Concierge CPA's online newsletter for December 2017
December 2017
8221 Brecksville Rd, STE 205 Brecksville, OH 44141
borbala@conciergecpas.com
(440) 340-1030
Conciergecpas.com
NAVIGATING THE Financial World and followed in my footsteps to work with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
I came to the United States two weeks after graduating from law school. It was after I met with a mentor that I realized the world of finances and taxes might hold my interest. Before I knew it, I had a bachelor’s degree in accounting! After that, I was hired by PricewaterhouseCoopers and I joined their international tax division. The job involved a lot of travel, and I learned to serve clients at a high level. Two years later, the need for travel started to wind down and the company pulled me back.
Every year, many people try to join PricewaterhouseCoopers, but only few are hired. So it was remarkable that Laszlo, like me, had a chance to work with the company. He was with the firm for two years before I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse! My business was growing and I realized I needed some help. Over the Christmas holiday, I asked him if he was willing to leave PricewaterhouseCoopers to join me at Concierge. He said yes! We were — and still are — very much on the same page when it comes to learning. We ask ourselves,“What can we do to serve our clients better?”And as we work to improve our own business, we share what we do with our clients. After all, if it works for us, it may work for them, too. That’s the kind of relationship we have with the people we work for. We have a close relationship with many of our clients, near and far. When you talk to people about their financial situation—whether it’s their business or individual finances — the discussion can become very detailed and personal. In my office, I have a plush velvet couch with a box of tissues nearby. Everything a client and I discuss has the potential to evoke strong emotions. If their business isn’t going the way they hoped or if they owe the IRS a lot of money, these kinds of situations can be stressful. If that couch could speak, it would tell of many tough financial conversations. However, the velvet couch represents more than a place to have a difficult discussions. It’s also a place of hope. We are here to help solve problems — from helping you get through tough financial issues to helping you become a better business owner. We are rooting for you. In the coming months, I hope to share much more with you, to be your resource and to help you and your business navigate the financial world better than ever before!
We are here to help solve problems — from helping you get through tough financial issues to helping you become a better business owner.
Working in this way meant I wasn’t forming a lot of close relationships with clients. Neither was I serving small businesses or individuals. It was a very traditional, professional, and impersonal environment. I thought there must be a way I could serve clients better. That’s when I changed my focus and started my own firm. In order to hold myself accountable and achieve my dream, I created a list of ways to better serve clients. So I went into my new business with a different mindset and a new perspective. Around this time, my brother Laszlo was in high school. At the time, his dreamwas to become a DJ. I asked my parents to send him to the U.S. I wanted more for him, but little did I know then, he had a knack for accounting! He too received his accounting degree
–Borbala Banto, CPA
1 (440) 340-1030
Calculating Client’s Lifetime Value
The lifetime value of a client is an easily overlooked and often underutilized concept. Don’t risk doing yourself and your business a huge disservice. Why track customer lifetime value, or CLV?When you know the CLV, you have data you can use to your advantage. This data can be applied to customer retention initiatives, marketing campaigns, referral programs, and, most importantly, keeping repeat clients happy. Plus, when you know the current CLV, you can work to improve that number. There are different ways to calculate CLV, and some methods are more complicated than others. At a minimum, you need to be tracking the following data points: A. The money spent by each customer (the revenue your business gains per customer, factoring in the margins of the products or services you provide) B. The time frame for each client purchase (the average amount of time you keep a client)
C. The initial cost of acquiring a client
With this data, you can then calculate CLV: A x B – C = CLV
Just keep in mind this number is based on averages and will not give you precise information (for a more comprehensive method of calculating CLV, check the Wikipedia entry for ‘customer lifetime value’). The more data you have to pull from, the more accurate the number will be. For instance, if you’ve been tracking A, B, and C for the past six years, you will have a more accurate picture of CLV than a business that started tracking last year. Think of it as an efficiency formula. With this data, you can determine which are your best clients and which are not. From there, you can tailor your marketing endeavors and get far more out of your marketing dollar.
THE CONCIERGE DIFFERENCE A Business of Proactivity
Running a small business is complicated. You have to deal with the day-to-day operations, managing employees, generating new business, and balancing finances. That’s what sets Concierge CPAs® apart frommany other CPA and accounting firms. We are here to ensure you are not on your own. We operate with a strategic and proactive mindset so you can have peace of mind about the financial side of your business. You’re working hard, long hours, but you don’t even know howmuchmoney you are actually making. Your cash flow is a
term and long-term strategic plans to grow a thriving business that serves you today, and that you can sell for top dollars in the future.
That’s where our strategic and proactive help comes in. The systems we show you will save time, stress, energy, andmoney and will help you tomake better business decisions. We believe that what you canmanage what youmeasure. We will showwhat your numbers mean and how to easily and regularly measure them so you get clarity and certainty about where you’re headed. While CPAmay be in our name, Concierge CPAs® is muchmore than those three letters. We are here to be your strategic allies and to take you to the next level. Call us today to learn how!
roller-coaster, and you feel the IRS takes a bigger chunk out of your profit than it should. You are not sure what your goals are or how you’ll reach them.
You feel the business owns you , rather than you owning it .
You can replace this stress and anxiety with clarity and peace of mind, and not just get on firm financial footing, but actually have short-
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HOW CAN ONLINE Accounting Software Help You GROW Your Business? Many businesses try to function without current, accurate, and reliable financial statements. Most of the time, this is the result of not having a good bookkeeping system in place. Today, businesses have access to affordable, easy-to-use tools to take care of their bookkeeping needs, so there’s no reason not to use them. Over the past few years, most of our business clients have made the switch to online accounting software. They understood that the benefits outweighed the costs. Consider: • Easy, instantaneous collaboration between teammembers and advisors. There is no need to send backup copies of files back and forth between the CPA, bookkeeper, and client. • Increased efficiency. It cuts down on bookkeeping time. No software download or updates are ever needed. You can work from any internet-connected computer. • Bank account and credit card feeds are downloaded daily. Your books are updated more frequently than just once a month, after the month ends. • Ease of access to financial information. Too many small- business owners go months without looking at their up-to-date financial information. • Key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. You have access to up-to-date, accurate, and reliable financial information and business stats. This allows you to track business metrics, which can help you shift focus from the day-to-day tasks toward more strategic, longer-term goals. • Cloud accounting software has become affordable too. At Concierge CPAs®, we and our clients use QuickBooks Online by Intuit. Because we use it, our clients enjoy a 50 percent savings on their monthly subscription fees. Can your business continue to operate without online accounting software? Give us a call and let us know how we can bring your business into the new era of cloud-based bookkeeping— and a new era of efficiency. • Automatic cloud backups. You won’t lose data because of a hardware failure. Loss of data can be catastrophic.
Easy Holiday Party CHEESE FONDUE
INGREDIENTS • ¾ cup dry white wine
• 1 clove garlic • Salt to taste • Foods to dip (apple slices, bread cubes, roasted vegetables, etc.)
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch • 1 (8-ounce) package sliced Swiss cheese INSTRUCTIONS 1. In a large bowl, whisk together wine and cornstarch. 2. Chop cheese slices into small, uniform pieces. 3. Rub clove of garlic all over the sides and bottom of a heavy-bottomed pot, then discard. 4. Heat wine mixture over medium-low heat in the pot until thick and bubbling. Add some
cheese and slowly whisk. When nearly smooth, add more cheese and whisk gently. Repeat until
all cheese is melted. If mixture seems too tight, add 1 tablespoon wine. 5. Season with salt and serve
immediately. Keep pot on low heat to keep the fondue dippable.
(Recipe inspired by PinchofYum.com.)
3 (440) 340-1030
8221 Brecksville Rd, STE 205 Brecksville, OH 44141
PRST STD US POSTAGE PAID BOISE, ID PERMIT 411
(440) 340-1030
INSIDE Helping You Navigate Your Financial World Page 1
Conciergecpas.com
borbala@conciergecpas.com
Get More Out of the Lifetime Value of Your Clients
A Business That’s There for You Page 2
Easy Holiday Party Cheese Fondue
Can Your Business Benefit From Cloud- Based Bookkeeping? Page 3
A New Way to Lead Page 4
Redefining Leadership With ‘Boundaries for Leaders’
Have you been approaching leadership all wrong?
dreams are only possible with the help of others who can take your ideas and make them actionable. Plus, they tend to make the journey more enjoyable if you hire the right people and set the right boundaries. That’s why leaders need to invest time and energy into creating teams and workplace cultures that support productivity while maintaining employee satisfaction. It
culture while remaining, as Dr. Cloud puts it, “ridiculously in charge.” What to Do The best leaders set boundaries that empower people and teams to reach goals, while rooting out bad behavior proactively. They have to do this in a way that works with people’s brain functions of attention, inhibition, and working memory. If you’ve never approached leadership from this psychological point of view, it’s a refreshing take that can work wonders on the efficiency and effectiveness of any team. Ultimately, the book encourages you to view leadership as creating the conditions that allow people to use their brains to realize visions in the absence of distraction. That means creating the right boundaries —boundaries that produce freedomwithout control.
Whether you’re an executive or an aspiring leader, Dr. Henry Cloud, author of the groundbreaking book“Boundaries for Leaders,”might have something to say about it. Marrying the fields of clinical psychology and leadership consulting, Dr. Cloud delves deep into the mind to find rich insights about the psychology of leadership. In fact, he literally redefines the word in the process. Redefining Leadership Dr. Cloud defines leadership as simply“the process of turning a vision into a reality.” Sounds simple, right? It’s also completely accurate. Whether your vision is a successful business or a successful family, you need leadership skills to achieve your goals. But you can’t do it alone. You need to achieve your dreams with people and through people. The most worthwhile
doesn’t take a clinical psychologist to tell you that unhappy people don’t stay productive for long. Without a sense of ownership—with you stepping over boundaries onto projects they should own for themselves — they won’t have that motivation.
Believe it or not, you can maintain that
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