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 Holly DeVito of Sum of All Numbers.
Mindy King: Tell us about your firm.
Holly DeVito: We are currently a firm of 18 – and growing. I started as an independent bookkeeper in 2006, and in seven years, grew the firm to be in the top 1 percent of women-owned businesses in the United States. We provide full outsourced accounting solutions to businesses with $1 million to $5 million in revenue, including day-to-day functions of an accounting department because they can’t quite afford an in-house team. We’ve been a virtual company since day one – when nobody had heard of “the cloud.” We have a goal to grow 25 percent year over year, and as the data entry and lower level accounting becomes more automated, we are moving into a more consultative role with our clients.
MK: How long have you been using QuickBooks Online Accountant?
HD: We made the switch completely in 2016.
MK: What convinced you to make the move to QuickBooks Online Accountant?
HD: When they started releasing new features that actually made things more efficient. We fought the move to it for a long time because we didn’t get the value out of it compared to desktop in a hosted environment.
MK: What are your goals for your practice this year?
HD: We are looking to hit $2 million in revenue with 15 percent profit. We’re building a leadership team that can run the company without my everyday involvement.
MK: What’s your favorite away-from-the-office place to get work done?
HD: We live on a little five-acre farm. I love sitting out with the chickens and fainting goats and watching them. Most of my work no longer involves actual bookkeeping, so I have a hammock out there that I’ll sit and read on.
MK: Where’s the craziest place you’ve done work for a client?
HD: I had a baby about two years after I started my business, and they sent her to ICU and I couldn’t go with her, so I worked on my laptop an hour after my baby was born in the hospital.
MK: What’s your number one timesavings tip?
HD: Don’t get sucked into your email black hole all day long. That doesn’t help you focus on anything and you’ll be running from fire to fire.
MK: What advice do you have for peers that are still on desktop?
HD: Don’t fight it anymore. The changes are happening so fast in QuickBooks Online that it’s always improving. With the addition of outside apps, you can get it to do almost everything you need it to do (except job costing – not yet – supposedly it’s coming).
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