The Accountants Podcast | Mark Stovel, CPA | Vinay Chauhan, FCA | The New Era of CPA Firms

vinay_chauhan:
Hello, Mark.

mark_stovel:
Hello.

vinay_chauhan:
Hello, how are you? How's the day today?

mark_stovel:
things are going well, how are you doing?

vinay_chauhan:
Oh, I'm doing great. And to our audience, I will quickly introduce Mark. So Mark is a CPA, having almost a decade long of experience in big 4s. And Mark has successfully started his accounting CPA firm and had also sold it. And Mark has a great balance of experience of working in corporate and having one's own firm also and Mark has, you know, passion is passionate about automating CP firms, accounting firms, bookkeeping firms and helping them scale, grow and, you know, kind of a life saviour. So why I am calling Mark a life saviour is we'll discuss that, we'll discuss what are the problems accounting bookkeeping firms are facing and how Mark is helping them to come out of their problem. and to see the growth which they have always tried to achieve but sadly we're having a difficult time to reach there. So Mark let's start with I'm curious to know what inspired you to take up accounting on as a career.

mark_stovel:
Well, that might be the reason why I can help accountants is that I didn't start my college path wanting to be a CPA. I wanted to be an architect. I wanted to be in

vinay_chauhan:
Okay.

mark_stovel:
design. I was creative. I wanted to build things, but the program that I was looking at was a master's degree. And so I needed an undergrad degree, which I thought business would be a good fit for. And about three years in, I was like, Hey, I like this business stuff. I like understanding many different facets that you have to understand to be successful in business. And I really, I really liked that. But this is, you know, a third year in college, I had one year left to go. And so I had to make a decision what I wanted to do within business. Was I going to do marketing? Was I going to do operations? Was I going to do accounting? And unfortunately, or fortunately, dad is a CPA as well. And he had been running his own practice for about 30 years at that point.

vinay_chauhan:
Oh.

mark_stovel:
So, and he was, he had his own firm. So I understood what it kind of took to be an entrepreneurial

vinay_chauhan:
Nice.

mark_stovel:
CPA, start your own firm, you know, grow your own book of business. So I graduated college, did an internship with Ernst & Young, and then I joined Ernst & Young after I graduated and was about four and a half years. But I can't say that I had this burning passion from the very beginning to be a CPA or go into accounting. You know, at one point I promised myself that I would never do what my dad does because I saw the stress that he would go through during tax season. But when it turns out or it turned out that I did exactly what my dad, you know, was doing, I started to firm and had all that stress during tax season. So I knew accountants knew business well, and I wanted to be in that space. And so I thought, Hey, I might as well get some letters behind my name that can provide me some credibility and give me some opportunities.

vinay_chauhan:
Okay, great, great. That's so interesting. And how has your accounting experience been so far? How's

mark_stovel:
Well, yeah, so you mentioned before, you know,

vinay_chauhan:
the journey been so far?

mark_stovel:
I started at Ernst & Young, a big accounting firm. And from that situation, I learned the important of processes, standardization of things. When you run a big firm, you need to make sure that everybody's doing the same thing in the same way, just so training can be more effective, communication can be more clear, expectations can be, you know, communicated and met. And then from there, I didn't get to work with a lot of small businesses at EY. I worked with large multinational corporations primarily, as well as some smaller local enterprises. But I never got to see the beginning from the beginning to the end in terms of all the pieces of the puzzle for the business. But then after almost three years in audit, I joined the due diligence team and that's where I got to see more of a fuller picture And then I was there for a year and a half and left and joined a corporate, went to a corporate role and was a controller for operations and the financial department of a manufacturing company. And that's where I got to see the numbers directly interface with the operations of a business. And that's where my appetite for advisory work came from, because I enjoyed understanding.

vinay_chauhan:
Thanks.

mark_stovel:
Okay, so if we change these variables in operations. How is that going to impact the numbers? And then you reverse engineer that. And coming as an advisor from an accounting background, you can really create a plan for your business clients where they, they're operationally focused and your numbers focused. And you want to make that bridge between what the numbers are saying and what they need to do in their, in their operations. And I think those are the best advisors that have that operational experience where they speak to, okay, what are the actions that are driving these numbers and how does that action need to be adjusted to change or improve those numbers?

vinay_chauhan:
Nice, nice, absolutely. I totally agree. And I think that skill is helping you in advising your clients. So you kind of have the business sense, the finance sense and the operations sense. So this is I think three important pillars required to successfully not just run any business, not just run a business, but to also run an accounting business. for

mark_stovel:
Yeah.

vinay_chauhan:
awesome great

mark_stovel:
Well,

vinay_chauhan:
so

mark_stovel:
that's exactly it. I didn't even talk about the accounting firm after three years of operations. I started my own firm. I moved across the country to be close to my in-laws. And that's where I started to get into running a CPA firm, learning all the ins and outs

vinay_chauhan:
Mm-hmm.

mark_stovel:
of how CPA firms struggle, what they struggle with, where can small improvements be made to really increase profitability and reduce the stress the owners. And that's what I, you know, I never saw myself as a firm owner for the rest of my life, but I saw it as an opportunity to build a skill as well as understand an industry in its entirety.

vinay_chauhan:
nice. Sumak, do you think that most of the accountants lack entrepreneurial skills, business skills and they are totally into just tax filing, accounting, bookkeeping? What do you think about this? Am I right if I say so?

mark_stovel:
I would say that a lot of accountants need to work on their entrepreneurial skills. Most of them go into the industry expecting to do either a lot of tax preparation or financial accounting and that can work when you're working within a big firm. But even if you go up the ladder in a big firm, you start getting away from those tasks and you start managing people. And that's where a lot of people don't have a lot of practice or skill is managing people. But if you move outside of a large firm and start your own business, not only do you have to manage people, but you have to manage business systems and technology. And then you have to worry about marketing and selling as well. So, you know, people, I focus on with my clients that I coach, I focus on teams, tech and trajectory. So teams, how do you manage people? Tech, okay, what are the systems that you're using within your firm? And then trajectory is, a niche, how do you market that niche, and how do you grow a firm that is more intentional and is more of an expert firm than a generalist firm. And those are the big three skills that I think most accounts are missing when they start their own firms. They're like, Hey, you know, I'm good at tax preparation, so I'm going to do this for myself. And then they realize that it takes a whole lot more than being good at tax to run in a successful accounting firm.

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah. Yeah. So, you had started your own accounting firm from scratch. And, you know, that's not something very easy to do. What were

mark_stovel:
No.

vinay_chauhan:
the challenges you faced? And how did you build this firm into a firm which was, you know, which then you were able to sell because, you know, to be able to sell an seller business, that business has to have the best processes, has to have very happy clients. So, how was your journey of starting a firm and how did you make it good enough to be sold?

mark_stovel:
Right. So when I started, I had a small book of business. So I started my firm while I was still a controller at the manufacturing company. I was doing bookkeeping and tax prep on evenings and weekends. But when I moved across the country, I didn't have a full-time job and I had this small, small group of clients that made me about maybe $15 to $2,000 a month. So it wasn't a lot of revenue by any means. And so I needed to figure out how to find new clients. That was the big, big blockade at first. I also moved to a farm, so I'm not in a large city where there's a lot of businesses around. So I had to figure out how to do digital marketing. And digital marketing is more important than ever, even if you're in a big city. Because if you want to become an expert firm, you need to find the same businesses. but in different locations, meaning if you want to become an expert working with, let's say, mechanics, car mechanics, you know, there's only so many in a geographical area, but if you want to be that expert in that space, you need to be able to attract and find clients, you know, across the country in many geographies to build that expertise. So with my firm, I was in one part of the country, I had clients from where I moved from, and I started building kind of my clientele in those two areas of the country. And at first, they were quite general. I was a generalist accountant, you know, I kind of accepted all different types of clients. And then over time, I started to refine who I wanted to work with and how I wanted to work with them. So I was leaning towards, you know, businesses that weren't afraid of online or remote support. There are some businesses, typically older business owners that will avoid working with a firm that is only online. They like that interaction. However, I had clients that were 300 kilometers or 3000 kilometers away. And so I didn't have that opportunity to meet them face to face regularly. So I was trying to figure out how to find clients. I was figuring out my systems technology, right? So I was in the cloud from the beginning. So I knew that I had to have cloud-enabled tools from the very beginning. I focused on making sure my clients could do everything from their phone. So mobility for me was really important. Making sure that their client portal was

vinay_chauhan:
Nice.

mark_stovel:
accessible by their phone. And not like navigating on this desktop website and pinching and squeezing or pinching in and enlarging to log into their portal. I wanted a truly native mobile experience for my clients. Now keep in mind, this is back in 2017, 2018. So a few years ago. So a lot of the technology that we have today was either non-existent back then or kind of developing their systems. So

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
finding clients, building technology, and then keeping on top of the workflow that was coming in. So technology is one piece, workflows and automation is another piece. The technology in itself is good, but you

vinay_chauhan:
Thank

mark_stovel:
have

vinay_chauhan:
you.

mark_stovel:
to build the automations or you have work. And so building workflows around those systems is very important. You know, you can get a quick books online directly off the shelf and it can work for you. But there's a bunch of different things that you need to plug into it to offer different types of services for different types of clients. Zero, I was a big fan of zero zero is the

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
same way. It's a great tool off the shelf. But if you really want to use its power, you need to understand the ecosystem that it exists in with the other apps. that you can plug into it and connect to it. So all these

vinay_chauhan:
Great,

mark_stovel:
things,

vinay_chauhan:
great.

mark_stovel:
I was learning kind of all these things all at once and it was stressful to say the least. Sometimes there were cash flow issues, not generating enough revenue, not finding those clients fast enough. So yeah, there's a lot to go over when you're starting out. And so what I've done is try to make that process easier for the clients that I work for. So Instead of being a generalist firm, you know, being expert firm, go over, go after a certain group of clients, you know, a certain type of business, instead of going after everyone, because that will focus your marketing. That will also inform how you build your workflows, how you interact with them. You know, if you work with doctors, you know, doctors don't have overly complex businesses. And so they're, you know, the systems that you provide them can be more simple. compared to let's say like an e-commerce business that might be selling on Shopify or WooCommerce, maybe eBay, maybe Etsy, and those businesses rely on systems to work efficiently. And you can get that information, turn it into digestible, actionable data for your client and provide some real value for them in running their business. So, you know, pick a niche, double down on it, get really good at understanding their the tools that they use, how they use them, what are kind of the best practices for that industry. And then you can add a lot more value to your client when you're discussing with them, when you're offering them services. Yeah.

vinay_chauhan:
Right, right. Great, great Mark. So Mark, very early on in your practice, you had adopted technology. So definitely that would have been a risk because you know, every time in the adopt technology, you're doing something which most of your peers are not doing. Most of your most of your fellow CPS accountants are not doing. So how did you take that risk decision of going completely online? and spending your time on technology adoption. How did you get that, how did you get that, develop that risk appetite?

mark_stovel:
Yeah, I guess for me it was, I had to be online number one because I was living in the country. I was living away from all of my clients. So it was a matter of survival for one thing. And then the other component was that I wanted to be profitable. I needed to make more money. And technology is that tool to be more efficient in your processes. And I didn't finish your, I didn't answer your question entirely. I kind of went off on a tangent, firm, the systems that I had in place were really appealing to the buyers that I spoke with. I spoke with about 25 potential buyers. There were a whole bunch of other buyers that wanted to understand more about my firm, but I ended up speaking to about 25 of them and they discussed what technologies I was using. So the basic accounting software. was driving all my other workflows. And that was a big conversation with the buyers of that wanted to buy my firm. And ultimately, that's what drove the price up for my firm was the fact that I didn't have an office, that I was remote, and that basically I could transfer all my client files by giving them access to my Google Drive instead of packing up a bunch of paper files and sending them or whatever it may be. and I had all my processes cataloged and documented in videos. And so the buyer that ended up buying my firm, he just got access to the library videos and could understand how I ran my firm without me being there. And then he had training videos for his team members as well. So it was a way to be really efficient on my end as well as deliver like a decent product that was my firm the buyer. So that's what I emphasize with everyone is like, if you're not using technology, you need to start. Because it's not only going to make your firm profitable right now, but it will make your firm extremely valuable and sought after when you go to sell it. I know that there are a lot of firms in rural parts of the United States that the owner wants to retire from.

vinay_chauhan:
Mm-hmm.

mark_stovel:
in the area, it's going to be really hard

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
to sell that firm. I speak with brokers all the time and they say, there are some firms that are just not sellable because there's nobody within 100 miles that wants to buy that firm. Because they're not in the cloud, they have to rely on a local buyer and they just don't exist. So, these valuable firms are not being sold because there's no one to buy them.

vinay_chauhan:
Nice, I think you have made one very important point. So usually what we come across is that every time we call such firms as traditional firms who do not have the practice of using much technology. So whenever we try to encourage such firms to use technology, they always complain about cost. So one thing which you really were able to see and that really helped you was that under understanding that technology eventually reduces the cost and reduces

mark_stovel:
Yeah.

vinay_chauhan:
the cost significantly. So,

mark_stovel:
مو.. ان.. ان..

vinay_chauhan:
yeah, this traditional firm, they fail to understand that. Yeah. Yeah.

mark_stovel:
Well, sorry, I cut you off there.

vinay_chauhan:
Please.

mark_stovel:
But that's the thing like traditional firms, they just wanna add more bodies to make things go faster or be more profitable because a lot of them are still attached

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah, yeah.

mark_stovel:
to the billing hourly.

vinay_chauhan:
Thank you. Thank you.

mark_stovel:
But when you use technology, you get more efficient and faster. And if your revenue is based on hours worked, you don't want that efficiency this technology as a cost instead of an enabler instead of something that can help you maintain your margins but reduce the amount of work that you do. And in moving forward, we're

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
going to have to rethink how we build our teams. So instead of having four bodies doing the work from junior accountant to senior manager, you're going to have an intermediate accountant that knows and understands the technology and then maybe a manager that does the oversize. site and review of that work. And so teams are gonna be smaller, they're gonna have more technology and they're gonna leverage, you know, offshore talent way more than they're using right now. And so that's gonna be the makeup of the firms moving forward. There's gonna be technology, there's gonna be fractional offshore talent, and there's gonna be smaller leadership teams on these firms.

vinay_chauhan:
awesome, you know, it sounds so good to just hear this model. Uh, you know, I really cannot imagine when firms starting to start to use this model and start seeing the benefits of this model. And Mark, so you have been in this industry for so long and you have had a good mix of experiences. So what are the common mistakes and accounting firm owner, bookkeeping firm owner usually do? And what are the common challenges they face with respect to growth, manpower, et cetera?

mark_stovel:
Right. So I think the big challenge is not being really intentional from the very beginning. That means they become generalist firms. I think we all start as generalist firms. But the firms that

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
can find

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
a niche right away and go that way faster than become expert firms and they can instantly charge more for what they do, even if it's compliance work. They understand the ins and outs of the clients that they work with. Yes, they're delivering compliance services, but there is so much more value around their comments, their suggestions, and the advice that they give. So, advice is

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
to firms that are starting out or are struggling to find real traction and growth is get really focused on one industry. And I primarily work with firms between one and three partners, more agile firms that can make decisions quickly. And so, on one. And if you have three partners, maybe you can focus on two industries because you have that leadership there to kind of direct and guide the firm. But if you're a smaller firm, focus on one industry, you can maybe focus on a few sub niches within there. But an example that I gave on a previous podcast is working with salons or spas. There are salons broad industry, but within there there are salons and spas that sell online that have inventory that may sell packages for Either weddings or other events where they help people get together and that's that's delivering a higher value product And if they sell online then they have an e-commerce component to it and so if you present yourself your firm as the firm that works with salons and spas that sell online and their packages and products, that is a big enough industry that you can market your services coast to coast. As soon as you have two or three businesses with that kind of operational structure, you can deliver real value to additional businesses with that same structure. It's way easier to become an expert. If there's a firm that has one salon and they've worked with them year after year for 10 years, there's a level of expertise. there. I won't deny that. You've been with them for 10 years. You've seen growth. You've seen the challenges that they've encountered and there is an expertise there. You can get more expertise with working with three businesses over three years than you can with one business over 10 years because you have that repetition. You can see the pattern matching, the threads within that industry much easier when you have a group of businesses. with a similar structure. So I can't emphasize that enough. I'm quite passionate about that, is go after a specific business structure. And I'm talking not only like industry, but like do they sell online? Online e-commerce is a big section of retail on the internet now. And a lot of accountants don't know how to deal with that information. There's sales tax implications when you're selling online.

vinay_chauhan:
absolutely

mark_stovel:
So things like that. So mistakes, being too general for too long, that's a big mistake. Number two is not being online, being digitally marketing your services from the very beginning, posting a sign out front in your office and just waiting for people to walk in is a really bad strategy. It doesn't work. You're gonna get all types of businesses you need to be more intentional with with who you market to and how you market. and then embrace technology,

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
you know, try to understand, spend the time to learn and give your team the time to learn technology. Because as I mentioned on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago, your car, you can put really, really expensive tires on your car, but if they're not inflated, they're no good. You can have cheap tires

vinay_chauhan:
Thank you.

mark_stovel:
on your

vinay_chauhan:
Thank you.

mark_stovel:
car and if they're fully inflated, your car will run well. Now that tires

vinay_chauhan:
Thank

mark_stovel:
might

vinay_chauhan:
you.

mark_stovel:
be cheap, but if you're utilizing them, then they'll do well. And that's same with technology. A lot of people

vinay_chauhan:
me.

mark_stovel:
don't know how to use the technology to its fullest extent, and they're running their firm on flat tires.

vinay_chauhan:
Nice. So whichever technology you're using, you have to use it to the full list. First do this, then move on to a better technology.

mark_stovel:
Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, I know some people that will get a technology and does and they don't have the time to invest in learning all the features. Right. And so they, you know,

vinay_chauhan:
you know.

mark_stovel:
they're using a fraction of what what the tool can do. And it's a little bit more efficient than what they were doing previously. And so they think it's okay, but, you know, give the innovation in your firm is going to come from your team is going to give is going to come from, you know, having a little little extra time to do experiments or trial and error and figure out what's the best way to do something. I always tried to have my employees spend time figuring something out before they get into it. I would give them rough guidelines about how I would do it or

vinay_chauhan:
Uh

mark_stovel:
what

vinay_chauhan:
huh.

mark_stovel:
I found to be successful, but would always put the onus on them to figure out a faster way to do it. They usually came up with a faster way and then we would take that and kind of tell everybody else how to do it and they would iterate on that and would get faster and faster and there was no penalty for being slow. You know we want people to to experiment and to innovate and you can't do that with you know worrying about the time.

vinay_chauhan:
Right, right. Nice, great, great. And what about, you know, so, you know, there has been going on this thing that there's shortage of good manpower or shortage of manpower in total in the accounting industry. What's the take on this? Is there actually a shortage of good manpower? And if so, you know, what would you suggest accounting firms to do?

mark_stovel:
Right, so we know in the United States and Canada that there are less students going into accounting in college and university. That's a fact. We do know that there's a lot of people in Canada and the United States that are retiring in the next few years. That is a fact. Is there a shortage of good accounting people? I would say depends who you speak to there are definitely fewer bodies in the industry in North America for sure. That's a fact. However, you know, you and I are speaking, I'm in Canada, you're in India, you are a CA, you're trained, like how I was trained. When I was at EY, I worked with an Indian team at EY for some of the due diligence projects that we worked on and we would leverage each other's expertise. And so don't think so. There has to be a reframing of what these teams look like. Like I mentioned earlier, teams have to be more technologically advanced and they have to embrace fractional or full-time offshore work. There's a lot of talent out there that it's not being tapped into. And you know, some people say, well, I'm made in America. It's like, okay, well, that's great. But you can, if you're doing all the work because you can't find anybody to join your firm, you know, fantastic options outside of the United States, outside of North America. I've spoken with not only offshores in India and the Philippines, but also in Latin America. So we're talking Venezuela and Colombia that have English speaking accounting professionals as well. So it's just understanding and being comfortable with having a dynamic team that's not all local in your office or in your city.

vinay_chauhan:
So it's a what so if there's a problem currently, so say a shortage of talent, if that's a problem currently, we always shouldn't try to find the same solution to it. Okay, so obviously the best solution which one may be looking for is finding a talent next street or finding a talent, maybe a couple of blocks for a way. But if we are getting that, then I think we should be open to. other solutions. So once a solution which you have been speaking for such a long time about and doing a really great job is automation. So I think if according firms are ready to adopt automation, ready to give it a try, believe in your expertise so they can believe that okay Mark has done it for his firm, Mark has done it for so many clients. So Mark can that could really be a replacement to or maybe a solution to a shortage of talent shortage of manpower, till a great extent definitely. And yes, there are other ways to solve that as well. Okay, so Mark, so how I'm curious to know, how do you help your clients here in improving their growth, automating their processes, etc.

mark_stovel:
Right. So it kind of depends at what stage they're at in their firm. You know, currently I'm working with a firm owner that has been running his own practice for 15 years. He just separated from his business partner. You know, he wants to reinvent his firm to a certain degree. So yes, we can talk about automations. We can talk about all these things, but you know, he already

vinay_chauhan:
and

mark_stovel:
has a client.

vinay_chauhan:
sorry to cut you and He has been in the industry for 15 years and he is ready to transform his business.

mark_stovel:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

vinay_chauhan:
He's willing to

mark_stovel:
Cause...

vinay_chauhan:
transform his business. He wants to automate and awesome. That's so awesome.

mark_stovel:
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, he's

vinay_chauhan:
Please.

mark_stovel:
a little bit older than I am, but he understands that if he wants to be in the profession until he retires, which is probably maybe 15 years more, he needs to make changes because the old ways of doing things, time sheets, manual processes, like, they're the reason why a lot of accountants are miserable. Like, it's these things that these are hanging onto that are making people really unhappy in their roles because they're doing work attached to a clock and there's no incentive to get faster, there's no incentive to get better and the people at the top are just kind of waiting it out because they have pretty good margins like a lot of traditional accounting firms, they have pretty good margins because they're grinding their staff and so for them there's really no incentive to change but this change. He wants to reinvent how he does things. He already has a book of business. He was already making a decent amount of money. He has some team members, but he realizes to make the transition to the next 10 years of his firm, he needs to, you know, we've worked on finding a niche for him, finding a space that he wants to work in, finding the technology that will help him service that industry better. And then what are those internal changes that he needs to make deliver more value and work less. You know, there's this idea that, you know, you can automate everything and then not spend any time working. That's not true. You can automate a lot of stuff, but then the work that you do is more fulfilling. Yes, there's less hours on the clock. You know, I worked maybe 35, 40 hours a week through the entire year with my

vinay_chauhan:
Mm.

mark_stovel:
firm. Some weeks were much less, during the summer and whatnot, but I never, I never was spending 60 or 70 hours working. I thought that was insane. A good, a good busy work week for me was 35 hours. And that's, that's what I enjoyed. So working with my clients like, okay, fundamentally, I think you need to get a niche. And that's basically all the clients that I talk to. That's, that's an issue they are going to general. And a lot of them like the idea of being automated But before you can automate, you need to standardize because you can't automate 10 different things. You automate two or three things. And that's what you build your firm around. So you need to standardize, you know, delivery, onboarding, marketing, because you can't you can't build a system that only works. Or I guess you can't find good leads consistently. If you have a system that only works when you work, you need to find a system will work automatically and without your support. And so focusing on marketing, focus on onboarding, fulfillment, and then follow up and make sure that your communication all along the way is on point. Communication is the one thing that will leave a bad taste in a client's mouth if you don't respond to emails or you don't aren't proactive with upcoming opportunities and threats to their business like communication will break. make or break a firm.

vinay_chauhan:
Right. And you know, you have been stressing so much on having a niche industry, having a niche market. You know, so one thing which I tell to accountants in my circle is that, yes, just like just what you told, when we start, we are a general accountant. We take up every kind of work which comes across, which, but you know, we cannot always be chasing clients. So only if we develop a niche, yeah, and we develop a name Yes,

mark_stovel:
Mm-hmm.

vinay_chauhan:
then clients would come chasing us. Yeah, and

mark_stovel:
Absolutely.

vinay_chauhan:
that is also where when we are able to develop an expertise and there is a margin for expertise as an additional margin which we can charge for when we have an expertise. And when we reach that stage, we will be spending lesser number of hours and we'll be making more money than previously. Great. Yeah. And, you know, can you share some success stories of your clients with whom you had worked with and whom you really helped in reaching some goals which they have been trying to reach for so many years and you really help them to reach that. Yeah. Yeah.

mark_stovel:
Yeah. So I, you know, with, um, we're full on right now with tax season. So in Canada and the United States, most tax preparers are quite busy right now. And, uh, I worked with a cohort of, um, uh, tax firms that we went through the, the automation of their 1040, you know, workflow. And there's been a lot of, a lot of really good comments come in. around building automations that not only lead their client along, but also can follow up with them automatically. So if a client sits at a certain step, if they're

vinay_chauhan:
Thanks.

mark_stovel:
uploading documents and they're waiting there for longer than three days, then they'll get an email notification saying, hey, can you get back into the portal and finish this part of the workflow? And then they go in and it pushes them along. So yeah, there's been some pretty cool things just like, you know, you've changed

vinay_chauhan:
and that's

mark_stovel:
my firm,

vinay_chauhan:
the perfect

mark_stovel:
you've

vinay_chauhan:
agreement.

mark_stovel:
changed my life. Say that again.

vinay_chauhan:
and that is an automated email.

mark_stovel:
Yeah, yeah.

vinay_chauhan:
the

mark_stovel:
So

vinay_chauhan:
email notification

mark_stovel:
it's...

vinay_chauhan:
that goes to the client.

mark_stovel:
Yeah, so it's on a drip campaign sequence. So when they move into in this program that

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
we're using, when they move into a step, it puts them in this, an audience bucket, and that audience will get this drip campaign sequence, as long as they're in that bucket. And so, but if they complete that step, then the program pushes them out of that audience into the next audience. And each audience has their own kind of

vinay_chauhan:
Nice.

mark_stovel:
drip sequence. to prod people along if they're not progressing through the workflow.

vinay_chauhan:
Awesome awesome. You know, just add him on to add one thing here. So following up with clients itself is a hectic task. That itself is a task on its own.

mark_stovel:
Yeah.

vinay_chauhan:
And you know, yeah, automating just that part is can be such a big relief. Such a big relief and, you know, the mental health of accountants during tax season is really poor. And their mental health gets affected, their personal, life gets affected, their family, they get affected. I think automation is, it has to be in the list, in the to-do list of every CD, of every firm, every accounting and bookkeeping firm.

mark_stovel:
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's gonna be, it's gotta be on the employee roster, right? It's gotta be, it's gotta be, uh, your first, your first hire and, and the hire that you retrain over and over and over again. Cause, uh, the nice thing about automation is that it doesn't, it doesn't sleep. It doesn't need vacation and it can work for you 24 hours a day.

vinay_chauhan:
I think we have spoken a lot about the benefits of adopting technology, benefits of automation. Let's talk about what will happen if an accounting firm, bookkeeping firm do not accept technology, do not accept automation. Let's not talk about what will happen in the next one or two years, say 10 years down the line. So let's talk about accounting firm. 15 years already and this particular firm owner is reluctant to automation, reluctant to adopt technology, what do you think will be the challenges they would face 10 years or 15 years down the line. Let's also talk about that.

mark_stovel:
Yeah, so because the market is changing, there's a lot of businesses that are gonna be bought and sold over the next decade. And there's gonna be a lot of businesses that are just going to die and go away because they aren't equipped or they aren't built for either transaction, transacting online or meeting the needs of the market. And I think accounting firm that don't embrace technology, they might have a client base that is okay with that, but I think that they'll either be forced to move because their clients want better technology and better support for the systems that they'll use, or these firms

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
are just going to lose their clients quite quickly because

vinay_chauhan:
right.

mark_stovel:
accounts can no longer dictate the tools that these businesses use. when I was running my firm, I don't know how many clients I spoke to that would join me. And I said, well, why are you using this tool? Oh, this is what my last accountant recommended for me. In the future, or even now, there are businesses that are using Shopify, that are using Stripe, that are using Proposal Apps, and they have what they call embedded finance within these technologies. And so they can create profit and loss statements. They can create, you know, a list of AR AP within these systems, they don't need a QBO or a zero to kind of do a lot of their financial business management. And so these businesses, they have some financial systems, but they're embedded in their operational systems and accountants that can't or won't understand these operational systems to plug them into their accounting software, they're not going to be able to survive. Because if the accountant says, oh, can you print me a list of all your sales from last last year, the business owner is going to say, no, no, like it's already in my system. Can't you just get it there? And they're going to say, well, I don't know how to get it or I can't plug in to get that information. But accounts like myself and other cloud enabled firms can plug into those systems, can pull all that information out, can create some really good financial reporting details, infographics, you know, direction for the business owner, they can do the compliance work, but then deliver a really meaningful. based on that embedded finance within their operations tool. So that's what's going

vinay_chauhan:
right.

mark_stovel:
to really force these clients or these firms to upgrade their technology is that their clients, there's a whole bunch that are maybe resistant to technology that are retiring, selling their businesses, and the rising generation of new business owners are going to demand these tools be used with their accountant. Otherwise, they're going to become obsolete.

vinay_chauhan:
I think that is the word. So all the accounting firms, right now they may feel that automation or adopting technology may be, I mean, we just help them to increase their margins, reduce their cost, grow faster. Okay, right now accounting firms may feel so, but in the future, it's going to become a question of survival. You

mark_stovel:
Hmm.

vinay_chauhan:
adopt technology, automate your process, you are going to survive. You're not doing that, man. You cannot survive longer. Maybe a couple of years you may be able to pull on. But sooner or later, you know, you wouldn't realize and your clients would start leaving you at an unprecedented rate. In the future, in the future.

mark_stovel:
Yeah.

vinay_chauhan:
10, 15 years down the line.

mark_stovel:
I heard the saying that all companies are tech companies, every single one of them. Not that they're building a new technology

vinay_chauhan:
Okay.

mark_stovel:
or a new app, but they are all built on technology. Maybe there's some, I know there's some business owners that have handwritten receipts and they deliver a good and they don't use a lot of technology in their business, but those businesses are disappearing. Voicing is becoming the norm. Selling online is becoming very common. These are technology dependent businesses that, like you said, can only survive if they continue to use this technology. Yes, it's efficient. Yes, it keeps costs lower, increases productivity, but it is a matter of survival. And accounts are going to be the same way. If clients cannot interface with their accountant in a meaningful and efficient way, they'll accountant. It's just plain and simple. And there's going to be a lot of service providers

vinay_chauhan:
the

mark_stovel:
out there that will gladly take business away from these archaic firms.

vinay_chauhan:
Right. And you know what? The next generation or the upcoming generation, they are very unforgiving. The youngsters,

mark_stovel:
Yeah, yeah.

vinay_chauhan:
yes, who are going to become business owners. Yeah, they are very unforgiving. And they want everything, they want, you know, they want everything right now immediately, you know, because they work at that pace, their businesses, they operate at that pace. They want everything right now at this moment point of time immediately. And I think, you know, equiped with the right technological tool will only be able to serve this new age of clients.

mark_stovel:
Absolutely.

vinay_chauhan:
Nice. And you know, one more thing. You know, the accountants have so much pressure on them. Every dollar passes through an accountant. And there is so much currency going on in the world. And there are just so few number of accountants. There's so much stress every accountant has to go through. They work insane number young accountants and some are not really able to go ahead with so much of stress and pressure. Some do find a way to handle it. What do you think is the current mental health of accountants on overall level and especially during the tax season?

mark_stovel:
Yeah, during tax season, I think the mental health is quite bad for tax accountants for sure. Just because there is this imbalance between them in their lives and their family's lives and the work that they have to do. In the US, they can file extensions for a lot of their clients, so they can push the filing date back to October. That gives them more time during the year to finish these returns in Canada, we don't have that option. We can't file extensions. There is a hard deadline.

vinay_chauhan:
Thank you.

mark_stovel:
There are some extensions for businesses into June, but for the majority of the personal tax returns, it has to be filed by the end of April. So that is a lot of stress that is on these clients. And what this does to the ecosystem of tax preparation prepares is that it becomes high stress and it impacts everybody. How do I say this? It impacts everybody quite negatively and makes the whole experience quite negative. So it's a bad experience for, for the, for the tax preparer. It's a bad experience for the client because their tax preparer is not returning their phone calls or are short with them or just, you know, don't communicate with them. Everybody hates tax season. stress that exists. And it has caused this idea around tax preparation that it's an evil that needs to be done. Well, number one, everybody thinks the government's evil and now we have to pay them taxes. But if I think it comes down to, yes, there's a lot that tax preparers can do with their technology and their firm structure and the clients that they work with. But then there has to be a part where the tax preparer or sorry, the taxpayers need to be informed about what is helpful to make these things or make the filing process easy for them. And that doesn't get communicated because like you said, people want it done right away. They want it done, you know, cheap, and you can't, you're not going to get the

vinay_chauhan:
What?

mark_stovel:
right work done when you ask for those two combinations of things or that combination of those two things.

vinay_chauhan:
Right, right. And it's kind of painful to see accountants going through this, the deadlines of taxes and the calling so many hours every tax season, year after year, decade after decade, without changing their story, without doing nothing to improve their condition the next year. Okay, so this year I did not have time, I had so much work. Okay, fine. to make my condition better the next year? Nothing. Again, next year, we're repeating the same story. And

mark_stovel:
Yeah.

vinay_chauhan:
the year after that, the same story. So I think, you know, I would really encourage accountants to please reach out to people like Mark and please make sure that the next year, your story is different and different. And the last week of the deadline, before the deadline, you should be partying and maybe just going for a vacation. And that is really possible. If you go and seek some help from people like Mark, who are just not preaching it, who have done it in their past, they are, Mark is an accountant. He has done that with his firm successfully in the previous years. And he's doing that for other clients as well. So I think as many CPA firms, accounting firms, bookkeeping firms can reach out to you, are would be getting some good lifestyle improvement. You know,

mark_stovel:
Absolutely.

vinay_chauhan:
and

mark_stovel:
Absolutely.

vinay_chauhan:
yeah, I think that is required. And so, you know, they're just a handful of accountants and doing so much of work. They deserve a better life. They deserve a better lifestyle.

mark_stovel:
Exactly.

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah, and I think I have just one final question. That is, do you think CPA firms are connecting to each other well, they're networking well, they are reaching out to each other well, or is there something they need to do more?

mark_stovel:
Well, I think they need to do it more. You know, part of my website, I talk about building connected and scalable firms, because I think firms are disconnected. Number one, firm owner is disconnected from their own work and life. And in many instances, they're disconnected from their firms in terms of the clients that they work with and the team members that they have. There's just this disconnection because it all, everyone's just too busy real connections. And then when firm owners are too busy themselves, there's no way that they're going to connect with other firms to kind of build the community. But that's what I'm trying to do. You know, firm nexus.com is built on this idea that yes, you can get some coaching, but you can also get courses and you can get community for for your firm. Because a lot of problems that you run into as a firm owner, other firm owners have dealt with similar issues. And if we can, it's, you know, there's so much work that there isn't, you know, competition just doesn't exist. There's just so much work out there that you don't need to

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
worry about sharing trade secrets because you can share certain things, but it's all about doing and implementing, right? An idea is only as good as

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah.

mark_stovel:
it's, it's, it's implementation, right? And so I have no problems sharing all my secrets because, um, yes, I share some really detailed, uh, templates and, and workflows in my courses and in But at the end of the day, it comes down to what a firm owner does and what a firm owner wants Because they can listen to all the you know all the podcasts all the audiobooks all the influencers they want But it comes down to action to make real change. So yeah connect with other firms

vinay_chauhan:
No.

mark_stovel:
You know leverage other information out there so you can grow faster and and enjoy a better lifestyle

vinay_chauhan:
Awesome. Mark, you know, I really cannot say much about the important work which you are doing. So, you know, I look at your work as the work of a superhero. So you can kind of the superheroes amongst the accountants like me, who are helping firms like my firms, other firms to improve. you know, to be more prepared to understand where they are going wrong, you know, and not just that, you don't, you know, you just don't come and just tell that guy, hey man, you do this and do this and do that, you hand hold the firm, firm owners, you know, help them set up the processes, you know, and you are, you're along with them throughout their journey, you know. So I think you're doing a I'm from India, but I can relate to the problems of an account anywhere in the world because it's the same thing. The governments have the same taxes, the same accountants are always hand full and manpower that has, it is a problem everywhere. So awesome, I'm really happy and I really would encourage not just my CBA friends in US or Canada. So a CFN in India, if they can learn from your process, learn from your experiences, I think they can see significant growth improvement in the process and have finally more time for their family and for themselves.

mark_stovel:
Absolutely.

vinay_chauhan:
Thank you, Mark. Thanks so much. Thank you for coming on the podcast. I really feel we have too much of experiences in your mind, which I have not fully tapped. I think we may need to do another podcast to

mark_stovel:
Thank you.

vinay_chauhan:
get more of the expenses, more of those wisdom out so that we can share it with our fellow CPS.

mark_stovel:
Absolutely. Anytime, anytime. Thanks for having me on here. I really appreciate it. And yeah, I think it's important that we talk about these things so everybody can improve, improve, improve together.

vinay_chauhan:
Yeah, thank you Mark, thank you so much.