Typically, when you have a new accountant, they employ the SALY (Same As Last Year) method. Meaning, they look at what was done in the past and try to replicate that as closely as possible without asking, “Why?”
We know that businesses leave their prior accounting firm for a reason and an overwhelming majority tell us it is due to lack of communication and/or their accountant does not seem to understand their business.
At Kaizen CPAs + Advisors, we do things a little differently. We apply our industry expertise and have developed a comprehensive onboarding program to make this calculated transition as seamless as possible.
We have two primary goals during the onboarding phase:
Our signature 90-day Onboarding Process is designed to help us get to know each other while providing the best service coupled with proactive advice.
It's equally important that you are comfortable with your accounting team here at Kaizen and that you feel confident, knowing we have your back to help you make important decisions.
Think of your business as an athlete—we must understand what has happened in the past, where you are today, and what your goals are to effectively design a training regimen that will help you reach your potential.
So, how do we get started? Through our refined 90-day Onboarding Process outlined below.
The Kickoff Call
The Kickoff Call begins the process of setting our relationship up for success. We appreciate analogies so here’s another one: Building a house on a shaky foundation only leads to trouble down the road. We insist on spending time upfront in efforts to create a solid working relationship. However, we can’t take too long in this phase, or the house never gets built.
Our process might be different from how things worked with your last CPA. Enhancing communication is critical to providing you with the mutually beneficial partnership that you deserve. We want you to feel empowered by the team that’s behind you.
The Business Solutions Director that you work with during the engagement agreement process will introduce you to the Onboarding Team on this Kickoff Call. The Onboarding Manager is responsible for shepherding you through the process and keeping you consistently updated.
On this call, we will introduce our tech stack, demonstrate our secure communication portal—a dedicated platform that houses all communication and enables file sharing—walk you through The Kaizen Difference, then schedule a handful of task-specific meetings.
While we realize a lot of information sharing is required to set up our solid foundation, we don’t want to inundate or overwhelm our clients with too much at one time. We strive to be methodical, purposeful, and efficient with your time and have developed a proven onboarding process with all of this in mind.
At the end of the one-hour Kickoff Call, we schedule three additional important meetings in the coming weeks:
Let’s dig a little deeper into those sessions.
Bank/Account Access Call: The Core Elements of Transactional Activity
This call is scheduled on the next available business day. We want to hit the ground running, so this meeting is meant to gain access to applicable business bank accounts, State Department of Revenue accounts, existing payroll accounts, point of sale accounts, and any other relevant day-to-day logins.
Come to this meeting with every website login that you can think of, as we work towards setting up 3rd party access, where possible, so we can download statements and/or view transactional activity, file sales tax, and other tasks to take as much off your plate as possible.
Depending on the complexity of your business, this call can be as short as thirty minutes or as long as ninety minutes.
The Initial Strategy Session: Understanding the Blueprint of Your Business
During the Initial Strategy Session, you will continue to meet the rest of your accounting team, specifically your dedicated Account Manager and Staff Accountant.
This conversational meeting is primarily lead by your Account Manager who is the person responsible for your relationship (and success) with Kaizen. They will review your financials alongside your Staff Accountant on a monthly basis, design a roadmap to achieve your goals, provide business and tax advice, then ultimately prepare your tax returns.
Your Onboarding Manager and Onboarding Assistant will also be on the call to gain a detailed understanding of your business activity, involvement in QuickBooks, and begin to make Best Practice recommendations. Additionally, your Business Solutions Director attends this call to ensure a smooth transition from the sales stage to being a client.
It’s kind of like a first date with lots of questions and answers going back and forth. However, this is business and there can’t be any holding back. We want—in fact, need—to know the good, the bad, and the ugly so we’re in a better position to help.
We want to know the blueprint of your business:
As accountants, it’s no surprise that we must fully understand the financial information to assess the the health of your business and will utilize existing tax returns to identify any discrepancies between that reality and the story your books may be telling.
We’ll take these reports into consideration:
Balance Sheet
Bank and Credit Card Accounts
Accounts Receivable & Payable
Sales Tax Liability
Fixed Assets & Depreciation
Notes Payable
Leases
Shareholder/Owner/Member Loans
Equity
Profit & Loss
Cash or Accrual
Sales – how are they captured
Cost of Goods Sold
Expenses
Payroll
After we understand these items, we’ll work with you to create an accounting roadmap. While we want to ensure all transactions are coded correctly, it’s also important we know how you want to look at your business.
Each business is truly unique. We’ll work together to ensure: Is all income for services and/or products correctly recognized? Are expenses captured effectively so you can understand true profit margins? Is your equity in the business recorded properly? Do we need to bring everything back to the fundamentals of accounting and help you understand how to accurately read your financials to be able to make informed business decisions?
QuickBooks Online + Dext Call: Your Path to Streamlined Reporting
QuickBooks Online (QBO) is an essential software in our process. Whether you are already using QuickBooks Desktop or Online—or if we are going to start fresh—we will identify what your contributions will be in QBO versus what your dedicated Kaizen Staff Accountant will handle in your account.
In addition to going over specifics learned on the Initial Strategy Session, we’ll review important methods to help streamline the monthly work and your ability to retrieve precise reporting from QBO.
On this call, we’ll also review Dext, a third-party software that we lovingly call your “digital shoebox.” If you’re new to this service, we’ll explain the submission methods, importance of paperwork retention, and how it assists your Staff Accountant’s work in your books.
Executing the Plan: Our Work Behind the Scenes Leading Up to the Financial Statement Session
During these 90 days, we have intensive work to get through to make sure that your financials are accurate and trustworthy.
It is very rare that a client comes to us with “squeaky clean” books. In fact, it’s probably one of the main reasons you’ve engaged with us in the first place. This is a sprint behind the scenes and usually requires significant involvement from you. We cannot complete our job without all the necessary details and documents that only you can supply.
The primary reason clients may not get through to the final step of onboarding in 90 days is due to missing information. Our barriers can be anywhere from deposit/expense inconsistencies, to missing loan documents, even access to prior tax returns can be a challenge. These crucial supporting details and more are critical to creating that solid foundation.
Once we’re through the work and your account is brought current, we’ll have a capstone meeting to review your numbers: the Financial Statement Session, marking the end of Onboarding.
Financial Statement Review
This is a big day! We’ll go through your “new” financial statement line by line. We have two types of clients, some that are quite familiar with financial statements and others who may be seeing one for the first time. Either way is OK! There are two goals:
When we have both of those items accomplished, we will talk about how the rest of the year will go. Most of our clients formally meet with us about three times a year as was discussed when you first reached out to us. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, more frequent conversations are necessary. And that is just fine with us! We do find that three times a year is a frequency that will allow us to properly provide advice and keep communication open without monopolizing too much of your time.
That’s the beauty of this 90 day sprint! After you’re done, we’ll have everything we need to create a clear and cohesive picture of your business. This in turn allows us to provide sound and timely business and tax advice. AND, timely filing of those tax returns!
Ready to start this conversation? We can’t wait.