Want an accountant that does more than just report the news to you? Analyzing the numbers and zeroing in on the areas where there is the biggest opportunity for improvement is one of David’s specialties. Identifying the most important items to change in those areas to give you the most bang for your buck is one of his favorite things to do. Almost every business has an area or two which would benefit from revamping the way things are currently done. We can work with you to identify those areas and design more efficient ways of doing certain tasks.
Description of Consulting
You’ve probably heard all the jokes, but here are my two favorites:
- There’s a glass of water on the table. The optimist looks at it and says “the glass is half full.” The pessimist looks at it and says “the glass if half empty.” The consultant looks at it and says “the glass is double the size it needs to be.”
- A consultant is someone who takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time.
That being said, consulting can provide some value in certain instances. Staley CPA specializes in process-focused consulting, primarily in the business/non-consumer facing portion of the business. Do you have a task that takes you 22 steps to complete? The goal of our consulting services would be to evaluate each one and figure out how to get it down to 20. Or 18. Or 11. In the interest of full disclosure, 11 would be quite ambitious, unless you are just incredibly inefficient. And, to be honest, some people are. Nothing wrong with that, assuming you’re willing to hire a consultant to come in and assist you. Every extra step taken is lost time. And time is money, as they say.
Why Staley CPA, PLLC for Consulting?
David is a rule follower. But he doesn’t just blindly follow rules set by other people. Often times, he creates his own. Rules provide a de facto decision making guideline, ensuring that the same outcome occurs every day, regardless of who is following the rules or what situation is presented.
For example, for the past several years David has worked less than 100 feet away from a shop serving delicious biscuits and doughnuts. As you may have read on the “My Why” page, David is a pretty big sweets eater. Also, in the absence of rules to follow, he has minimal self control. That’s why the day the doughnut shop opened, he made a rule forbidding himself from purchasing a doughnut if he did not also purchase a meal (typically a chicken biscuit) from this shop. At worst, this would only allow him to purchase one doughnut per day (with his lunch). But in practicality, he only buys lunch out about once a week, so over the course of three or four years, this one simple rule has prevented him from consuming hundreds of thousands of unneeded calories.
While this is a silly, personal example, rules like this, better known as “processes and procedures” in the business world, could help save your business thousands of dollars. Setting up systems for yourself and your employees can ensure that costs for various goods and services you provide are predictable and that customers receive a consistent experience. With his background in franchising, David understands the value of creating systems to run your business by and has an eye for identifying the most necessary places to implement these in your business.
Frequency of Service
Our consulting services are typically performed upon request by clients. Sometimes this is a request for us to review the entire operations of a business just to see if anything sticks out as odd to us, while other times we are asked to review a specific area of a business, whether because it is a new process or something that the owner just feels could be made more efficient. Occasionally, during the review of the financials of our bookkeeping clients, we will see something fishy and suggest a review of a process in an attempt to identify cost-saving opportunities.
Typical Billing Structure
Our consulting services are typically billed by the hour, though there are also times that we could come to a “you win/we win” agreement where we take a certain percentage of the savings obtained by implementing our suggestions. Not exactly the old ambulance-chasing lawyer promise of “we don’t get paid unless you do,” but… actually, come to think of it, it’s pretty close to that.
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