Welcome to the Escaping the Accountants Trap podcast. It's a podcast to help accountants, CPAs and bookkeepers escape what we call the accountants trap. It's where accountants are now, getting paid for their value and are forced to work long hours with high, demanding clients with little pay. Well, how do you escape the trap? And one way is the topic of today's episode, and that's by helping accountants get off the hamster wheel and scale their business to the next level.

To help me with the discussion, I've invited Lesley-ann Das, who specializes in helping accountants get off that hamster wheel. Lesley, welcome to the show. Thank you. I am so glad to be here. Yeah, I'm real excited because I think it's, It's going to be a fascinating conversation. Essentially, you have your own CPA firm, but you also have a coaching program for accountants, and you help those accountants break the traditional model.

What do you mean by that? Many accountants came from traditional CPA firms, and they have actually put that into their own firm. And so they don't know how to get off that hamster wheel of the what you talked about with the never ending cycle of work. And they're not getting paid what the value that they provide. And so therefore they can't hire the team that they actually need.

So that's what we help work with accountants to get done that they just get stuck on their selves. It was why is that? Why do you think they've carried over the traditional model accounting model like into their own practice? I mean, is it just because they're that's what they're used to, or do they think that that's what clients want?

What do you think that is? I think they don't know. They're used to doing all the work. And so that's what they start their own business for. But then as a business owner, there's so many different business elements that go with it. And they don't know how to wear all the hats when starting off. So they just end in this never ending cycle of changing their hats.

Interesting. So it's almost like they own a job instead of own a business. Correct. They did. They just moved from that accounting firm to their own. And so it is a job. Yeah. And it's a job where you get the the worst of both worlds. You you don't you have a, you have a job that you own without the steady paycheck.

Yes. It's one of the benefits of a job. But then you don't have any time off. You can't, you know, as a job. You can't clock. You can clock out at 5:00 pm on Friday and enjoy your weekend. When you own a business, you just can't. So you have the worst of both worlds. Exactly. So what gifts have?

How does an accountant go from getting off that? Having a job that they own, to owning a business and getting off that? And so what's the what are the steps required to do that? One of the things that I'm a big proponent in is having actually the right systems in place. So because in the accountant in a public accounting firm, there's so many tasks that have to be done.

And so everybody's relying on their brain. So having the right system that shows the what you need to do and how to do it. And a lot of people don't believe this. I'm a that was a 180 for me and my own accounting firm that got me off the hamster wheel myself. Was just getting stuff out of my head, getting it out of your head so that other people can do it.

Right. Exactly. Now, okay, so that's sort of a good segue into talking about how to get other people to do things, because it's hard to get other people to do things if you don't have other people on your team. And we all know it's not a secret that accounting accountants are leaving the profession at an alarming rate. They're not, you know, they're maybe graduating from accounting school, but they're not going to get a job as an accountant.

Why do you think that is? Why is it so hard to employ accountants? Because in the traditional model, they all worked really hard during tax season. And then they would they would get a couple months off or they were an audit and they wouldn't get those couple of months off, and then they'd go right back to it. And so it just a never ending cycle.

And the people that are coming in the workforce now don't want to work like that. I know my kids don't. They don't want to work like that. They want to get paid and be able to do whatever they want to do. So so how can somebody who, who owns an accounting or bookkeeping firm that wants to create systems so they can delegate it to somebody.

What are some tips for them to hire somebody that actually wants to work. I I'm a big in my firm. I got tired of hiring people that always told me this isn't the way we've always. This isn't the way we always do it. So when I look for people, I look for people that were open to change, that wanted to actually learn and grow and they new technology because let's face it, in an accounting firm, there's so much technology and an accounting firm, and that is overwhelming to any new employee.

I don't care how much you have in there. And people that actually wanted to, to learn and the ones I hired, they didn't know what they wanted to be when they grew up. So I just helped and I made all of our processes work. Anybody off the street could do them. So that way the process is taught them, not necessarily me.

Okay. So walk us through an example of a particular process that you've used to do, but now you've delegated to somebody. How did what is that process and how did you document it. And then how does how did you train somebody to do it? And then how do you monitor this getting done? So in the task management system we have a checklist.

And this is in that checklist is everything that needs to be done for. And I'll use month end. Everything that needs to be done for month n everything. What needs to be reconciled, what balance sheet accounts you actually look at every single month? What are you looking for? And then? And then I also have a Google doc that says this is how you do those things.

So if you don't know how to do a bank check in QuickBooks online, it sends you to a resource page in QuickBooks online that says this is how to do a bank rack. I have in there, if you have outstanding transactions, what do you do with those? Because what I was getting is it come to me were for review and I'd have five things that were uncleared.

So in order to stop that, I had to get that out of my head because they didn't know to look for it. Even if you have experienced a lot of times that stuff still sits there. Okay. So essentially you create these processes on how to do it, and then you have this task manager system. Do you set it up by for each client?

So do you have a set of tasks for every client. And then yes. Okay. And so how does that work. They during the month they close particular client. Somebody does the task. Do they. How did they how do you vet that. They're doing it accurately. We have a review process right below that. So it goes.

It does go through a review process. And and it also gives a preparer a chance to review their own work because what I found is they didn't know what I was looking for. So when I told them exactly what I was looking for, guess what? It took me 15 minutes to review and I never had to send it back.

Because. And then they self learned and then they gave them a place. And then in that task management system, if they got stuck, they would put it on there. Hey, I, I, I'm stuck here. So then we would look at it and that's a process problem. If you got stuck somewhere and then we would adjust the process.

So it was it was a never ending cycle of a tweaking the processes where people didn't get stuck and then they were all tested by people that didn't have anything to do with that task. Oh, so it's like peer review in a sense. Yes. Interesting. Okay. Hey there. Adam here from the Escaping the Accountants Trap podcast. I'd like to personally invite you to a free masterclass that we're conducting this Thursday called How to Start a CFO service.

To register, just go to the CFO project. Com and click Free Training at the top. See you then. So switching gears just for a moment, these people that you're hiring to take the task off your plate so you're not doing the job. You're you're owning a system that does and owning a system that that leads people to do a job.

How do you, how do you qualify those people on your team? Do you have what are the qualifications you look for? Do they have to be an accountant? They have to be a CPA. Can anybody do this. Yeah. So none of minor CPA so they're all so they're all self-taught and they the way I qualify is I look at their personality, I look at how well they'll play well together.

I am constantly looking at people in retail. I'm constantly looking at people in different areas of like, would they make a good team member and would they fit well together? And so that's helped to build the culture that we have built over the years. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess it is all about culture. Speaking of that, you know, so the the accountants or bookkeepers out there that run a firm.

They probably question themselves all the time. Why are my are my team members happy? Are they efficient? How do you address those things? We do team check ins every single week where we discuss, like, what is your, personal when personal challenge business when in business challenge. We do that every single week. And then we also have an end of day stand up that says, this was my win for today.

This was my roadblock. And this is what my plan is for tomorrow. And so by doing those, I keep a tap on the culture. I keep a tap on like, hey, are they struggling? Do they need, a little bit more guidance? What's going on with them? So putting those two things in place has been huge for myself and my team.

And then my team also call me on, hey, what's going on with you? Because you seem a little frustrated. Because they see those in my end of day stand ups as well. So we use that to kind of keep a pulse on each other. Got it. What's interesting is that even though you're you've abdicated your task to the two employees, you're still very involved in making sure the system is running.

So you're like the the the grease. You're like the the grease, the greases, the wheels to make sure the whole system running. In other words, you can't completely step out of the business because it's just not going to run by itself. But that but at the same time, that doesn't mean you have to do it. True. Really true.

Okay. It's taken, two, three week vacations, completely unplugged with my business partner. We're best friends. Work together, travel together. And my team has. They will. They're. They take care of everything. Because everything is in that system. And so it's not me that's necessarily managing it. They manage the system as well. And we have dashboards set up like, hey, where are we stuck on these tasks.

And so they go to those dashboards and then they lean in and help each other. Because the other thing that we do that's different than anybody else is they get paid for 40 hours and worked like 26 to 30 hours because I'm paying them on getting a job done, not necessarily by the hour. So they know I will pull that, that if they're not all getting their work done.

So they will they will step in and help each other. And that includes in marketing, sales, whatever they will. So that way they don't lose that luxury. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that sounds fantastic. Especially tool to those accounting practice owners that want the flexibility of of our freedom of time, being able to take vacations, go places, not have to work 70 hour weeks.

Very, very interesting. You brought up something that was very, very important that I wanted to touch on. In terms of employee engagement, how do you keep your employees engaged throughout the entire time? So when they're gone for those two weeks. Like what? What? Is it just the fact that you created this culture just enough that you can trust them?

That I not only have I created the trust, the trust, I've also empowered them. So they know, that they can make decisions. And whether it's right or wrong, I'm still going to stand behind them. And if it is a wrong decision, they know that we'll talk about it. But I'm not going to front them in front of a client.

And then we've also empowered them with our clients. And I mean, this is a coaching clients, tax clients, bookkeeping clients that they can make a decision. And I'm going to stand behind that decision. And then if it is and and nine times out of ten, it is the right decision or it may not be the decision I made would make, but they made the right decision, God, because they actually had a better idea.

Because employees are so crucial to getting off this hamster wheel. What are the specific qualities? I know we sort of touched on. You say you look at outside industries, they don't have to be CPAs or accounts. What are the specific qualities about their personality or about the their work ethic that you look for? One of the things that I look for is, like recently we just hired somebody as a marketing assistant.

So I was looking for somebody that actually was a doer because my marketing, head marketer, marketing person, she's very visionary. So I need to. I needed somebody else to be. That was the one doing the work. And then when I was looking for a bookkeeper, that's what I was also looking for, is somebody that was doing the work and saying, what task?

Tax. So. But when I'm looking for, like, to move them up into coaching, they have to be able to think out of the box, think, think quickly and be able to, take criticism really easily and then give feedback and not be afraid to push back. So those it depends on what role I'm looking for. And they have all grown within the organization.

There is not one person that's in the same place as they were when they first started. Wow. Okay. Interesting. So there's upward mobility in terms of, systems to we talked a lot about systems to service clients to do the bookkeeping, do the tax or whatnot. Do you have systems in place for the other functions of your business, like getting leads, converting, you know, sales, converting those leads, marketing?

Yeah. Your person, your your business's bookkeeping. How does that work? Yes. It's all in the same system. So, and that's one thing that I've gone through six task management systems and it was painful. But the last one that I found that we have, really embraced it puts all business cycle tasks into one system so I can easily see capacity.

I can easily see what each team member has to do for the day. I can see who's overloaded, who's not. It and then we have communication directly in that system. So it was that was life changing when we found that particular system that we could put all of our marketing content and all of our leads in, because it gave us that clarity of what was going on, where before.

It was just it was very siloed. What's the system? It is clickup. Oh. Clickup. Okay. And I say have you clicked up Clickup before. So, so essentially you because Clickup is not a tax or accounting specific software, anybody can use it but you've customize it for your own use. Yes, we've customize it for own use. And we have done some, done for you implementations for accountants because the way a lot of people set it up, it doesn't work like it should.

So, so we kind of tapped into that too, but because we saw how it could work. But I basically when, we went from jetpack to Clickup, I basically wrote out on a piece of paper and I was like, this is what I need it to do, because I had so many one off task that would not allow me to be able to leave because a client would ask me for, hey, I need my last two years tax returns.

Well, I'd end up being the one did it because it was doing it because it was so hard to delegate. And so I was looking for something where I could easily delegate. It would reoccur. I didn't have to worry about stuff falling through the cracks. And I was in a different program and they said, well, they showed us clickup.

And I was like, I don't think that's going to work. But I drew it out on a piece of paper and my marketing person, she's like, I can do that. And so we did it. And that was three years ago and we hadn't looked back. Wow. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. In terms of what about the accountant or the bookkeeping firm owner?

That's thinking. All right, I can I can delegate task and create systems for providing the service, for doing the bookkeeping and doing the tax returns. But what if I know nothing about marketing or sales? How do I delegate that off my plate? Because I've been traditionally the one that goes out and gets clients. How do they do that?

So, that was one of the things I struggled with for a very, very long time was marketing, because that is not my zone of genius at all. So I actually invested with, a marketing mastermind because I needed to, because I tried delegating that to my marketing person. Well, she didn't know what she was doing either, and I didn't know what I was doing.

So therefore we weren't getting any traction. So I invested into a marketing mastermind. I learned what it took to market, and then I then I built the system and delegated it out. So now I just do stuff like this. She writes the content and she runs with it, but I had to learn it first to see if it's working or not working.

You learn it and then you create systems around it so other people do it. Yep. Fascinating. Okay. All right. Well, Leslie, last question. Our second last question. Where do you see the future of the accounting industry? The future of the accounting industry honestly worries me because clients need accountants that are going to be proactive and not reactive.

And if if accountants are still pricing way too low, they're going to be reactive all the time. And one of my clients, a bookkeeping clients, told me the biggest thing he sees in the account, what's wrong with the accounting industry is the lack of response and the crappy response, because they're too busy to answer me. Wow. Yeah.

And so the end of the day, what was valuable? Yeah, that's very interesting. The end of the day, clients want somebody they can trust to guide them, and you can't guide them if you're not answering. Yeah, yes I am. Wow. All right. Well okay, so this is the last question. So if somebody wants to get your help with creating systems, getting off that hamster wheel, what do they go?

They can go to, Leslie, find us on Facebook. You just go to my personal page, or they can go to, Liana cpa.com, and that's like, oh, NDAs, CPA, dot com and you can apply there. And we just have a casual chat to see where you're at in your firm. Awesome. Well, Leslie, thank you so much for being with us today.

It was fun. Adam, I enjoyed it. Yeah. Same here. And to everyone listening or watching. Thank you so much for spending the last few minutes with us as we discussed how to escape the accountant trap. Bye for now.