Welcome back to our Firm of the Future profile series about thriving firms who are benefitting from the cloud and QuickBooks® Online Accountant (QBOA) to better serve clients and find new revenue opportunities. In this new article, we spotlight Cindy Moore, owner of CMoore, LLC.
Shauna Maher: Tell us about your accounting and/or tax practice.
Cindy Moore: My practice is located in Indianapolis, Ind., and centers around bookkeeping, advisory services and what I refer to as “disaster restoration.” What do I mean by disaster restoration? It involves clients who either inherited a messy accounting system or have created a messy accounting system. I consult with them to help them make order out of chaos and then to implement processes and procedures to streamline the accounting and give them reports they can use to make business and financing decisions. Because of my background in the public accounting field, the bonus they get when working with me is the ability to provide their tax professional with an organized file at the end of the year in order to prepare their business tax returns.
SM: How long have you been using QuickBooks Online Accountant?
CM:I have been using QBOA as long as it has been available. From its inception, it has provided me with the additional tools I could use to prepare reports and streamline processes at the end of financial periods. As the product has evolved, it has given me even more powerful methods of assisting clients, both in person and remotely.
SM: What convinced you to make the move to QuickBooks Online Accountant?
CM:It didn’t take much to convince me that using QBOA was going to help me be more efficient and effective in my processes. It is always fun to tell a client that I have a tool that will save them hours of data entry (the reclassification function) and that I have the ability to undo the bank reconciliations that are incorrectly processed. Gotta love those reconciliation discrepancy entries!
SM: What are your goals for your practice this year?
CM: My goals for my practice this year are to consciously strive for more remote and hands-free work and to listen to my gut when it tells me that an engagement is not a good fit for me personally or technically. I know my strengths and weaknesses, and need to be mindful of them when accepting new work or project work.
SM: What’s your favorite away-from-the-office place to get work done?
CM: My favorite away-from-the-office place to get work done is on location with some of my clients. I have a group of them that are very involved in some emerging neighborhoods in Indianapolis, and it is fun to see how things are progressing.
SM: Where’s the craziest place you’ve done work for a client?
CM: The craziest place I did work for a client was in the emergency room of a local hospital – I was being treated for kidney stones and had just accepted the engagement with a new business. They needed answers to questions and I had them. Glad they were easy questions because I was on massive doses of pain medications!
SM: What’s your number one timesavings tip?
CM: My number one time savings tip is to use automated processes to capture data. I save many hours of client data and my personal data with the three apps I use the most: Hubdoc saves me from having to track down account statements, Receipt Bank captures client data and helps my clients with massive amounts of debit and credit card transactions stay on top of their activity (along with the great integration with the bank downloads), and MileIQ is pretty slick, too, saving me hours of poring through my calendar to get my mileage reimbursement, and my real estate clients love it for tracking their mileage.
SM: When you’re not working, what’s your favorite way to spend your time?
CM: When I am not working (and have to be close to home), I can be found at my sewing machine. I have been sewing since I got my first machine at the age of six or seven, and now spend lots of time creating quilts for friends and family. The first quilt I made was part of a raffle prize to raise money for cancer research, and I have done one annually since then. If I can get out of town, I like to travel and explore. My favorite trip so far was my trip to Peru and Ecuador, and I loved my trips to Hawaii.
SM: What advice do you have for peers that are still on desktop?
CM: My advice to peers on desktop: Online is not the product it was a year ago. Like anything else, there is a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, you will love it.
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