clients. And I think that's the best way to assist them so that we want them to be more profitable.

We just happen to like to validate it to different numbers. So that's why we're really important.

You, you really made me think about our example of saying, you know, we work, we see it in all these different firms.

Yeah. Yeah.

That creates even putting us on a different level of just being a bookkeeper.

Oh, I hate that term. The term needs to go away.

Yes.

It is not an accurate term. And the states that don't allow it because of credentials and not allowing firm owners to own certain types of accounting firms because of the credentials, you— this— things have got to shift. We're in a different age. You've got children coming out of high school that are making a lot of money because of Instagram famous or whatever the heck they are. Things have got to shift, right? People need to manage money differently. Money financially needs to be a forward-focused thing. And these nuts and bolts that tie you up like that, those have got to shift.

If you're out there that has that fear of working with these law firms, but you're attracted to the industry, then join an accounting group of people. And work with them. Yeah. Because we're going to be the forward thinkers like we are in working with the types of firms that we want to and giving our expertise and charging appropriately for it and seeing the results from it. And if you're one of those people that really like the challenge and you really want to grow your firm on your own, then do that. But take all of these tools and again, the advisory word, you know, bring that into it because we're so much more than that and our clients really appreciate us for that.

Don't worry, I'll give you my 2 cents once you pay for it. Well, Tiara, do you want to wrap us up, my dear? And thank you so much for such a lively, wonderful conversation. This was amazing, actually.

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Oh, you're so good at that.

You did it way better than we could. I love—

You're gonna be our outro, honey. That's it. We adore you.

You just earned yourself the outro job. Steve, where are you gonna go next? Because I know you're going somewhere.

I am hosting— I've been working on this one for a year. I reserved the place a year ago. Right now I'm in Meeker, Colorado for the Meeker Classic Sheepdog Trial Rally. There's going to be— the town has a population of 2,300 people. There's around 10,000 people coming this next week.

That's amazing.

Going to be a lot of fun. We've got 3 campgrounds reserved. I have 22 Airstreams coming, about 60 people, 50, 60 people. And it's going to be a blast. And this is The purse, I think the purse on this particular sheepdog trial is $23,000 for the winner. There's 135 dogs running. They're bringing sheep from the high meadows who have been living peacefully all summer and eating grass and all that, and they're very angry when they're brought down and herded by the sheepdogs. So it's a lot of fun.

That's amazing. You're making them exercise, right? That's what you're doing. I'll tell Paris that you're doing a good job on that.

Yeah. Yeah, she's got me on a good plan.

So she does. Well, I'm excited that I will be with our dearest Tyra here in Chicago. I know. Well, honey, get a flight. No, I'm not going. Okay, whatever. Anyways, we'll be doing— we will be at our friend, our dear friend Cindy Schroeder's Bookkeeping Buds, which we're excited about.

So she's amazing.

It'll be fun, and it'll be nice to be with— I haven't met our lovely Tierra in person quite yet, so it'll be nice to have that opportunity. Lots of pictures. Lots of— yeah, well, and I'll— pictures and Tierra pictures. Yes, yeah, yeah. And then I think we can take palm trees.

I wanna see the height difference. Okay, yeah.

What are you doing? What are you doing this holiday weekend, Lynda Artesani?

I don't know. I'm thinking I'm gonna work on a course that we already recorded and I just need to build it out. I also have a book home because I got the response back of what I have to do to finish up the books. That's probably gonna be— I'll be super chill and sit in the sun, read a book. That too. So I'm planning on doing a whole bunch of things.

Figured out we did solids and he's the—

I know. I was looking at that. That's pretty awesome. Only blue and white. I love it.

Well, enjoy everyone, and thank you so much for listening in. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye.