Trailblazing a Cakewalk with Susan Tucker

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

Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. And this week we have a special guest and we're actually titling this week's session called "AS Streaming with Susan Tucker," 'cause we have a, actually have an attorney who's also a CPA, which is a really interesting combination. And I think we'll kick it off. I'm actually gonna toss the dice to Steve and let him introduce her because of course they're both Airstreaming. Sarah and I just arrived home and they're all on the road and they can tell us a little bit about where they are and Susan can give us a little intro about what she does. Awesome.

Take it away, Steve.

Awesome. Well, thank you. This is Susan Tucker and we are at the Airstream International Rally in Rock Springs, Wyoming. And Airstream has this rally every year. This is the 66th International Rally, and people come from all over the United States, Canada, and Europe to this rally.

Okay.

And we have, the last count I saw the other day was I think 1,182 Airstreams are here altogether. And we have educational seminars, we have fun seminars. The Vintage Airstream Club is here. All of the intra-clubs are here. There are thousands of people here just having a blast and educating and learning things. And I have to tell you personally, as you all know, I broadcast from the Airstream quite frequently and from April to October I'm out on the road a lot. And I spent several years putting this together in my life and I'm able to do my accounting and bookkeeping business from the road for all of my clients. As an example, this morning I had a client called me who— Bernie, and he has a huge settlement for a client who's in hospice. And his family had already closed all of his bank accounts. And we were trying to figure out how to get the money to him out of the trust account without violating trust regulations. So, you know, and all of this was done from the road. And so about a month ago, I came up with the idea of finding somebody at the Airstream Con, and I found Susan Tucker, and I called her up and she was like, well, I don't know. I— and I'm like, you could do this. And she's like, I'm a CPA and an attorney. I'm like, Yeah, this is exactly what we want. So, yeah. So Susan, welcome to our podcast.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I'm so excited to be getting with you guys and meeting you.

So I'm going to turn it over to you for right now. Please tell our audience about you, how you ended up in this life as an attorney and a CPA and how you work from on the road in your Airstream.

Yeah, well, thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me and asking me to be here. I really appreciate it. When I graduate from college, it— well, when I went to college and got my accounting degree, there were very few females in the field. Very few. There was 2 female accountants in the accounting majors. Only 2.

Are you one of the 2s?

I was one of the 2.

Wow.

And so I went right through my accounting degree, and then I got my MBA. And then I went into teaching at the collegiate level. Because, you know, it's kind of like it is now. There isn't that many people that want to go into that area in the accounting and finance area. And I had a minor in finance and economics. So I taught for several years at the college level, and I really enjoyed that. But that really gave me a skill set to talk in front of people and kind of have their attention and make them listen. And, and, you know, that kind of side of me that hadn't ever been developed before. And then, then I got married. Mm-hmm. And my husband got transferred. And so I thought, you know what, I think I'll set for the CPA exam, see how that goes. And so I—

See how that goes.

See how that goes. Don't you just love her?

Got my accounting, got my MBA, and I'll just see how it goes with the CPA.

I'll be a trailblazer too on that.

Easy test.

Yeah, good.

So anyway, then I got my CPA. And in Kansas where I was, you had to— I don't know what it is now, but you had you have 2 years of internship with a CPA firm to get licensed. So I went to work for a CPA firm. That seemed like the thing to do because then I could get licensed and, you know, really learned nuts and bolts of accounting systems. And they were just starting to computerize tax returns at that time. And they were just starting to computerize general ledgers and things, you know, you still had some clients that were on the old, the old ledgers and those kinds of things. So that was a pretty learning experience. And then there was a larger client. Mm-hmm. That was a construction company. And so NDS, you know, your non-compete agreements really weren't what they are now. And so they just said, well, we'd like to hire you to work for our company. And we did a lot of things, built the University of Tennessee sports arena and several big projects like that. And then that company, I got affiliated with USF&G Bonding Company through them. Well, then they were like, hey, if you'd start your own CPA firm, we would hire you to— Mm-hmm. Help us evaluate construction companies, you know? I mean, NDA's out the window.

We don't care.

We'll see where it goes, right?

Yeah, we'll see where it goes. Next door opens, another door. Yeah, really.

You know, that's just how life is. So I started my own CPA firm and I knew this other guy. You always gotta know everybody, you know, networking. You cannot network too small, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know a guy that does this. So—

I love that.

He said, oh yeah, I've got, there's some office space in the building with me. And I know a computer system and all this kind of stuff. So I thought, oh yeah, I'll do that. So then really how that happened, that was in, I was in Topeka at the time and I'm still in Topeka, but the Washburn University Law School was there. So anyway, I went to work for US&G and what I would do is they would have construction companies that got into financial difficulties that they were gonna do bonding on and, or have a bonding claim on. So they would send me to that construction company to figure out, we called it drawing a fence around what their bonding liability was gonna be. So I would do that and then I would work with the attorneys that were going to settle it all up. So one day I'm sitting there, you know, I could just go to law school and see how that worked out.

See how that goes.

Gosh. Okay.

This is great. I'm curious because you said you just started seeing general ledger systems and accounting, tax accounting software come out. Do you remember a few of the names? Just out of curiosity to pop those in.

Oh, and they were horribly expensive. Oh, this is really going to date me. Arthur Andersen was really about the only company you could get a tax package from at that time. And I'll tell you this story. So you would work on a tax return and you would put it on an input sheet, and then there was a person in an office that you would take that input sheet to and they would input it and run error. And it's not like—

Lynda has talked about this before in Law and Curses.

And this was one of my favorite things then. Several times a week you would have a cakewalk, and what happened was the way those old software programs work, they would print out the tax returns, multiple pages, like page 1, 1040, page 2, 1040, page 3, 1040, and then they would have stacks of them clear up high on tables and So you would, everybody in the office, cakewalk, and everybody would get up from their desks and go in and you would, that's how you would collate it.

Oh my gosh.

Walking around in a circle and picking up every— Because it was all attached, right? Yeah. Yeah. Not because they were all attached.

And it had like the little dots, the dot matrix, the machine that would shake the whole desk.

Yeah. So, you know, that was, that was how it started. But you know, you think—

It was loud too.

That it's really just the You know, that the technology behind it and what it does hasn't really changed. It's just that the face of it has changed. But anyway, so then I, um, let me see. Oh, I went to law school. So then—

Only went to law school.

But I still had my firm, but I still had my firm. But you know, they never— clients didn't know when you were away and stuff. You were just up the street at the law school and you'd come back after class. Okay. I mean, love. And so then after I graduated law school, this other CPA approached me and said, you know, I'm thinking you're going to go do something else. I'd like to buy your CPA firm from you. And I thought, oh, Kevin really encouraged me. So then I went to work for Payless ShoeSource that their corporate headquarters were in Topeka, Kansas. And so I went to work for them and I was in the finance real estate because I had construction experience because I'd done all this construction stuff. So I was in the real estate and we were building a store a day, opening opening up a store a day at that time. So it was a pretty crazy deal. So understanding how all that construction accounting worked, and then that just naturally led to, oh, well, we have to do all these leases for these stores. So for every store that opened, there had lease negotiated. And, you know, then all that we had, you know, law department. I was actually in the law department, but I handled the leasing of the director of leasing for all those properties. So I did that for a while, and then I went into— so what skill that I developed when I was doing all that was I developed a skill to turn legal contracts into computer languages. So we would buy— we would go in and buy a chain of stores, like 600 stores. And so I would take that data, those stores, like those 600 stores, and turn it into a computer language so I could tell. So during the legal negotiations, you were just, you know, okay, this part of the contract says we're going to need to have their inventory on X day. Well, I would know it because I had turned it all into a SAS language.

Wow.

Turned it from legal language into computer language, you know, into computer programs.

What prompted you to do that?

I was going to say, so what do you think about ChatGPT?

I didn't like to do things my—

Oh, let's— this is a good question.

After hearing how you're always advanced more than most people, I said, what do you think ChatGPT.

ChatGPT.

She's already got it down. She's just seeing how it works. Yeah.

She's playing with it.

What do you think of that attorney that got caught with using it and not researching that Jones versus Smith was not a real case?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One thing technology has taught me is to ask a few questions. Yes. I love it.

I think it's the CPA side.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just love the fact that she was— There's this yin and yang thing here.

Yeah.

She's pulled it off.

Yeah.

Well, she's automated and streamlined stuff before people—

Anybody did that.

Learned to think about it this way. That's—

It was funny. We were doing this one acquisition. It was like we were acquiring a 500-store chain and they had like fleets of attorneys that were trying to keep up with. And I had all their data. On our computers set up, you know, where every location was, what store number it was, what size it was, what their inventory was, you know, every little detail that I could get grabbed into a database. It was, it was a SaaS database before databases were a big thing. You know, people didn't realize how valuable they were at that time. So, you know, they would just say, okay, well, what were the sales? And, and they, their attorneys were trying to check it out. Finally, after about a week, their attorneys just kind of closed their books and said, We're just going to go with what you've got in your database and we're going to do the acquisition. But so that was a fun time, you know, growing companies were growing by leaps and bounds at that time. You know, we're talking the early 2000s, mid-'90s, you know, the companies were growing big and acquiring a lot of companies. So that was a fun deal because you were really— And that's when I began to realize how valuable it was to have a legal knowledge of leasing contracts and tie it into the accounting because you got to get down to the who's going to write the check and how much it's going to be for. I mean, that's—

Well, so let me ask you this. A lot of our audience are people who have worked for corporations. They've sat in cube world and been accountants and done all of that. And they're like, I don't want to do this anymore.

Sure.

And here came COVID, and now they've been through COVID. What advice would you give them on the accounting side to prepare work for attorneys and to talk with attorneys. How—

how—

I mean, you've got both worlds going. How do you gain comfort that you're working with a CPA who is going to give you your year-end journal entries, or are they going to treat you like less than because they're a CPA? Or, you know, what's the language? What's the—

Yeah.

What's the flow there that makes it comfortable for everybody to get the work together properly so that the CPA has it properly in a proper manner. And so that we can also, because, you know, most attorneys aren't numbers people.

Yeah.

You know, you kind of get where I'm going with this.

Yeah. Well, attorneys are attorneys who are not account CPAs. I think they, they are a lot of a person is they always save the actual calculation till the very end.

Mm-hmm.

And then they try to create a lot of language that doesn't really fit in a calculation. So the earlier the CPA or the accountant can get in on the transaction and in their mind think every time, you know, even if they see a first draft of a contract, if they see, okay, this is how I'm going to put this in numbers terms, you know, this is, this is, how this contract is going to look. And then when it doesn't, you know, when you say, oh, you know, you're saying real estate in this part of the clause, do you mean land or do you mean some personal property in here? What do you really mean? Because I'm going to have to— because I as an accountant, I'm going to have to put a dollar amount to that.

And well, and on the books, we're going to have to set up the general ledgers.

How are we going to do that? Exactly. And so you know, you just sticking your little pencil in those attorneys' early contracts. Don't let it get clear down the road before, you know, if you have a client that's gonna sell something or is gonna buy something, you want your, your little pencil in there in the first minute, and you don't have to be doing the calculation, but you always have to be thinking, how is that contract going to be calculated? I mean, how is— what's the debit? What's the credit? Well, and how's that going to work?

Haven't we talked in the Law Lab before, Lynda and Sarah, about really it's not just doing the books, it's knowing your client. And so we have this legal niche that we work in, but within that niche we can have certain niches. Like how many times have we had the conversation of some of us really like to do family law firms, other ones really like to do personal injury, and the two don't match. You know, and so getting to know the ins and the outs about that client and what they're doing and all of their, you know, like with our personal injury firms, I like to know when I see a new client come in, I like to know what kind of personal injury case it is so I can start thinking about it. You know, I know like today we got a call here at the rally. I had one of our attorneys called and has a very unique situation with a very sick person who got won a settlement, but his bank accounts are closed and he's in hospice. And so we were trying to figure out how to get the money to him. But I had been thinking about this for a few days and we came up with a solution. And our solution was to call the Bar Association, the Supreme Court, because he can't take— he wanted to take the cash out and put it in his personal bank account, which immediately I went, nope, nope, nope, nope, can't do that. Mm-hmm. And, you know, so I got he and the bar together and I don't know what the final dissolution of this was. But to your point, knowing, knowing all the pieces of the contracts and if you, if you are working with your attorney clients in that vein, they will really appreciate you that much more because you're taking a real interest in the business and you can put the books together quicker, more efficiently. And that makes sense.

Yeah. I think there's a realization between attorneys and CPAs, neither one, nobody knows everything. And the more value you can add by asking questions and saying, hey, what about this? Is this what you meant in your language?

They'll appreciate you.

And they'll appreciate you more. I mean, and they'll use words in drafting a document that really aren't, if you think about, okay, this is how the tax is going to have to work and this is how the assets and liabilities are going to have to work and the intangibles and those kind of words, they don't kind of use the exact words that need to be used, you know, a lot of times. And they appreciate you as an accountant telling them, hey, you know, this word would be a little more appropriate. And it's, you know, don't be intimidated by doing that, you know. Right. I mean, don't be intimidated. By attorneys that need some coaching on language they use in contracts. And don't be afraid to ask questions, you know, hey, what were you thinking here? Well, maybe this would clarify it just a little bit better if you said this.

Because we are an extension of their business.

Yes.

Lynda, could you maybe talk a little bit about the scenarios where we're trying to reconcile trust accounts? And as we go back and we keep turning the stones over, we suddenly realize that we're in a project that really didn't go back to 2019. It went back to 2012. And maybe Susan could give a, you know, I mean, talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, we've had some clients that they, most of the time they come to us saying, oh, my bank is reconciled. They just don't know what's in the, who belongs to all these pieces.

Right, right, right.

And then you'll say, well, how long ago was it that it all aligned and you knew every penny? And they'll go, well, I don't know. I think it was 2000 and 15. It's like, oh yeah, but I changed software 3 times in there and also changed banks just to add a little layer of complexity to it. And yeah, it's, it's just funny because it, or sometimes they'll just say that they think it's reconciled and they don't understand the whole concept of what that reconciliation is supposed to be. Freeway, right?

Yeah. They don't just because you're checking out a book and that says the same amount, that's not where it should reconcile. I should—

Unless they got a bar slap and then they know that, you know, the bar is looking to find out what the balances are and and they're like sitting right there and have no clue. They don't even know where to go. And part of the things we do at our firm and Steve too, we do that kind of compliance work, which is a scary word, but it's part of what they have to do and they know it. It's what keeps them awake at night. So we end up doing the work and we have different creative ways to do it depending on the software. And, but yeah, to Steve's point, like when you, when you were doing that work, I mean, You know, because you know about the compliance piece and how big it is, but you also know the other side of it. It's kind of like you're bipolar and having the two, because those two, so having those two job titles don't really go together. They're completely different because we have attorneys that come to us and we have to be very creative with how we show them and present their figures to them because you throw a lot of numbers in their eyes, go like, woo, they can't figure it out. And they don't want to admit that they don't understand it because It's not what they do. So if you give them pretty pictures and graphs and things, they get— they can understand it and they get excited about it. So how did— how do you— how do you handle that when, when you were doing that kind of work, especially the tax side?

You know, I have some clients that are law firms, or I have had in the past. I don't think I have any now. I end up with more situations where there's agreements that were drafted by 2 attorneys, and now nobody knows how to execute it.

Oh boy.

You know, they don't know how, you know, they may be dividing up a partnership or dividing up an estate, and they are, you know, there's been a lot of litigation go on, but yet when it comes down to it, they don't know how to actually do it.

Yes.

You know, even though the will says this or the trust said this and the things, but there's— so I'll end up with, you know, just basically tearing that, those agreements down into little bitty pieces and paragraphs and doing, okay, T-accounts and, you know, journal entries to say, okay, this is maybe how this should work, and I'll noodle on it for You know, depends on how deep and how difficult it is.

We all still use our T-accounts.

Yeah, we still do. It's funny. Well, sometimes, Steve, I don't know if the younger generation still even— I don't even know if they still teach that in school, but—

You know, sometimes people are like, what is a T-account? And I'm like, oh, forget it.

Yes. Yeah. But then when you show them, it's such a basic concept that your brain can be wrapped around, and it just will expose what you're looking for. Sarah knows. She's not that young, even though she looks it.

Well, and, you know, eventually it's got to get down to you've either got to write a check or do a tax return. That's what the end result is. You've either got to pay out money, pay money back and forth, or somebody's got to do a tax return eventually. So, you know, the more that is broken down to real accounting terms, the better off you are. But you know, how things all work. But some of the, some contracts are very difficult. And I've had situations where, you know, contracts were millions of dollars off. You know, the calculations were, you know, and it's amazing, but it happens pretty quickly because like you say, most lawyers aren't accountants. And, you know, we don't go— But we can sit in.

They want you to wave the magic wand and figure it out.

I know, I know.

Yeah.

In a week.

Like, you can't figure stuff out in a week that you did 5 years of junkiness.

Right, right. You're digging through bank statements and all that kind of stuff, you know, and, you know, it's, it's not glamorous to dig through those old bank statements and all that stuff, but it's kind of lots of times what has to be done, you know, reconciling an old trust account that was closed or that got transferred to another bank. It's still got to be reconciled, you know. And so those are very difficult situations. They require somebody who really can stick in there.

Oh, that's why we're grateful for software that can like take those PDFs and turn them into Excel so that we don't have to deal with manually figuring it out. I mean, when we look at where our industry has gone to, we've always kind of been trailblazers when it comes to technology, in my opinion. And, and we're just stepping out of a conference that Sarah and I just came out of, and one of the big talks was ChatGPT. But also when you start to think about about it. And this is something that I actually put in my book about the smart contracts that are coming up and especially for real estate transactions. So some of that calculating things, it's done with blockchain. It's going to be like set in stone. It's going to be perfectly accurate. And I don't know how, I don't know how that'll be. I'm curious. I can't wait to see it. And it's not going to be none of this technology. It, they gave stats on ChatGPT and the statistics on how fast it's being, how many people are adopting this technology is the fastest they've ever seen. Of course, it's free. But it's the fact that way people are using it and it's fascinating. It's fascinating stuff. I, I find it intriguing. I love being on top of technology and being like you've been your whole career ahead of everybody else. I think it's fun. And I would love to see a picture of you all taking the paper out and going all around the room to unfold it.

Good luck.

That would be so cool to have a photo of all that, like just kumbaya all around.

Yeah. We didn't have all the cameras we have now. Thank God.

No.

Much simpler times. By now, if somebody had a camera at the right time in the right place.

Exactly. I mean, it's so different.

Man, that place must have taken a long time.

Yeah. Well, you know, we were pretty good at it and it was like all hands on deck and you just did it, you know? And We had, we had one client, but we did it several times. We did it for tax returns, but another time we did it was we had a client that was the largest owner of Pizza Huts in the United States. And so once a month you would do all the Pizza Huts. And I think they owned 500 Pizza Huts. Oh my gosh. And, you know, it's time for Pizza Hut financial statements. So everybody stopped and did Pizza Hut financial statements. And I shouldn't mention the client.

We should be taking notes because if the internet ever goes down, we're going to need her.

Yeah, I know, right?

When it breaks. ChatGPT, people like to just ask a question and get an answer.

Right. There's no easy way.

And well, it, the funny thing is that they demonstrated it with our friends from Digits demonstrated how when you ask the question, because it's generative artificial intelligence or machine learning, it doesn't do math. And just because it spits an answer out, if you take a calculator out, and you don't have the right plugin on, it's not gonna— the math's not right. And you might just think it is like that lawyer who took that court case. It gave the guy what he was looking for, but it didn't give him real data. It made something up.

Yeah.

And that's not a, you know, and it will get smarter. I mean, it's gonna grow really fast if this many people are adopting it. And every time you try to go on the free one, it's slow. So if it's really moving that quickly, it's, it's definitely gonna be a, you know, something you see. And we saw how many, how many sessions had ChatGPT in Sarah. Well, you went to Michelle Long's and Heather's, and she just loved it so much. Like, you had— I wish you went to it with me, and I didn't. And then they repeated it because it was packed and full and there wasn't enough room for everybody. And I went to the smaller session, which was phenomenal. So, I mean, I learned a lot. And I first, I was like, I'm not going to learn anything. And I was so glad I went. I'm glad she pushed me to go because it was really worth my while. Yeah.

Yeah. That's great. That's great.

I'm curious. There's some things swimming around in my head. Do you still have your CPA?

Well, oh gosh, where did I stop my story? You know, after I left Payless Shoe Stores, I had a— our family had a family farming operation. Our farm was established in 1848. Just to give perspective, 1861 was the Civil War. So we have one of the oldest family farms in the state of Missouri. And so my brother had been killed in a farming accident. He was all— he'd been all prepared to take over the farming operation. And then all of a sudden, boom, here it is. So I know. So I thought, maybe I should just stop and—

Another dog.

Get this thing worked through.

And see how it works.

And works out.

See how it works out. So, you know, I knew computers, so I knew I could get things set up on a computer. So the cattle herd, I got it set up on cattle software. So I learned cattle software. Oh my God. And then, you know, I knew, you know, general ledger and that kind of stuff, the bank accounts. I knew all that. And then I knew, you know, leases and contracts and sharecropping and all that kind of stuff. I knew that. But I didn't really know about— I was raised on a farm. But I'd been away for 30 years, so I didn't really know about the farming and stuff. So I thought, oh my gosh, I've got to learn this. So I started going to, you know, Kansas State, the University of Missouri, and University of Nebraska. Anybody that had ag schools that was offering like a 5-day class, a week class on livestock breeds or row crop operations or anything, I would just go— grazing cattle, anything— I would just go. And learn something, you know, didn't matter what, you know. And then I got to figure it out and I thought, you know, I'd be driving through the country or something or on a highway and I'd stop and I'd go up to a farmer that was out there doing something that I didn't know what they were doing. I'd say, what are you doing? And why are you doing this? You know? And so then they love to talk. They hadn't seen anybody in weeks, you know. Love some crazy lady that's driving around asking them questions, you know. So then—

You were the talk of the town at that point, I'm sure.

If they only knew. But you know, people want to share their world with you. And if you ask them questions, they will share, just like you're asking me questions. I'm happy to share with you. But, you know, they were, they were very happy. And of course, they'd been raised on a farm. And we, by that time, I owned a farm that was established in 1848. So one of the oldest in the state. So I I just thought, I'm just going to be like a big old sponge and learn everything they know and just sort it out and see if it's right or wrong. So I did that. So that went on for about— it took us about, oh, I'd say probably, let's see, probably like 5 years to really get right, you know, back the keel, the keel of the ship right. Oh. And then one day, there was an attorney that had a large tax practice in the area. And he really specialized in ag taxation, which we all know that's kind of like a real niche, you know.

Yeah.

And I thought, well, you know, I'm going to call him and see how it goes and see what, you know, what he's doing. And he said, you know what, Susan? He said, I give you my practice. I'll hand it over to you. He said, I just can't do it anymore. And I'll be happy to just send all my clients to you. And I thought, Oh, that's okay. So then I went, I went back to my network who I knew, a CPA, and I went back to him. I said, you know, what, what if I did this? What software would I use and how would I do this? And he said, oh, I'll help you do that. You can get it all set up. And I thought, oh, you know, maybe I'll have like 20 clients and I'll do their little tax returns. Maybe I'll have 20 clients. Yeah, looks like. So, uh, that went pretty good. And then I ended up with like 50 people. I was gonna say, I knew it.

Yeah.

So then, and it was just a real niche, you know, ag taxation, you know. So, you know, doing all that. So those years of assembling tax returns and keeping software going and all that kind of stuff just really, you know, came back and hadn't really changed that much. I mean, there's different softwares and different ways to do it, but it's all basically the same, you know, debit on the left, credit on the right. Yeah. So then it just kind of grew, grew, grew. And then I was like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. This is— so then I said, okay, 100 clients, that's it. So that's where I am right now. So I have, you know, 100 clients and I do tax returns. I have some bigger clients that I do everything for them, you know, their payrolls and their general ledgers and stuff. But it's all ag taxation. And—

Wow.

So it's just a niche, you know, how do you get there? You know, how did I go from— They're A to B.

To this.

I like the rolling. You've rolled into— every little piece has a piece of you from your journey of all of these pieces, and you've connected them. You've just made this big jigsaw puzzle, which is beautiful. But it's so cool. Now we have a referral if anyone we know.

I mean, yeah, farmer that walks in.

Here's the big lesson to learn today, too, from Susan. That she's a real person. You know, attorneys are people. We're not— you know, the advice to these bookkeepers and accountants in our group is don't just take on the firm just to do books.

Yeah.

Everybody, like she said, everybody has their story and they want to share it, you know? And I think that's where I've been blessed in my business with attorneys over the years, is I really become a part of their family, a part of their firm. I think I shared with you before I've got a client down in Palm Beach, Florida, in Boynton Beach, Florida, who I have never met in person. One year they asked me to send my photo down to them, so I did. And every year at the Christmas party, they call me and they have me at a place on the table and they're like, you're at the Christmas party.

Oh, that's genius.

Yeah, I should show up.

Yeah, you should. That would be amazing if you were to just show up and—

But you know, They all have stories. And if you become part of their life from when an attorney and they're, you know, when they have a baby, when there's a death in the family, when there's a wedding, whatever, send them a little note, send them a, you know, thank you for your business or how can I do more for you or what do you need?

Well, you're talking about the relationship. You're talking about building the relation. And that's, I think that's true of probably the nature of who we are in the service side of it.

But I feel like— Yeah.

Yeah. What Susan, you're kind of bringing to light for a lot of us too, is you just don't know the possibilities.

Right.

These doors might open and you literally, I mean, I can't, I cannot believe the twist of it. You were going from corporate leases, basically Payless Shoes or other types of, you know, places and now in tax or accounting work and then you, okay, I'm just gonna do the farm thing and then the farm thing turns into a whole new piece. Like, What a journey.

It's like an unreal story. My husband says it's like being married to a tornado.

Well, you do live in Kansas.

I love Kansas. So you are though.

Yeah.

Well, people, and I love that younger women today don't see themselves as being restricted as, you know, like I started my story that had two. I'll tell you a little additional story. When I went to law school, there were only two bathrooms, 2 stalls for women in the whole law school.

Oh, wow. That is so wrong.

And of course, they were for the secretaries, you know, in the day. And really, I'm so enthused about where women have gone in business and law and accounting, and they've become the, you know, the drivers. And I really, really— that just brings joy to me, you know, to see how progressive women have become.

My best bosses have always been women. I love working with women attorneys, you know, they, they, they— there's just this different aura about them.

Yeah.

You can have conversations with them.

How far have we come for that? But the fact that you had— the fact that there was two in two, but two people, you being one, and then to be in law school— I mean, do you have a women's, uh, lawyers group there that you, you're part of?

I do, but I, I'm not a— I'm not a group person unless it's Airstreams. Airstreams.

Unless it's Airstreams.

Okay. But here's a perfect example. You know, I was— the Airstream group, you know, they've got all these Airstreamers together and I'm a newbie. He's very experienced. I'm a newbie on Airstreams and they're very complicated things. There's a lot that goes on and there's a whole aura and culture about them and I've always been fascinated with it, but I haven't been a part of it and I don't know about it. So last probably January or February, they were doing— I wanted to go to the International Rally and they were doing a call for speakers.

Mm-hmm.

People that talk about your amperage on your plugins and, you know, all this kind of Airstream stuff. And I thought, I just kind of sat back in my chair and I thought, what in God's green earth can I talk about at an Airstream conference that would interest anybody?

And you said that, you said that to me about this podcast and look at all the valuable information you brought today.

Mm-hmm.

So I said, so at the time I was working on a tax return and that had solar energy credits in it.

Oh, there you go. There you go.

And so I said, you know what, there's that new energy credit law. I wonder if that applies to the solar system, solar panels that they put on top of Airstreams and the lithium batteries and the whole thing. That Airstreamers spend a lot of time and a lot of energy. Yeah, yeah. But could they get a tax credit for it? Voilà! Researched it. Sure enough.

And isn't there a tax credit for working out of your Airstream?

Well, there could be. There could be. Perhaps if you show up at my seminar on Friday at 1.

Oh, okay. Oh, you're doing one?

It's the Friday at 1 slot. But anyway, So I just, I just put together, I said, here's what, here's what, you know, here's an idea for a presentation. So I just put a little presentation together. I said, hey, you know, you spend all this money on a solar system for your Airstream, you spend all this money to put in lithium batteries and everything. Here's what, according to the new tax law that starts in 2023, here's what you could deduct and here's credits you can get, you know, here's how that might work. So that's a presentation I'm going to give Friday. So we don't know where that's going to go.

So for all of the, all of the people watching this podcast that have dream like I did.

Yeah.

Of working out on the road and seeing this beautiful country that we live in and, you know, having, you know, just different scenery anytime you want it. You just pack up and go and being able to work there. Our hope— there's hope and there's— it's really growing. There's a lot of people and it fits perfectly with the type of work that we do.

So, so that's interesting. I would be interested to hear, just because I saw this debate from a friend. There was an RVer that's like a blogger style, I think, and said that you could get all these tax credits and basically, like, it didn't sound right to this other CPA. And I would just be curious after the class, I'm going to be curious, like, how—

I'm going to go now.

You're going to go?

Yeah. What portions of it make sense and are ethical and legal to do? Because obviously But us as individuals, what we're doing is providing the heaviest stuff to be able for you to interpret and say, okay, I'm going to put this on a tax return with—

How many of you guys have had an attorney ask you, can I go buy a new suit and tax and get a tax deduction?

Or cut their hair.

Or cut their hair. Yeah, cut their hair.

That was my favorite one.

What about their nails?

Yeah, and their nails.

Yeah. So it's just kind of looking at it from You know, first, once again, it's just one of those things. If you think of yourself first, your first thought is there is not one single thing I could get up in front of people and say that would add value. And then when you dig a little bit deeper and you say, oh, they probably don't know about that solar tax credit.

Exactly. That's awesome.

Or they don't even know when they go into their CPA or their accountant to have their tax return done that they should say, hey, here's the documentation of a solar system I put on the top of my Airstream and the lithium batteries I bought. Here's the labor I had. And is that eligible for a tax credit? So, you know, it's just kind of sitting back and thinking, okay, I could add some value here, but we're not sure I'm going to add value yet.

But yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm so curious.

It'll be—

we're going to have to report back. So, so another question I had just out of curiosity. So you're based in Kansas. But do you practice? So when you're practicing, do you still practice law or is it just on the tax side now that you're just focused on?

Well, I have my 100 and if they need a land transfer done or a will or a revocable trust or, you know, things like that, I do do that for them. But I have my 100. So if you're not in my 100, it's not, not going to—

Not going to happen. Okay, got it. So it's exclusivity to who you have currently, which is great.

Okay.

Got it. I love it.

And you really know their business too, by the time you're, you know, and really their personal situation.

Yeah.

It's very difficult for farmers because their land has become so valuable. They don't have, you know, maybe the cash, but they're all millionaires, you know, if they own, you know, a couple hundred acres.

Assets on the books, right?

Assets on the books, but, or not on the books. Because they bought it back. Yeah.

A bazillion years ago. Oh yeah.

Yeah. So they all struggle with that. So, you know, when you, you know, you try to treat them like they should be and get done what they want to get done. And so—

Well, it's the hardest work. There's a lot of love that has to go into it. You're feeding countries and nations with what you produce in your product in some form or other things like cotton and other forms. But yeah, it's a really— it's interesting. I just love that you want it. You just all just get 20 and now you have your 100.

Yeah, you're just like, you know, I'm not going to— and I don't work that hard. He can tell you I'm older than I probably— you know, I'm old. Yeah. You know, so I do tax returns and that stuff and work very intensely and do probably 80, 90% of the work is just remote, you know. Yeah, they upload their general ledgers or I log on to their Quicken accounts or they upload documents to my portal. And, you know, so it's very, you know, it's not— I have a few, you know, they're, you know, very few that actually want to meet with me. You know, it's the— it's the— I'm going to— I will tell you, my oldest client, I think, is 105. Oh, and sharper than a tack. Retired lawyer, judge. Just a great guy.

That's awesome.

Oh my God. And, you know, I go see him. I go see him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would go see him.

Yeah, yeah.

But a retired lawyer and judge, he's 105. Can you imagine the stories?

Yeah, I know. He was actually best man at my parents' wedding.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, then you're a darling to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So anyway, you know, there's a few, and it's never going to be, even though technology is very easy in this kind of thing, it's It's never going to be everybody. And but, you know, you get your younger ones that really adapt and surprisingly some older ones that adapt that you just don't know would do that. But I was on a board of a nursing home, a community-owned nursing home board. And, you know, COVID was very difficult on those rural communities, their nursing home facilities, you know, what they needed to do and stuff. So we just went to Zoom and we would meet all the time and try to understand what what was going on and really help people in the community understand why they couldn't come visit mom and, you know, why we were doing what we're doing. And the technology piece was really beneficial because people could just, you know, they had email, you could just send them a link and they could link on and then you could really talk to it face to face.

Yeah.

And that's what you needed to do, you know, in that situation.

So it's— Well, nursing homes had it rough there for, man, It was tough.

It was tough. Yeah.

Yeah. Gosh, you kind of forget. I hate to say it. You don't want to because it was so impactful in all of our lives in a weird way, in many ways. But you do kind of forget these moments of reality that we're on the—

You do. And you know, one of the blessings in our lives is we found each other.

Yes. So true. So true.

I have to hear that story, how you guys all got together.

This is how it happened through the Law Lab that I talked about it. I mean, Lynda will give a little information about that, but that's how we all met.

Yeah.

You know, Lynda and Sarah started the Law Lab.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

2 years ago now.

Is it?

What?

Isn't it 2 years ago?

Yeah, I think so. Oh, okay.

I thought you said 3. I said, what?

No, 2, 2, 2.

You scared me. Time passes, you know.

It does. It really does.

Yeah.

It does. It goes by fast.

Yeah. Oh man. Gosh, this has been fantastic.

It's been.

This was really special. I have to say, I, I'm honored to—

My heart is full today. I mean, I can't believe the planet let me find her.

You know? Yeah. Yeah.

You're my new everybody.

Yeah. No, this is fantastic.

Yeah. You know, and you're, you're, you meet so many people. Your world is so big and beautiful and all the, and all the people in it. I mean, it's just amazing. You know, all these things, you know, the changes that will take place in our lifetime, maybe I won't be able to see pulling Airstreams around with EVs, but maybe I'll see a few. And I've seen a few. Yeah, yeah. You know, ChatGPT and those kinds of things, you know, they'll, they'll make our world very different. And I will tell you, when I took my first marketing class in college, our marketing teacher Computers were just becoming acceptable or becoming a thing. And she said, you know, in your lifetime, computers will be more, you'll have more computers than you will, there'll be refrigerators. And I thought, that's just the craziest thing I've ever heard.

And look at us with our cell phones.

Yeah.

Oh man, if she got paid for that moment. Yeah. Just for saying that, you know.

But, but it just opened you up to think, wow, that's really gonna be something. That's gonna be cool. And then, you know, yeah, you know, and it's, and it's what your world is. I have to tell this funny story about, you know, how we take pictures on our computer, on our phones and everything. And my mom, who was in her early 90s, had a flip phone and she loved her flip phone and she could call and you know, push her buttons and talk. And oh, she loved it. And so my nephew came in one day and he was showing her how he had pictures on his iPhone, you know, pictures. And so about a week later, he came down and she said, I got pictures on my, my phone. And he was kind of like, you're gonna show me that? So she shows it to him and she's taken the school pictures of all the grandkids. And kind of outpaced them on her phone. So— Oh my gosh, that's fantastic.

That's great.

And it's just like, oh, well, that's what technology did.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pictures and put them on your phone. She kept them on because that's all she knew.

Oh, that's such a sweet story.

So every time she pulled out her phone, she saw our grandkids, everything.

And so we do everything on these now. We do have computers, but really all client conversations tend to happen—

You know, I haven't had computer service really. And so I just, you know, my phone, I just fill out forms and do all this stuff on my phone.

Yeah. Pretty brilliant, but pretty scary to think how fast it went. It's just, I think it was shocking to look at how fast the speed of adoption for like a Facebook, a Twitter, or an Amazon. And we're seeing these charts on the screen and Lynda got to see it and there it was. And the biggest movement, funny that you bring this up, is marketing, which Lynda absolutely loves doing. She such a great job with it. And the possibilities were kind of amazing, actually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lot of it you can automate today where, you know, there's a lot of less of the manual putting all the pieces out there. And now you can automate, you can get the SEO, everything where that wasn't a thing.

I went to a presentation this morning about Starlink. And, you know, it really exploded when Elon Musk sent up some satellites and took Starlink over to, um, where the war zone.

Ukraine. Yeah, the Ukraine. I know, it's incredible what you did for them.

Then, you know, Airstream put in a, a module in the newer Airstreams called Airstream Connect, and now they're, you know, they're talking about Starlink and what it's going to do, and it's just amazing how it all moves. And, you know, that, you know, back to what I said a while ago, that just creates this environment where we can have more freedoms in our lives and capitalize on them instead of being afraid of them. I'm not afraid of ChatGPT. I'm really not. I think it's going to be fine and we're always going to be needed in the type of work we do.

I think in a lot of the accounting industry, I think it'll just change a course of direction within it. But there's that human engagement and that interpretation.

And knowing your clients.

Yeah. And like you both are saying, it's building these relationships. So I kind of feel like we're trailblazing a cakewalk with you, Susan, right now.

This is what we've decided to title this, Trailblazing a Cakewalk with Susan Tucker.

I just thought her words are just fantastic. And Lynda, I mean, you and I are just— I mean, knowing some of the women we know, we heard a talk by a dear friend of ours who's based out of Florida. Debra Kilsheimer. Deb is what we call her. And, you know, she remembers being in the office where all the guys sat on one side and all the girls sat on the other. And she was like the only CPA.

Yeah.

Only one that did tax. But the other— the guy got paid more than her. And she talks about these stories about efficiency and how— because she was more efficient with it because she just knew how to use a 10-key where the other guy was slower than molasses, but he got paid more because it was built by the app.

Yeah, he had to do less.

To do less.

Yeah. I just had that on the news the other day with the scale and how it's now getting more towards—

Is it tightening up?

It was like 85%. Now it's like 90%. It's still— no, it's like 90%, but it's still much better than it, you know, what it was in the '70s and '80s and everything. It's getting— it's improving.

So— But you still have to fight. I mean, it is sad to know. It's very sad.

Yeah.

That, that's just in general, that's just kind of the lens that we still have to deal with.

And I think part of that had to do with back when I was younger, had to do with women not working when the kids, you know, that gap in your time working hurt women. And today that's not a thing. Most women just go right back to work. So that maybe has helped improve that, I think. Probably.

Well, that gap is happening for fathers now because some women are outpacing financially some of the spouses or the partners, depending on the partnership relationship and that. And so So I think it's going to be interesting at us as employers in general, how we accept it. Because I think the movement obviously needs to happen with the larger capacity of the smaller ones. The corporate ones will only turn at the demand or at the acceptance because if you can have it in a smaller one, eventually corporate America is going to have to face the same dance. Yeah.

But yeah. And we work mostly all with all women and Steve's the only one that we've allowed to permeate that.

Yeah, that boundary.

I've been allowed in.

He's allowed in. He's the only male we've really let in.

Well, I decided to see how it would work.

I know, I know. We got to use that now.

Let's just see how it works.

I know, right? Yeah. My failures.

So instead of saying we're going to throw spaghetti against the wall and see how it sticks, we're just going to see how it works.

Yeah.

What door is going to open now? I love it. Well, this was fun for sure.

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me and including me. I really learned a lot.

Thank you.

We are honored that you came. Thank you.

We really are.

Who's going to close this out today?

It sounds like myself. So to subscribe to this podcast on our YouTube, or you can subscribe to this podcast on our YouTube channel. If you have questions, topic requests, which I don't know if we've gotten any yet, but I'm looking forward to them. Guest suggestions. Questions, you can email us at info@accountantslawpod.com, or you can message us through the website accountantslawpod.com. And if you would like to join us on the Accountants Law Lab, which is held on Fridays, visit our website accountantslawlab.com to sign up. And Steve, now we're doing the little Airstream adventures, so where— how long are you going to be here for? What— and what's next on the horizon?

Where are you? You didn't tell us, did you?

We got here— we, we, um, the Colorado group pulled our Airstreams from the Denver area up to Rawlins, Wyoming last Friday.

Okay.

And then we all caravaned— no, last Thursday. And then on Friday, we all caravaned to Rock Springs down Interstate 80 together. So for miles, you saw Airstreams up and down the hills.

Oh my goodness. That would be so cool.

So next stop, I'm going to leave here. The rally goes through Friday. I'm going to leave here Saturday and head down to northwestern Colorado to my hometown where I'm hosting a rally for the International Sheepdog Trials in September. And so I'll be meeting with the city council and stuff like that over the weekend to kind of put some of those plans together. And I have 50 Airstreams coming to my rally with a waitlist of about another 25.

Was that one of those moments, Steve? Let's see what happens here. And I'm just going to get in front of council.

An Airstream to a dog.

Yeah. So that's, that's what we're up to here. And I— where are you going after this?

Uh, well, I— it's where I've been, um, last couple of weeks. There's this huge, um, gravel bike race called Unbound. That's the largest one in the world that's world famous in Emporia, Kansas.

Oh, nice.

And several of us took our Airstreams down, and my husband rode in it, a 100-mile ride in the mud. In this gravel through the Flint Hills of Kansas and everything. And there were thousands, I think there were close to 6,000 riders.

Wow.

But it really went pretty good until mile 11. That was pure mud. They had 3 miles of hike-a-bike, which if you know what that means, that means you're carrying your bike.

Yeah.

Carrying your bike 3 miles. And then rode another 80 on the thing. So I came from it up to this. So—

Is he still in bed? No.

Exactly. But then I've got a caravan this fall, the Ozarks Caravan, which we're gonna go around.

Oh, that should be pretty neat. That's awesome.

So all of you out there, all of you out there in the audience that want to work remotely in your own RV, yes, you can do this.

You could do it. You know, I had a client, I mean, your clients don't really ever know you're gone.

They don't care.

And yesterday I had one and they were trying to fax something to me and they said, can you go in and reboot your fax machine? And I said, I'm in Wyoming. You know, they're like, you know, they were like—

You know, there's this online fax number I can get now.

Go ahead and fax it to me.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I thought it's because I'm in the dead zone here. I have no service.

No service. Yeah.

I don't even know where you are. I said, I'm on vacation. So, you know, oh, sorry. And like, oh, sorry. But you know, they think, they think you're right there. They don't realize that you're not. You mean you're not just down the street?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, well, thank you so much, Susan.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you, Susan. It's a pleasure having you on. And we'll see you all next time on The Accountant's Law Pad.

Bye everybody.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.