Do you love your accounting practice, or has it become boring and mundane? Well, I’m here to tell you all about how I fell in love with my accounting practice all over again.

For many years, I specialized in working with small firms: write-up clients with much of their bookkeeping that was handled with bank rules. Simple and small. You know the type—the ones in which you work directly with the business owner— the one-person shop.

Fast forward to 2016 when I started considering moving my firm to a specialized practice. I targeted the legal industry. After studying and learning about the legal profession, I acquired some clients still in the “small” category. I knew this wasn’t sustainable in my practice. I wanted more. Something more challenging would allow me to charge more and provide advisory services as an inclusion to the regular services for accounting and bookkeeping.

I was lucky to find a business partner with Sarah Prevost. She was working on a data migration project with a law firm and needed assistance to complete the project on time. We enjoyed working together so much that our new combined accounting firm, The Proper Trust, LLC, was born. Our first client was a larger law firm with multiple partners and many employees.

Once we finished that project and realized how fulfilling it was to help this particular client move to a cloud-based accounting system, we wanted more. My fear of being bored with one industry vanished overnight.

What did I discover while working with mid-market firms?

• A lot of the work is the same. There’s nothing really to fear as the bookkeeping is the bookkeeping.
• You may need to class code or add locations to your client’s accounting data.
• The complexities lie in the reporting: compensation tracking and helping with a firm’s business trajectory.
• Payroll can be a bit more complex, and you probably will be adding some advisory services like reviewing their employee handbook.

When you work with multiple partners or business owners, there’s a commonality of wanting to grow the firm the right way. You will find the ability to add forecasting, budgeting, and KPI tracking. These firms have the capital to pay for these CFO services you can provide.

We do so much more than just data entry. We analyze profitability by the case or matter, review attorney production, and much more. We help our clients find great talent to work for the firm.

This data analysis made my job fun again! The data migration work was an entry point to get more clients. It’s so satisfying to help our clients become future-ready in their workflows and software.

Join us at QuickBooks Connect as we will help you navigate the waters of making the shift to working with mid-market clients and fall in love with your practice again.