It Started With A Vision To Help Small Business Owners Realize Their Dreams
John Harrison knew it was lonely out there for small business owners. He set out to provide support for these owners, and has gone on to develop a system that is revolutionizing accounting for those small businesses. This is John's account of how he began CPAdvantages.
Focused On Small Businesses
In 1983, I owned a successful CPA firm. Although I probably should have been content, I began feeling frustrated and wondered if I was truly making a difference in the success of my small business clients. I remember one day specifically when a client who had become a personal friend received his financial statements. He picked them up, and like most clients immediately turned to the third page, the income statement. I saw a confused and frustrated look on his face as he declared, "Something must be wrong! You keep telling me that I'm making all this income, yet I don't have any cash! Where's my cash?" At that moment my frustrations as a CPA became clear. I realized that my fees were more than my client and friend could really afford; moreover, he did not even understand the reports the CPA profession required me to give him. Further, my client was not receiving vital financial and business consulting to help him succeed in his business. At this point I decided to change careers to find a profession where I was truly helping others to achieve their dreams.
This career change led me to create a business that allowed my clients to gain control of their personal finances to become financially independent. As this required providing seminars throughout the state of Florida, I had a great deal of time to reflect on the CPA profession. Consequently, I questioned why there was not a profitable way to provide services necessary services to small business clients. At this time, my brother, Tom, was working with me on a unique recordkeeping concept which I implemented into my personal financial planning seminars for individuals. It allowed individuals to easily track personal receipts and disbursements in an understandable manner.
One night I was reflecting on several things: my personal financial planning business, the CPA profession, and the recordkeeping system that was working so well for my individual clients. Suddenly, I had a vision and realized my destiny. I was going to revolutionize accounting for small businesses by providing meaningful financial records at an affordable price. More importantly, since I could use a para-professional to produce those financial records, I was going to be able to provide the financial and business consulting services those clients really needed at no additional charge. My excitement was overwhelming as I called my wife, "Arden, we're getting back into the accounting profession."
Before I could share my vision with other accountants, I first had to prove that my system was both efficient and effective. This meant creating a model accounting practice based on my system. Within six months, my model practice serviced 59 monthly business clients - a benchmark unheard of in the accounting profession. Even more impressive than the number of clients was the fact that I was now truly making a difference to the success of those clients.
This was confirmed as I was gathering testimonials from several of my clients -- specifically, Haywood Williams. As his testimony was being recorded, he looked straight into the camera and stated, "If it weren't for CFOToday/LedgerPlus*, I wouldn't have a business today." This was the reason I had started CFOToday/LedgerPlus*! There were no clients in my original CPA firm who could have said I made that kind of difference. Conversely, I knew there were countless other "Tekey's Pest Controls" across the country needing an accountant who could provide services to help them survive and thrive. I knew it was lonely out there.
To this day, I continue to look for others who share my vision and want to help other small business owners realize their dreams.
CPAdvantages - Designed to help accountants succeed financially
John's system has been refined and enhanced over the last 18+ years. It still utilizes a revolutionary accounting system that allows a data entry clerk to produce client reports in a fraction of the time it takes to produce traditional financial statements. The reports are truly understandable and therefore useful to small business clients.
This proven system has been shared with over 250 accountants across the country. CPAdvantages was created to not only share my ideas and concepts with accountants, but also to provide backoffice support through our Centralized Processing Center. The focus on helping small business clients remains at the core of all the services CPAdantages provides today. But now it is being done through satellite offices throughout the country. While accountants can take advantage of the CPAdvantages revolutionary system - they are not the ones who actually have to process the work or prepare the tax returns. That is all handled by the CPAdvantages Centralized Processing Center and staff of support specialists. Accountants remain focused on consulting with clients and helping them manage their business rather than focusing on generating reports.
* CFOToday/LedgerPlus - This was the franchise John founded in 1990 to help accountants provide affordable accounting services to small business clients. John has learned much since 1990 - and this has allowed him to create CPAdvantages which is designed to help accountants profitably provide accounting and related services to small business clients.