Our Story

Thanks for exploring our website! Over the many years of our work, here are some key areas that we believe in – we hope you do as well.

Communication:

On most of my initial discussions with potential clients, its clear they are looking for information and solutions – they just need the right professional to finally ask their questions. Do you agree that a problem can’t be “fixed” unless its first fully understood? This process takes time, patience and lots of follow-up questions.

Strategy:

Once we truly understand what a client needs (and assuming he/she agrees with our take on the needed solution) then we can move on to the game plan. I do these as a written plan so all of us (me, the staff and the client) know where we are heading to. We also include how to prevent the problem from reappearing.

Patience:

Most clients want and need help. Some problems are fixable with just the first visit but those harder ones require time – hence patience is needed by us. I personally enjoy seeing clients reactions when their tax, accounting and/or payroll problems are finally resolved. Patience made that possible.

Work ethic:

A Missouri brick layer once told me “If you can’t do a job right, it ain’t worth doing”. Do you feel that way? All of our clients do. But to do anything “right” takes time, skill, experience and hard work – just no way around it.

Shortcuts:

Murphy’ a Law says “a shortcut is the longest distance between two points”. We’ve built a practice on not taking shortcuts – they don’t work. Your solutions will be solid, not a shortcut.

Relationships:

We are in the people business so we naturally look to build strong client relationships. Why can’t we all have fun doing taxes, accounting and payroll? That only happens when our clients trust us – all of us. Without a trusted relationship, then our services would be transactional – like being in a checkout lane at a grocery store. Not going to happen here.

Staff:

I’ve realized years ago that a CPA *cannot* do this work alone. I’m dependent on staff that have skills I do not possess. We all enjoy working together to provide excellent solutions. 1 + 1 = 3.

Business model:

We have purposely kept our client base small. Years ago I tried volume and scalability – true it made more money but the stress and the feeling of being rushed (which breeds shortcuts by the way) was a lame experience for me. I no longer practice that business model. Interesting side point, when I leave work I spend a certain amount of “alone time” thinking about the work I completed that day. I get an immense amount of inner joy re-thinking the work I did that day.