Twenty-seven short years ago, the owner of a Home Maintenance Business in the suburbs brought their accounting work to us. They had one location, three trucks, and did a little over half a million that year.
They now have six locations, over 60 employees, and did almost $9M on last year’s return. That isn’t bad, for a company that does handyman work.
Over the years we haven’t had that many hiccups, because this is one of those dream clients that follows our advice and wants things done correctly.
The company has been and remains profitable, which is quite a trick when going from a small to a mid-sized organization. It’s easy to grow any business unprofitably, but the trick is to continue to serve your clients and maintain your margins.
To this day, the owner credits our monthly financial statements and advice with his ability to maintain the company’s margins. I give primary credit to his management abilities.
Our advice and the monthly financials, by definition, can only provide information. Someone needs to act on it and make the necessary changes.
Another factoid that should be considered is that the company has almost no debt, other than the mortgages they maintain on their real estate holdings. Normally, companies of this size are highly margined, especially when considering their fleet of trucks.
Maintaining their margins over the years has allowed them to make their larger purchases by using a large cash surplus.
Another thing to be considered is the fact that they are yet to be audited at either the Federal or State Levels. In most situations, companies would have been audited at least once inside a period of 27 years.
During that period we’ve done some heavy tax planning for this company and all of the smaller entities owned by the controlling family. Being aggressive on taxes in a reasonable manner is why we’ve never been audited on any of nine entities.
Let me leave you with this…
Being an Accountant is a lot like being a plumber. If you do your job right no one notices, but if you do it wrong, things can get messy fast.
This is an example of consistently doing things right. We haven’t had any hiccups, nightmares, or OMG’s in 27 years.
What we have had is management’s ability to consistently reach their goals and to move the company forward. This family and the dozens of others we’ve served over that same period are living proof of the following maxim.
When you get the bookkeeping right, it’s easy to get the tax return right. But when the financials are wrong, you’ll never get the tax returns right. Period.
And when the numbers are wrong, companies get audited and management doesn’t have the information they need to affect the types of change necessary in any organization. In many ways, I’m prouder of this work, than any of the other jobs we’ve done where we made a big splash.
Why? Because the main job of any accounting firm isn’t to reconcile bank statements, to tie out liabilities, or to complete auditable tax returns. That’s certainly part of it, but those items shouldn’t be first on any list.
The main job of an accountant is to protect their client. We’ve done exactly that for 36 years and continue to do it each and every day.
We’re all going to get through this. Let’s get through it together.
Accounting Solutions Ltd. stands ready to complete our mission and purpose of protecting you, your family, and your business. Whether you need Payroll Services, or Accounting and Tax Work, you have but to ask. I’m here and I remain,
Sincerely yours,
Chris Amundson
President
Accounting Solutions Ltd.
773-267-7500
888-310-0300
www.SalarySolutions.net
www.AccountingSolutionsLtd.com
Note that the only professional services provided by Accounting Solutions Ltd. are those specified in a written communication from our office detailing the scope of services to be rendered and the terms and conditions applicable to the engagement.