Customizing your Accounting Firm's Processes with Hughes and Strong Consulting

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Linda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Steven Libhart.

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone, and today we're calling this one Customizing Your Accounting Firm's Processes with Hughes and Strong Consulting. So yes, we have a guest, and I'm going to let Sarah introduce them, and then they can Tell them a little bit about themselves because you met them at the Bookkeeping Buds, right, Sarah?

Yes. Yeah. And one of the biggest intriguing things, what was buzzing about, what I was hearing was there's this, an app that we all love and use. And they were like the geniuses of cracking it down and creating these workflows specific to that app. And I'm like, wait a minute, what do you all do? And then I found out there's a heck of a lot more that they do. They're just really operationally focused and minded. And they totally love— in a pleasant way to say this— geek out in that space, which is what we all need. Because we dream of these ideas, and our implementation process is probably, eh. We dream of it, and then we hope to God people take it and run with it. But it doesn't always work that way. So that's how I had the opportunity to meet them and learn just this little buzz thing happening about. And Tira and I were both like, all right, we got to go up to the table. We got to be brave and find out more. on our own prior to the games that we were playing in the Bookkeeping Budd Retreat. So Jodi and Erica, like, feel free, just one of you, whichever one wants to start and introduce yourselves and tell us more because I'm sure I didn't capture it all.

Yeah, lovely. So you did a fantastic job getting us started.

Yes.

So we absolutely like geek out, not a bad term, and is probably pretty close to what we do. We came from, we each had our own business before this and the cobbler's the last one to get their own systems. And I mean, in, in the same way we experienced being on the person on the ground and you have to wear so many different hats to keep everything running. Um, and that's just business in general, but that means that dedicating time to figuring out a system or your workflow or troubleshoot these pieces or learn about it in order to set it up and do something that some of that prep work just. gets tossed to the back burner and becomes a front burner project for 2 weeks, and then it gets tossed back for hopefully not too long, but sometimes it just stays back there for a while, and then the shame builds, and it just becomes this whole big cycle. So we started Hughes and Strong about a year and a half ago to really transition and fully go into, hey, we'll help take the actual systems part off your plate. We are not the people who will just set up any random system for you. But what we love to do is really figuring out what you need in your firm, right? Because everybody's different, every system's different. There's a million and a half different ways to set up even one system. So a lot of what we do, it ends up being brainstorming to figure out what gaps are there and how to fill that and tinkering around to figuring out how to get the software to do what you need it to do.

And dealing with the squirrel syndrome, right? Yes.

The good ones, Steve. Yeah. So true.

I was just gonna add, like, I fully admit I definitely geek out about all things systems. But it was my first accounting conference that I went to is where I learned, because I'm a bookkeeper as well. So I was at a bookkeeping conference and the focus was on systems and they were just drilling it into everybody that was there. You've gotta have systems. You gotta have systems. And talking around the table, Everybody was groaning. I was the oddball out getting excited about systems. So that's where, like, the seed was planted for what is now Used and Strong Consulting is because, like, I love to do that. Maybe I can help you out.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Okay. So I think I know Steve and I have chatted about this is when you're a solo, Building strong systems to when you're a team, and Linda and I have experienced this, when do they adopt the system you built? Because they might not like it. What do you do there? Like, that's a huge transition.

It's really difficult. I mean, we work with everybody from the person who's just getting started, who needs the systems to even just get their first client, all the way up to somebody who has 50 or 60 clients. And I think one of the, that transition that you're talking about is one of the most difficult, both in setting the systems up so you can hire and bringing those first couple of team members on, very difficult ledge to jump off of.

Yeah.

There's more than just the system, right? There's a lot of training, there's a lot of feedback, there's a lot of tweaking that has to happen to get the entire team to adopt that system and to use it. And honestly, that's Part of the reason that we love what we do is it really is like a lot of tinkering and troubleshooting. So not just let's build out Keeper or whatever and get everything in there, but what's your— how is your team liking it? Do they hate it? Are they having a hard time checking things off? Are they checking it off and they're not actually doing it? Like, how do we work through this? So for us, it's more about figuring out what—

Mm-hmm.

And, and that's why it's a lot more than just the system itself. It's the workflows that go into it. It's the processes. It's the way that you talk about it with your team. And that all comes to a melting pot that just is easy to umbrella and say we do systems. But a lot of it really is that, like, how do you facilitate this conversation? And a lot of times we end up coming in and doing training because sometimes it's easier to paint us as third-party people as the, hey, Hewson Strong said that this is what we need to do. So this is what we need to do. So we're happy to be the bad guys sometimes and just say— and I think a lot of it comes back down to having your team understand the why. Because honestly, a lot of it ends up being relatively tedious of, okay, you're making me do all of this admin and checking things off and reading this about 150 times. What's the point? This feels like it's slow and cumbersome. So a lot of it is just breaking down the why it's important and what happens if this doesn't happen, like the ripple effects down the line. And then just having open conversations about what's working, what's not working, good, bad, and ugly. Honestly.

So do you have meetings with the teams, our teams, if we brought you in and you have meetings with our teams and help address the challenges when they say, I don't want to do this, I just want to do my work, I just want to do my work and that's all I want to do?

Absolutely.

How do you handle that?

I think we're problem solvers at heart. And so when we approach a situation, whether it's a team trying to figure out how to work together or somebody trying to figure out how to get something set up that they can hire on, you know, all the different types of situations there. We love to brainstorm, troubleshoot, and problem solve. This is so cool. So we, we can come in and hear from the team and get all the feedback there and then help kind of guide and say, okay, well, have you thought about this? Or these are some suggestions that you could try to do and just help guide that conversation So that the team can come together with decisions on what they want to do moving forward.

Like a facilitator in the sense of coming together. I can see why, Jodi, you said, I'm the one that was super excited. You're probably like, I want to be the glue. I want to make the process improvements. Or, I mean, Linda, you and I touched on this, but when we first started, we built out Notion. And then crickets. Like, I mean, for us even, it was a bit like, okay, we gotta do what now to do what? But—

Well, we were trying to make a system do something that it was not designed for. Stop right there is the problem, right? Taking a product that's really not for what we were trying to make it, project management. It's not what the tool is designed for. So we were doing that, and then it was really confusing because we built it out. And then nobody was using it. We would have meetings and nobody touched it, nobody used it. And then it was like frustrating because we were still building it out and taking all the time to build it out. And then it had zero. I think, Sarah, you might have been the only one actually trying to make it work. Most of us couldn't figure it out. And then like, this isn't working. And nobody wanted to tell us that though. So we just kept building it out and paying somebody to build it out for me.

That's the part of it.

Yeah. And I'm like, nobody's using this. Why are we gonna keep going down that road? And then we started looking at other options, found another product. And in that case, you know, we're using— I was just gonna call it Ignition because Ignition's in my brain for now. Financial Sense, which is built for what we wanted it to use, and it does what we wanted it to do. And everybody seems to be pretty good about it. Although there's a case of it's really not completely built out the way Sarah and I would like to see it. We keep trying to be the little cheerleaders. Like, I want to See all those SOPs and they're like, nobody ever answers. You ever notice that, Sarah?

When we say that, everybody's kind of like, no, we have a few. I will say we have a few.

One.

Yeah.

One.

Nicole.

Nicole. She's the only one.

Yeah. But to be fair, I think it's what kind of Erica and Jodi are saying. It's like this. It's the why and the longevity. You have to build to the longevity. And Linda, you're right. We had to also find something. It can't just be what we want. We had to find something that would just kind of glue everybody back. And we actually have redundant systems. Like Linda and I, and I've had to speak to why do you have this project management platform with, say, another, like our friends Keeper? They are 2 wildly different things doing different things for us that mean so much. There's so much value.

But they're similar.

They're similar.

So that's why people say, why do you use both?

Yeah.

Why do you implement both?

Well, you know, we're in that same boat as you two. I think, think back to when we, the 3 of us had that conversation about Notion.

Yeah.

And I showed you how we had built it out and we ran into the same thing. Nobody would use it.

Yeah.

I found, I found that I was the only one using it and every day I was going in and updating and being all proud of myself. I'm like, well, why isn't anybody else using it? And so we, we migrated out of that and we're just now coming into Financial Cents and Keeper again.

Yeah.

And, you know, so you guys must have so much experience in working with so many different accounting firms that when somebody approaches you and says, this is my problem, you can immediately think, this is how we handled it with this other one. And that kind of gives you the strength to recommend the product that you're recommending. And I would imagine you must know most of them inside and out. Is that a fair assumption?

Yes and no.

Pretty close.

Yeah, I think we'll probably bounce back and forth on this one, but I threw a bomb. No, I mean, perfect question. I think overall you can paint similarities, right? Everybody's slightly different, which is the fun, but also the challenging part, right? That's why there is no one system. And that's why you're the person next to you who has almost an identical firm on paper has a completely different system and a completely different setup than you do. So there's things that, especially now that we have some traction and some experience, you, you can like kind of picture, oh, we did this for this person. So I wonder if we can meld this with this. And oh, what if we take what we found from this in the Facebook group? So it's a big melting pot and a lot of brainstorming and a lot of mockups. I think our demo account is absolutely— it's lovely, but also insanity for anybody that's not us because it's a lot of—

Okay, us playing around.

Exactly, exactly. It's this team is having this trouble. Okay, what if we did it like this? No, that looks terrible. Oh, okay. Let's bring them these 2 options and see which clicks most, and then we'll go from there. So I think you can paint similarities and kind of get that creative inspiration, but it does become a patchwork where each one's a little bit like a different quilt, honestly.

Yeah. Patchwork's a great way to say it because with every— I think with every client that we work with, we learn something new or we gain another piece that we can throw in our box. And the next client that comes around, okay, let's rummage through that box and see which things are going to be the most helpful for that person. So it's kind of fun to be able to— it's like a give and take of information that we gather with every client.

We see that true with what I loved about learning about you all and what I see that I find true in working with Linda and And we've been talking with Steve, is that's true of us working with our niche of law firms. We could have on paper the exact same firm, but they are wildly different in processes. And we find the theme that we found successful in something completely different, a totally different law firm that we're finding relevant in that, that Linda has said, hey, you know what? Have you thought about this? Because we're seeing this other firm have success with this, is that gonna even work in that niche market for you? Is that even a possibility? So I love that there's so much similarities because it is true of any professional service, of the adoption of systems. And I think about, like, you walk into the— I'll just use a completely different type of industry, Starbucks, right? You walk in, there's a system, there's a process, there's like the whole menu thing, and there's the whole I'm sure it's daunting to anybody new, but they probably have a whole procedural handbook. And we're professional services, like you're saying, like you're being preached to and talked to. It's like the niche thing. Like Linda brings this up, right? I was told to get a niche, and so I did.

Yeah.

It's like that. But tangibly, what is that? Similar, like advisory. What is it? What am I doing? What's that in-between space? So it's kind of cool that you've carved out this in-between. But like, Jodi, you have the accounting knowledge. Like, you know that translation of what that looks like.

Which is incredibly helpful when you're trying to help bookkeepers figure out how do I take what I do and write it down or convey that to other team members that I want them to do this a specific way and this is why. Or we even have people come and say, I think I'm doing the right things, but I also really feel like I'm missing a lot of things. So sharing those processes that we've built out with the knowledge that we have, which we tweak. I say almost every time I'm working with somebody, I tweak our own, the workflows that we have on.

They're always a work in progress.

Exactly. And so, yeah, It helps other people to see like, oh, I didn't think about doing this check or looking at these accounts or something like that. And so we can jog their memory. But Sarah, I wanted to comment on something that you were talking about with even within your law firms, how everything on paper looks so similar and bookkeeping businesses too. They all look similar.

Yeah.

The difference is the people. We're all human. We're all wired differently. We're all individuals. So by all means, our businesses are going to be unique as well.

There are identities, right? There are the whys, the whats, the whos, the hows, like all of it. I love that. And I just loved the fact that in context of being at that little retreat and knowing people that have worked with you, and I could hear them say, well, they did this, this, and this for me. I'm like, y'all are sharing your trade secrets, which we're a funny profession about this, right? Within our own profession, this is what we do. We're competitors. But we're not. We're all kind of coming together. And so that was kind of neat to hear that. And I'm like, okay, I've got to go by the table because I'm missing the point. Like, I first didn't understand the first day. I was like, who are they? Where are they? And then the next day when I saw you, I was like, ah, this makes total sense hearing what you do, because it's what we do in big software changes or cleanups or just kind of ground-up sort of thing. Like, Right. Uh, Linda and I've, uh, had a few clients that have grown with us and adopted changes that we've talked about. And it's— nothing's more rewarding than probably like you two experience with us accounting professionals. Like, oh my God, it's actually working.

Yes.

Well, it's a sigh of relief. Like, it's the moment where it clicks. Yeah, it's that. And to go back to what you guys are saying, it's like, it's more than just the process or the system itself. It's like everybody on the team's brain works differently too, which just throws a whole wrench into the system and makes it difficult for, like, you as the owner on the ground to accommodate for all of that. But that's a really interesting part of that transition to having a team is The, the higher levels may think one way and need to see that high-level overview within the system. I don't want to get into every single client to figure out what's to do or what's still done or like all of these pieces.

Yeah.

But the people on the ground need the how-to and I need the why so that I know why all of this work is worth it and why the double check is necessary. So it really is like accommodating and melding together. everybody's vision and everybody's brain and how they work. And even the way that some firms use like Loom videos for everything. And some are like, I want it written out with emojis. And there's some people that want a PDF of screenshots. So it's just, it's, it really is a fun creative project to figure out how these all fit together for this team. And that looks different in every stage too. Like, right. The season where you start is very different for the season where you hire your first person. And when you start to level up and get more people underneath you, it's just like you said, Steve, it really is this like melding pot and it's always changing, which can be really frustrating if you're a perfectionist and you're like, I just want to be done with this project and move on, which is part of the reason we love coming in and being like, okay, it's not going to be done, but let's get you to something that's functional that feels good for now and we'll reevaluate when we need to.

Well, and you, you have to appeal to different learning styles too. Some people are listening, some are visual, some have to Some just have to do. And to your point early on in the podcast when you were talking about, you started to talk about the cobbler's children have no shoes. How do you deal or how do you, how do I ask this? How do you wrangle Linda and Sarah and I in our companies when you're trying to teach the team and trying to get these systems set? How do you wrangle us and get us settled down and Accountable.

Look at that.

It's very much collaborative.

Yeah, I would say you have to wrangle Sarah. She's the hard one to wrangle. Tell me where to go. Sarah's like, where's that?

Where'd Sarah go?

So how do you get our attention when, when you're, you know, you're getting feedback from the team and you're, you're tweaking these systems? How do you work with us to sell us on it? Because, you know, like you said, we're all over the place. We're We're fixing the pipes. We're fixing the broken computers.

Yep.

We're making sure the furnace is working. We're making sure everybody's in their place at their right time.

We're talking to them. We're paid. Like, there's so many things that everybody's trying to take care of.

The client that's upset about something. There was a situation while we were at QuickBooks Connect. I was really proud. I thought I did a really good job of explaining this step to the person who stayed here in town and did the bank feeds. And I missed one step. It reared its ugly head this morning and I was like, oh my God, that's my fault.

Oh, you know, but that's good.

That's good recognition too of like, okay, this is where a step got missed. So next time, yeah, you won't forget that step.

Oh no.

So it's all about learning too. But we're, we're, we're big proponents of collaboration. And if we're talking to your team, chances are you're in the room. You're listening, you're part of that meeting. It's got to come from both sides. We don't know the why of your business, so we have to have you there to explain that side of it.

Gotcha.

So like we were talking about before, we're facilitators, right? We're, we're moderators of the conversation. We can help the team dig deeper into where's the friction? Why is it that you're struggling to adopt this program? Why is it that you guys just really don't want to use it? And when you dig deeper, you figure out, the why on that end, and then you can address that. Then you can problem solve and figure out, okay, is this something that we can get around? Is this something that we can push ourselves through? Or do we need to pivot? Do we need to go in a different direction? So it's, again, it's very collaborative, and we want the business owners part of that team conversation.

And I like this sense of neutrality that you bring to the table. I really do.

Yeah. And, and I love getting to play the spot in the middle because then we can take the shoes of either side, right? Like, for the business owner on the ground, we do a lot of visioning for like, okay, what do you need the system to do? Like, how does it need to work? What's the outcome you're trying to get, right? Because that's that big vision. That's the CEO business owner role. But then taking the, the person on the ground, what is their day gonna look like in this system? And how do we make that a little bit easier? Or going through with that lens on and being like, oh, well, this So clunky and I don't know where to start my day. Of course, this is not working. So then being able to kind of go back and forth and figure out, like, take the vision of one and take the vision of the other and figure out how to meld that again. And to— on your point, I think part of it is also giving permission and grace because I think—

Absolutely.

The people on the ground want this to work and want their lives to be efficient and want to do what you want them to do and keep their job and all of these things. So there is a genuine desire there. So giving them some grace as they learn a new clunky system that may or may not wreck their whole day for the next 2 months and as they're trying to recalibrate their brain and also giving the owner at the top some grace too, because you've started a system 3 or 4 times and you've already invested in this and it's really hard to try and take the leap on something else. It's really hard when you have this vision and it's built out the way that your brain works and you love it and your team hates it. Like, there's just—

Yeah.

So much grace that has to go around and a lot of grace and problem solving, I think, are the 2 ways to marry that, that just kind of bounce back and forth until you find something that everybody loves.

That's awesome.

So interesting. I'm listening to you and I'm reflecting on things that we do for our clients, our own place that we're at, Linda and I, with our team and the learning styles. It's like, it's like a bag of gifts snapped into one, and then you have to unravel the, the who, what, when, where, and how are you gonna— how somebody's gonna, you know, are you gonna open it first? Is that the first thing you go to to drive what you're gonna do for the day? And just having the documentation, because, you know, people go on vacation. You wanna supplement, you wanna support somebody else, or—

Yeah.

I mean, it's true of even the way we see interactions with our own clients with you're adopting a new software. Linda, I thought, said it really well to this one client. She basically said, you got to wait till this certain holiday in order for it to really gel. Give it that much time. Give it that much runway, I think, is what you were leading to, right?

Yeah. I mean, now, we train a lot of people in software that we migrate them off of and move to a better system. Sometimes we have to implement so many methods. Sometimes we actually have people who revert back to their old system because it's their comfort zone, but they're trying to navigate the new system, but they don't really— they're not really sure that the old system is not better. So they stick in it because it's what they know and they're afraid of the new system. And when we discover that, we actually went through and did a click contest. So how many clicks does it take to put a deposit in with this software? How many clicks does it take to do in this software? It was like— It was like, I don't know, 11 to 2 or 3. And they were like, that's why you need to be in this system. The system was desktop as opposed to online. And then we get people that are in the online systems that are like, well, I couldn't log in, so I restarted my computer. I'm like, no, you don't have to do that. But see, they think that you have to explain it. I mean, I think I'm finally past the days— I'm in Florida— past the days of explaining what the cloud is. We went through a long time period of having to explain what the cloud was. Can you tell me exactly what that cloud thing is? I was like, okay, you know, the best I can. But I mean, these are the things with training. And when we do the training, Sarah and I try to sprinkle it and spread it out. So we do have a video program that teaches people in little 10-minute video increments while we're working on something else, teach them QuickBooks Online so they understand it. They maybe come from desktop, maybe they come from something so different, and we'll teach them in little segments of this and they do it self-directed. And then, and it's also written in, it's visual with a video because you get 2 different learning styles. You get the older folks that want to read a book and then younger people want a 5-minute video, no longer. So you have to kind of weigh that. And I'll tell you what, and Sarah and I are always amazed because we'll, we'll regroup after we've done— when we're in the process of migration, we meet with a client for the first time after we've kind of really gotten the thick of things. And I'll say, who do you think is going to be the one that embraces it and gets gets it? You know, which person do you think out of that group is going to be the one that, that just nails it? Because you've got like a 20-year-old, a 30-year-old, a 40-year-old, and you got the 60-year-old like this that doesn't want the change, but it's kind of being forced on them. And I'll tell you what, it's just like when I taught yoga and I judged the people in the room and I thought, who was going to take it on? Who's going to be flexible? Who's not? It's not who you think. Sometimes that 60-year-old is teaching the 20-year-old things. And I'm like, I love that. I love it because They actually the one that I thought I was gonna have the most resistance to the change. And then I— and that's the thing about change. We know anytime you change a system, it's hard, which is why our Notion thing failed. It was really hard. And I remember the first time we got Keeper and I looked at that screen and I went, oh my God, I don't even wanna work in this. It's so noisy. There's so much. And I, my head right went as a business owner, went right to the place of, Sarah, how are we going to get all these companies set up in here? There's so much work. And then we went, Tierra, we got a job for you. And that's kind of how it landed. And then Nicole, of course, she's so good with software, she hopped in. And, you know, it all, it all kind of got set up, probably not tweaked to perfection yet, but we did set it up. And if we hadn't known about a company like you guys, we'd have been like, hello. Because I'd rather pay As someone who knows what they're doing, I probably learn how to use it the better way. And that's the key is—

That's a really good point.

You know, they know it. They're gonna fit it to my company. They're gonna meet with me, talk to me, get me past parts I don't need and get it set up the way I wanna use it as opposed to me trying to meander my way through. How much time am I gonna waste? It's a conversation, right, Steve, that we have with our clients. How much time are you spending chasing down your receivables? And I've got this company over here that will do it for you.

Exactly.

This is what you charge per hour and this is what that company costs. I mean, if you want to balance time and money, which they live in that world, so it's easy for them to conceptualize. But yeah.

Yeah, no, it's interesting. And something I think maybe you experienced this and you can help us understand. There is the vision of the owner and the vision of the team, or if you're solo and you're looking to hire and that trepidation of Am I even close to setting this up to pass this off or have a subcontractor help me?

Because I've always done it all.

I've always done it all.

And then it's like, well, it's in the back of my hands. Yes. Right. It's not fresh in my brain right now with every single step. I just do it on autopilot.

Yeah.

No, we deal with that a lot.

Explain that. Like, to articulate. I had this conversation today where— or was it last night? One of our lead accountants, she's like, it's not that I'm afraid to give up the control of something. I'm just the fear of like not having it done right and empowering. And I think where Linda and I are getting to the stage of like, we don't have the choice. We have to keep driving. I've got to let you step in the mess sometimes because I know—

I run into that. I run into that too. It's really hard to let go. So to your point, you've got it all on your hands and you just do it on autopilot.

Riding a bike.

And you go through that phase of like, we had a huge trust project, a huge cleanup project, took us 7 months to do. We just finished it up last week. And the person in our company that was working on it said, you must have been scared half to death to let me do this. And I said, I was, but I knew that you could do it. And I was with her every morning. We met every, almost every morning and went through Until she was ready to go on her own autopilot and all the light bulbs went on. But we never documented it. We never got to the SOP on it.

That's so hard. That is the afterthought.

I'll share a tip that's helped us immensely because to the point earlier, the cobbler's the last person to get it. We're the last person to set up our own systems. Guilty as charged. So one of the things that has helped us immensely is document as you do it. So this does not mean you have to have a Google Doc open and you're typing everything out. But that's part of the reason I love tools like Loom or Scribe. Heck, I use both of them at the same time and have that way I am just doing it. I'm like, maybe I'm talking it out with myself so that I can have some documentation, but that helps rid— I think part of that that helps is like it doesn't become a separate task on your to-do list when you already have a mountain of stuff to do.

Yeah.

But then you capture what's in your hands that you, that your brain may not have counted as a step or may not have thought of, oh, I did click this button in between. And for somebody else, if I didn't, if I didn't mention that step, it would've turned out completely differently. So honestly, for us, our biggest tip, especially for people that we're working with who are solo, we are buried. I need the system. This is not a want. This is a, I have to, even if I'm being dragged by my teeth right now.

Yeah.

One of the things that we start with is like, During your month-end close, document the pieces. Just turn on Loom. You don't have to do anything fancy. You don't have to get fancy. You don't even have to be on camera, but just have it on as you're doing your daily tasks. And then we, or your assistant, or your team down the line, or anybody can help you document that process. But that helps capture while you're in it so that it doesn't have to become this separate step. And sure, there is like having to go document or having somebody after, but it helps so much from that problem that you just said of like, man, we just did a mountainous project and now I have nothing to show for the next one and I have to start from scratch whenever that next one comes along.

Yeah. Oh man.

I'm getting chills.

I know. I'm like, I'm holding my breath listening to this going, oh my God. Okay. That's a great tip though.

Well, and you know, the one I screwed up, the one that I screwed up that we discovered this morning. To your point, had, had I documented that because I just assumed that she knew to do that step, that assumption thing, and it got missed and it blew the whole thing up. You know, we had everything done except that.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's little tiny pieces. And honestly, especially when you have a team, you never know the experience that somebody comes with. So even if they've been doing bookkeeping forever, you throw payroll or AR/AP that they've never done before and you're starting from scratch or you do it in gusto instead of ADP or something like that, and it's completely different. So, uh, the thing that we always encourage— and we have to be careful of shoulds and the shame of like not doing it before and all of that, like that's something we have to preach and come back to ourselves and everybody else— it's okay, just learn for next time, or try this next time. And if it doesn't happen, then just remind your brain, hey, the next, next time I want to try this. Um, but I think a lot of it is Just getting something and, and, and allowing yourself the grace to do it wrong, whether you're the person on the ground doing this cleanup the first time ever and you're like, okay, I'm gonna do my best, or you're the person giving up that reins being like, okay, I'm accepting that this may be not the way that I'm gonna do it. But at the end, we will get the outcome we need to, whether that means we have to go back and fix some stuff and we both learn. Or whether we do it perfectly and then we document the process. Like, how we get there is kind of irrelevant. It's just making sure that everybody gets to that final spot and feeling good and, and adding in those little pieces so it doesn't get missed the next time. And then you find something else that you forgot, and it's again this continual cycle.

It's the end product to it. I guess the question I'm thinking of, Jodi, from your experience is especially when you're kind of starting out or you're in the middle and you're like, okay, I see all these products. I've been in business for a while and I know I'm going to need to, you know, get some assistance or make some changes to streamline, say, my incoming, my inbound tracking and conversion on engagement letters and stuff like that. And you realize your old way of doing Is not satisfactory enough. The value of that, like what that time looks like from your own experience, what do you think? I mean, obviously we're talking about workflow systems, but we still have the owner, like this whole front end.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. We just talked about this the other day with knowing what the right next step is for you. Where are you? Like we were talking just a second ago with the season. What season is your business in? And seasons change. So as you go through whatever systems that you've set up, whether even if it's just using Google Docs and Excel, at some point that is no longer efficient and you feel like, okay, I'm running into friction, I'm hitting bottlenecks, I'm dropping, dropping things, I'm forgetting things. All right, now I need to level up a little bit. I need something different. I need something a little bit more robust that can help me remember things. So that's where you're gonna be like, I'm looking for something with automation. All right, so what can I do? to help myself reach that next thing. But it just— when it comes to choosing that next right thing, so if you've been using one system and it's just not working well anymore, the leap of faith to go into another system and trying to figure out what that's going to be can be daunting. It can be so overwhelming because there are a dozen and a half different types of systems that do this, that do the same thing, different names, They do a lot of the similar things. There's a couple little things that are different, and it's really overwhelming to know, okay, how— which one is going to be the right one for me? Well, you know, it's going to click with me, with our niche.

You know, somebody so often— I mean, back me up here, Linda and Sarah— attorneys, when we consult with them on different softwares that they should be using, they all expect a plug and play. It's just going to plug in, it's going to work, and we're done. There is no plug and play in any industry at all.

No, there isn't. That's exactly right. I highly recommend people to take advantage of those free trials. Don't sign up for something for a full year even though it's a good discount. Do the monthly payments until you know for sure that that is gonna be the right product for you. Mhmm. Mhmm. So it's, it's a lot of digging deep to figure out what is it that you need, what is it that's gonna be the most helpful, and then look for a system that feels right. that accomplishes those things. But you're right with the— Sarah, you said it earlier, with all of the chatter that's within our industry of, hey, this system works really well and this one over here transformed my business. Well, just because it worked for you doesn't mean it's going to work for me.

Yep.

So it's a lot of problem solving. It's a lot of internal gut checks.

Yeah.

And it's giving yourself that grace.

Yeah.

And knowing that you're looking for progress, not perfection. You're looking for, let's just move to the next step. Let's just move a little bit forward.

Like that. Progress, not perfection.

I imagine what you probably do is a review of what we look like, right? I mean, that would be your natural first step. That's our natural first step. We have to We have to look at them.

Diagnostic reviews. Yeah, we call them the exact same thing, but it's like, what do you have? And then let's talk through what's working and what's not. Because, okay, right, you guys know, and we all know from this industry, you can look at somebody's books and it looks like a mess to you, but it's functionally working. There's this area over here, but overall, like, it's not how you would set it up, but okay, it's functioning. So I think part of it is cracking the hood and seeing what's there and what we have, and then really having that conversation about, okay, what is— what's the bottleneck that we're coming up against? What's the actual friction and resistance that you're running in with this? And then what is that— what is the goal of this next season? Because your yearly goal has to be broken down. Like, what's the goal for the next 3 or 6 months? Is it getting new clients? Is it bringing on that next team member? Whatever that actually looks like. And we'll fine-tune and tweak and come up with a handful of ideas to get That next level up for this system, the 2.0.

The 2.0.

Yeah. Wow.

That's a lot.

Another part to build off of that is, like, we were talking about shake off that should and the need to have to be perfect. And you're just looking for what's comfortable, what's going to work right for you. We don't— yes, we have systems that we love and we have focused on them so that we can do the very best job that we can for the people who want those specific— that specific software. But we're not selling that software. If that's not going to work for you, that's totally fine. Let's figure out what will. And I think that's a key part of what we do as well, is there's no pressure. into selecting this one type of software. We're talking about a bigger picture. And yes, we'll help you to evaluate, you know, will this piece accomplish what you're looking for? We can evaluate that and go, yeah, I think it would, it would help you, it would help you reach that goal. Or I think you're gonna be spending a lot more money than you need because it's got too many bells and whistles. It's up to you. You know, you definitely could make it work.

Yeah.

But I don't know that that's what your business needs. So that's something that we enjoy doing too, is that brainstorming and trying to figure out what it is that come down to the bare bones there. What do you need? And then giving yourself the permission to go with whatever feels good to you, not what is being touted as the best thing out there. Look and evaluate specifically for your needs.

How do you— and you don't have to give specific numbers, but how do you price your service? And how do you determine how long you're going to be in that season with that owner, with that company?

Great question. It's tricky.

It's a great question. It's ongoing is the like 10,000-foot view is we're always tweaking and adjusting. But honestly, we're We work project-based. So especially if we're doing like hands-on with somebody, we figure out, okay, here's our outcome and here's what we think we're gonna work on this for. Here's what we think based on other projects and what you already have. So we'll put a stake in the ground and we'll price for—

Rough estimate.

Yeah, we'll rough estimate it. But especially because this is our passion and it's not completely for just making money and like churning clients. A lot of it ends up being a little bit flexible at the end and saying, okay, I understand we're not quite there and you don't have a system that's fully built out yet. So what do we need to do to get you there? What can we do to support you? And of course, as a business owner, you do have to draw some lines. And sometimes there is a little bit of like, okay, I know that we weren't able to get to the full goal that we had, but it seems like the season that you're in won't allow for that extra capacity. What's something that we can come back to that feels like a good stopping spot, and then we'll roll this into our 2024 revamp or something like that. So I think for us, it's project-based, figuring out what the overall outcome is, and then just giving grace and space for us, for them, for life to unfold, and continually revisiting and having an open conversation about, hey, how close are we? I mean, we, we have conversations after each month end with our clients of like, hey, how did that work? What's the next step we need to do? And then long term with this project, where are we at? Like the Domino's tracking bar, like where are we at? How close are we? What do we need to do and what do you need to do to get to that next step? So it's a lot of reevaluation. There's not a pretty answer, unfortunately, but I think a lot of it's just project-based and trusting each of your gut to get you to something that feels comfortable at the end of the day.

Like you said, I'm pretty sure that every bookkeeper out there has run into a thing where they price too low and they realize it after they've been in it for a long time. So you learn from that. So we start out with certain pricing and then we go, okay, well, this took a whole lot longer than we anticipated. Next time we do a project like this, we're probably going to need to up that price a little bit more.

Yeah.

Add some buffer room.

So it's learn as you go. Just like you do with bookkeeping and your accounting businesses. It's okay. This price does feel like it's, you know, the time that you put into it or the efforts that you're doing, what you're building out.

Yeah, you're giving yourself that little internship, I guess, moment, right? So I'm curious too, something that came to mind, you said that we call it the playground. Linda has what we call the software playground and we let people play in it. Of course, we've had had lots of messes in there. Like, we can't even— I think at some point we had to, like, we haven't wiped it, but we had to go change names because we're like, don't put client data in.

Oh, they put their own name.

Oh, no.

Yeah. So we had to, like, turn. But I'm curious, though, in the process, and let's say that they get an app that you— I totally understand. Linda and I agree with this. We have 2 really strong apps that we stand behind. That's what we do, right? And I'm similar to probably our profession with us. And if you're building something out, do you just test it through that model of the playground and go in there and they get to look at it through that lens and kind of test and feel it out? Or are you doing it live sometimes? Or is it just a fork in the road? You have to make a decision of how you're going to help a team or an individual make those decisions.

So it depends on what project we're working on.

Sure.

Okay. But if we're— so if a client comes to us and they say, okay, I— so, for example, in the software that we use, Keeper, you can do saved views. Like, there's different features of it, and they're trying to figure out the best way to use the features that are available to get the visuals that they need, to get the information and the data that they need. Well, to begin with, we'll play in our demo account. say, like, okay, can we get it to look like this?

Yeah.

And then once that feels comfortable, like Erica said, we give them that option, or we, you know, share our screen, give them that option, or brainstorm another one live with them. And then we'll go into their active account and—

Okay.

Got it.

Work.

Yeah. Actually, a lot of what we do is in their active account. I'm always hesitant to do, like, a full rollout before we've tested it. So even if we're doing something in their live account, their thing that they're using every day, we always recommend, well, let's just start out with 1 or 2 accounts. Test it here before you roll it out to the rest of the accounts that you have in that software.

Got it.

Yeah. If it's onboarding or if it's a month-end close, let's try it with 1 or 2 clients before we do the whole thing, because inevitably, even us, we're gonna have tweaks, things that you find afterwards, steps that you missed, those pieces. So it's a lot easier to fix and redo those couple.

Yeah.

Fix your template and then roll it out. And, and again, again, it's always a progress game.

Yeah.

But that small-scale testing with a couple of clients or the next onboarding that you do can be massively helpful just to get a hands-on feel to see if this is even worth trying or worth implementing with the larger group.

Yeah, that's nice. I, I, I love hearing this. There's so much crossover similarity to what Steve, Linda, and I do, just guiding our own clients. But like Linda said, just knowing you're there, like, and that's a service, that's a tool, like, you can implement at any time. Basically, your services are relevant at any juncture, probably fine-tuning to reevaluation to— I don't know, Linda. I mean, I'm just thinking of all these ideas. Like, okay.

I'm thinking of, like, you're the solo, you're doing it by yourself, and then you got extra work, you hired somebody, and then all of a sudden, you've you've now taken— you're in Asana, and now that's become too much, and you're starting to push yourself into a new place. Having— like we were, we had how many? How many? We had almost 100 clients we had to put into, uh, Keeper. It was not a small thing we were doing. And to set them all up and get all that preset, there's just so many things. And I'm thinking of another software that I remember looking at, and I just said, not interested.

It was ClickUp.

ClickUp was another Like, too much. Oh yeah, like, I love Keeper.

It's for what we use Keeper for.

I think it's fabulous. ClickUp was like, I said, I can't be in this. It's just too, too many things. And I know people love it. I mean, I guess.

And I, well, I laughed because we hear this all the time from our clients, the different softwares that they've tried, whether it's Asana or ClickUp or anything, that they're like, this isn't working and I don't know what to do. It's like, it's okay. You know, we can help you figure out what's gonna work.

The features.

And how to transition. Yep.

Well, and I think one piece that gets missed often that I wish somebody would've told me when we were exploring all of these systems is go find somebody that's using it and just ask them questions. Ask to screen share and just see what it looks like. Because one of the— I love the trials that everybody offers, but one of the most daunting things is opening up a brand new account and there's nothing in there, so you can't get the vision of it. You're like, I don't even know what this is gonna look And stuff like that. So I mean, talk to the— our community and industry, like you mentioned earlier, is so connected and so willing to share. So find somebody that's using it and ask them all the questions that you have, or at least screen share and ask how they deal with some of the bottlenecks that you're having, because that at least gives you a little bit of reassurance before you make a big leap. Because at the end of the day, even with that gut check of like, okay, I think this is better, it's still daunting. So Any ammo you can give for the emotional side of your brain that's like, but I spent all of this work in another system and I want it to work. So just giving yourself as much ammo as possible can really help in those transitions.

It's more of me going, we spent how much money and we're not using it yet?

I know.

And then the software comes out next, the same payment next month. It's terrifying. Yeah.

And it's still sitting there and you haven't really touched it because when you get the free trial, a lot of them are 7 days. Or 14 days, and if you're busy running your firm, there's nothing in there.

There's nothing in it. You almost— where do I start? It's like, yeah, thank you for the trial, but actually I need a demo view for an invite for so many days to tinker around to understand conceptually so I can make a more sound decision.

And that's like what this looks like in practice instead of just what this looks like out of the tin. And honestly, that's why we end up playing around in our demo so much is we have a Q&A each month. to be like, hey, here's our working demo. What questions do you have? Let's play around. Let's see if this is possible. Like, let's play around with something that has transactions in there and some clients and stuff like that because it makes a whole world of difference seeing that out of the box versus a working model of it.

Yeah. Well, Intuit was brilliant with their test drive. I mean, that's a smart way to do that because—

Especially because it resets itself.

So you can't— we always tell people, here's your test drive. Here's your videos, play around it. And when you tell them you can't ruin it, when you click out and go back in, everything you've done is already gone. They're like, yeah, really?

Because I don't want you playing the file that we're migrating to.

We want you to play that one while we're getting this one ready. And that's usually what we do. And we don't really spend a lot of time training in QuickBooks because the videos are effective. We work more on the software that we're putting together with this particular software.

The custom workflows and who's using it.

So it's a different Different training with the bookkeeper as opposed to maybe the receptionist or the firm owner. There's different levels of training, so we customize it. And then we also give them a Slack channel offering if they want to stay with us after training is done. We're still there for the oddball.

Yeah. If you want a safety net for all of those random questions that come up as you get further along or as you bring the next client on. Yeah, no, I love that. And I love what you mentioned, that each person on the team has different training. And that's something that we see a lot, like each level of the team has different training because they use it differently day to day. They have a different lens and they have a different outcome. So me training the owner on how to go in and look at the logs and find the payroll and like those kind of pieces in the timesheets gonna look completely different than the person on the ground who's doing the data entry who I have to show, here's how you look at your task list for the day. Here's how you go into your client. Like those are just different levels that you have to accommodate for and help make sure that everybody on the team understands how to use this tool for their purpose.

Yeah, so true. My goodness. Oh, dude, this would rip open such a large— but it's such a need. I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to have met you, understand it better, know it's a service because there's so many people out there that need it. And you said it best. Just because it works for this firm doesn't mean it's needed or necessary for your firm. And we try very hard when people are are coming to us. And we've said this before when we were presenting at QuickBooks Connect. It's like we have redundancies in our system, but that's because it works for us. It's expensive. Don't run out the door and try and buy all these things. Be more intentional in a different way. We are intentional. We make these decisions. It's just the way we've built it to our firm. So.

Well, to your point, when we just did our recent presentation at QuickBooks Connect, We had you and Linda in this big operation and how you use your, your tech stack and what those pieces are. And then we had me with this smaller operation and what I use. And we did point out to the audience that it's, it's fluid. It's not just cast in stone. We went and bought these softwares and we're done. You know, it's continually changing as you evolve and as you grow. Like you said, the seasons.

Yeah.

Do you find—

It does.

It does.

Because I mean, I did the book, you know, the book's coming back now. I wrote a book and it's coming back about modernizing law firm. And it's coming back to me now to the editing portion. I looked at the one picture of our workflow and I'm like, ah, that's like 2 years ago workflow. And I said, you need to swap this picture out. But by the time the book comes out, it might have some other pieces. And it led us down the rabbit hole of what are the other pieces. And when we did the session at QuickBooks Connect, we— they were— everybody wanted to know what our full suite of things are. And I started to build. I'm like, Sarah, we use a lot of software. Like, we have a lot of It creeps up on you. Bigger firm. Yeah, I couldn't believe how many. I mean, I got down to like even the nitty-gritty of Slack and Google and all that. But there was a lot there and they all wanted to know. But I made a graphic to show all the pieces. So we do that sometimes with our clients because they come from PC Law, one software, and then they come over to us and now they've got QuickBooks, they have Dex, they have LiveFlow, they have all these pieces. They're using Lissio. And in their head, it starts to sound like, what is it, Bart Simpson? You can't figure it out. But I make a little picture. and I show here's QuickBooks and here's how all the pieces feed in. Here's Gravity Legal, here's all the pieces we use. And then they're like, oh, and I made on it like Dext is, you know, the accounts payable piece and Coalbox is the accounts receivable piece. And then like, oh, now I get it because they just needed the visual to see all the pieces interconnected.

Yeah.

And that's been really beneficial to have. I think we made them for each of us. So, you know, we a picture for the group, and then I made one for the full ensuite for our firm completely from nuts to bolts, which probably has already changed since we did this session a few weeks ago.

Yeah, so true.

Well, great conversation.

Yeah, thank you so much for this and the value add of all of it and knowing you're there. I mean, to our community on the accounting side, definitely this is a key piece if you're in the overwhelming stage or just in a question, like, conundrum of, like, did I build a system that actually is mirroring my why, to your point? Or this is probably your best bet right here is consulting.

Get an expert in. We hire experts for everything. We should be able to, you know, we counsel our clients on that. Why not hire them for ourselves? It's a business expense. We're at the almost at the end of the year. This will probably float out next year. But get it in there, get the expense out and get it done. So you're working smarter.

Yeah, really?

Yeah.

That's what you're working at. Working smarter. Yeah.

And we meet you where you are. That's one big piece of us too, is that wherever you are, we'll meet you there and help you transition or help you move through the next piece.

That's awesome.

That don't fit. Like, sometimes that's what you— that's what you need in that moment too.

Yeah.

I have one final question for you. Have you reached the point yet in your company where the software providers are going, oh, wait a minute, we need to talk to these 2 to have them represent us? Is that— has that happened to you?

Well, I—

There's something going on there.

I've been talking with Ben and Kenny with Keeper. I've been in touch with them from the start.

Yeah.

From early, early days.

For me, they're just awesome.

They are. They're so unique. There's no other software team like them.

Right.

So we don't have that with anybody else. I think that's a very unique one. We have nothing else that we've built out or that we do. Do we have that type of connection with With the owners and with the team that's running it.

Yeah.

Your software is not hard to use and it's beautiful and it does so much and they're so open to feedback and they're constantly changing it and making it better.

Yes.

You can't ask for more when you pick a software.

They want to service us. That's their mission. And I love that about them. Their heart is in it. We feel it. I mean, it's an integral piece in our everyday.

It's like they're your little brothers, you know?

And that's one of the reasons that Like, if there were a better software that does what we need it to, we would be the first ones to admit where faults were or consider other options and stuff. But the fact that it's made by bookkeepers for bookkeepers and that they're so open to feedback, and even with us who we feel bad sending so many Canny and feature requests being like, okay, but this would be amazing, can you please do this? So even us, Like, lovingly bugging them all the time. They're just the most grateful, and everybody on that team is so happy to hear. And we have a really unique spot where we are helping so many different people with different needs get set up that we get to, like, pass along different pieces that they might not have come across. So we're extremely thankful and grateful, and I don't think we could have landed a better team to hear all of the endless emails of— Okay, this would be really cool. Can we put this on the roadmap? I love that.

They speak your praises too. We saw them at Connect and they definitely spoke very highly of your service. So that's also a good thought.

Well, I leaned in and I was like, all right, give me the backstory. How did y'all get connected?

Yeah.

Anyways, just because they're just such great friends and partners in this industry, and we thank you for them, for all of us having them in our worlds.

So, well, Tiara, my friend, to support the Accountants Law Pod, please take a moment to drop us a like and share this episode with your colleagues. And if you'd be so kind, subscribe to this podcast on YouTube and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Subscribing to the podcast helps us all because you'll never miss an episode. If you have questions, topic requests, or guest suggestions, you can email us at info@accountantslawpod.com. Or send us a message through our website, accountantslawpod.com. To join us in the Accountants Law Lab, which meets every Friday, visit our website at accountantslawlab.com to sign up. And to work with Hughes Strong Consulting or learn more about Keeper, follow the links in the show notes below.

Goodbye, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye.