Today on The Unique CPA, we’re joined by Nancy McClelland, better known as The Dancing Accountant. Nancy is an award-winning CPA, educator, and founder of “Ask a CPA,” which I’m excited to talk about today. “Ask a CPA” is a community dedicated to bridging the gap—sound familiar?—bridging the gap between bookkeepers and tax professionals. Nancy’s career is built on relationships, whether with small business clients, accounting professionals, or the broader community—and I’ll vouch to that—but she didn’t start out as a CPA; we’ll talk about that as well. Her journey from bookkeeping to owning her own firm is a story of evolution, learning, and embracing her unique approach to accounting. Nancy, welcome to The Unique CPA.

Thank you, Randy, and what a beautiful introduction. I feel like that might be the nicest introduction anyone’s ever given me.

Well, believe me, I had to cut stuff out, because I was going to talk about how much, to steal Kristen Keats’ [words], joy you bring to accounting, how much fun you have with it, you know, anytime I see you across the room at a conference, my face lights up because of the energy you bring. So, yeah, now I added those things as well.

Aww! Yeah, no kidding, you edited them out and then put them back in. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, and I’m so happy to finally be on the show.

Wait, finally? Was that a dig at me?

It was, Randy! Why didn’t this happen sooner?

Well, honestly, we’ve only known each other about a year, well, it’s getting—

—Two years. 

Less than two years.

Oh, yeah, you’re right. Because I guess we met in person at the first Bridging the Gap?

Yeah, which was August of ’23, and we’re recording in March of ’25. So it’s not much more than a year and a half, but it feels like I’ve known you for a long time, which is good.

It feels like I’ve known you for a long time, partially because Beer Temple, which you’re one of the owners of, is one of our favorite bars in Chicago—it’s walking distance from our place. So in a way, I feel like a deeper connection with you because we have that beautiful thing in common: beer.

Yes, we do. But we haven’t gone there together, which we tried, but I was not able to do it. So we will make it happen this year for sure.

We’ll make it happen.

During our birthday month. Maybe we’ll get there in May.

Yeah. We both have our May birthdays. I’m really looking forward to that. I’ll be back from Mexico, you’ll be back from California, it’ll be great.

Yep. Alright. Let’s jump into this because there’s a lot to talk about today, starting with what I talked about in the intro a little bit: your journey from starting as a bookkeeper to becoming a CPA. You want to give us a little bit of background on that journey?

Absolutely. I’d be happy to. I have run my own bookkeeping, tax, accounting, and advisory firm you mentioned—it’s called The Dancing Accountant—for almost 24 years now, which is kind of mind-blowing to me. I started as a bookkeeper and worked internally at a few places, nonprofits, and creative. My undergraduate degree is actually in music education. I don’t know if you knew that.

Wow. I think you told me, but yeah, that’s cool.

Yeah. So my first job as a bookkeeper was at the Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts, and I was teaching music theory part-time and was the office manager part-time. Wow, did I realize how much they needed someone like me in the office doing the books. Creative folks are amazing, but this was just not their strength. That was when I started to realize that as much as I loved the creative side of things—you know, I was studying music education, so I wanted to be a teacher—and bookkeeping was something where I felt like I was teaching people, because when you work with a client, you have to explain things to them. The more patient you can be and the more perspectives you can look at it from, that’s all stuff my undergraduate degree in music education helped me with. 

So from there, once I moved to Chicago, I was working in Hyde Park as an accounting supervisor. When I left that, I thought, “I’ll just temp for a while.” That first temp job turned into my first client, and outsourced CFO work was what they needed, and I had experience with their accounting system, which was Great Plains Dynamics. From there, it snowballed, absolutely snowballed. Now, 24 years later, I’ve branched out into tax. I got my master’s once I decided I wanted to tackle advisory work, and only then did I become a CPA.

Was that the—why only then? Was 150 part of it?

Not at all. 

Were you one of the 150 hour rules? I wasn’t.

No. Well, I think the 150-rule was in place when I became a CPA, but I’m not actually 100% sure because it wasn’t an issue for me. This was my master’s degree. I was getting a master’s degree in accounting and financial management because my undergraduate degree has been in music education, and I wanted to get a degree, not because my clients cared, I wanted to become a CPA, not because my clients cared. The type of work didn’t really change. But my ability to look at the numbers and figure out how they were telling a story—that was something I really wanted to figure out for my clients. So I got my master’s because I’m interested in this stuff, I love tax, I love accounting, I love bookkeeping, I love helping small businesses, and I think the biggest impact we can make is by being an accountant, being in a profession that helps them do what they do to increase the vitality of the communities they live in. 

We have a very niche practice in terms of our geography. We’re in a “micro-niche,” I guess you’d call it—hyperlocal. It’s just our neighborhood of Logan Square in Chicago, and every once in a while, I’ll accept a client from outside of our neighborhood, but even then, we have our ideal client profile, and we really like to stick with it. So these are the places where we eat and drink, these are the stores where we shop, and the people we call for professional services. These are very much the people in our community, and we’re really proud to serve them.

So, the only thing I’m disappointed about is you said “neesh,” not “nitch.”

Do you and Kelly Parks have a disagreement on that one? 

We do.

Is that the only thing you disagree on? Is that what prevents you from becoming besties?

I think she drinks Coors Light. That might be the only other thing.

Bless your heart, Kelly. I don’t think I can agree with you on that one either.

Yes, but other than that, I’m feeling after 220 episodes or wherever we’re at now with the podcast, I’m in the minority with “nitch,” I’m finding out.

I don’t know. I think I go back and forth depending on the sentence. I might be equal opportunity on that one. I haven’t decided yet.

Well, that’s cool. Another thing that came out of that discussion is 24 years in business—I’ve never done anything for 24 years, well other than being married to Kathy, my wife, we’re at 38 years now.

Wow! Congratulations! That’s beautiful.

Yep. But yeah, 24 years. The only reason I thought of that is because yesterday morning, I was thinking Tri-Merit’s now the longest business I’ve stayed involved with.

How long is that?

We’re 18 years, we’re just short of 18 years right now. My accounting firm was 15 years, but if I count the part-time work I was doing on the side before I went full blast, that would’ve been 18 years probably. So I think we probably just passed it now. I don’t know why this is about me now. Let’s get back to you.

It’s not. It’s wonderful. I’m so excited to hear that because it makes me feel like 24 is a big deal. 

It’s a big deal!

We had the most wonderful party—since I mentioned that we have this hyperlocal firm, right? For our 21st anniversary — it was supposed to be 20th, but the pandemic, right? So, we did a 21st anniversary, and we billed it as “Finally, our firm is old enough to drink.” It was wonderful, we threw a huge party in the community that was open to the community. The Logan Square Chamber of Commerce is one of our clients, and co-hosted it with us. We had it at Solidarity Park, which is right outside the doors of the Chamber of Commerce. A client of mine, Wilder and the Free For Alls, performed. Clients donated different things for our little goodie bags. It was a huge, beautiful blowout. Revolution donated the beer. It was just such an amazing community experience. It was a very special moment in my life where I was like, “Wow, we have been making a difference for a long time.” Logan Square, you know, it gets voted coolest neighborhood, not only in Chicago but in the country on a regular basis. We’re part of making that happen, helping keep these clients healthy.

Well, they have a Dancing Accountant, so obviously that makes it cool.

Actually, a client gave me that name, Randy. I didn’t come up with that.

We’re going to have to get into that in a second. But before we do, a couple of things: You just keep making me think about different things. Revolution Brewery, which is a Chicago-based brewery, a friend of mine is their CFO. But he’s CFO, slash, and I think he’s, his title is CMO, the head of marketing. So, he’s got this…

Marketing and finance!

Yes, exactly. He’s kind of like you, very creative but also has the numerical side of things. He said he’s—I haven’t looked him up in a while—but I think he’s got a lot of followers on Instagram where he does these really cool videos and stuff about beer and whatnot. But he was on the podcast was the whole point, a couple of years ago, Doug Veliky was on the podcast.

That’s so cool! You know what happened there is that Josh Deth, the head of Revolution Brewing, he was the first director of the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce when it branched off and became its own Chamber of Commerce. His wife is a bookkeeper, so he, as he would say, knew enough to be dangerous and would keep the books for the Chamber of Commerce. Then when he left and was passing the torch to the next executive director, Josh reached out to me and said, “Hey, this person coming in doesn’t have as much experience with bookkeeping. Would you be willing to help us out?” And that is how we started working together.

Wow, that’s pretty cool. Alright, so we’ll get away from hyperlocal now. You and I can talk about—

You don’t want to say niche anymore? “Neesh” or “nitch?”

No, that’s fine. I love it. I like niche practices. I never really thought about it that deeply: having a niche of just a community.

Yeah.

That’s actually pretty cool. Did you start out that way or did it just like, “I just don’t want to leave home?”

Well, it was very organic. As you may have noticed, I am pretty outgoing and gregarious.

Yes.

You and I have a few things in common—we’re both talkers and we’re both really passionate about what we do. And so I would just be out there in the community during a period of time, you know, when Logan Square was experiencing very organic growth. And I would get really excited every time a new restaurant would open, I would get really excited when a new shop would open, and I would go in because I’m a resident of that community and I’m invested in that community. So I would stop in and I would check them out. I believe very strongly in shopping small and buying local—that is definitely one of the key things in our mission—also, one of the reasons that we have chosen not to offshore is that we really, personally believe that’s just one of our values. 

And so I would go into places and we’d start chatting,  And so I would go in places and we would start chatting and I would say, “Oh, when did you start your business?” And I would say I’m the worst person in the world at sales and marketing, intentionally. I am pretty awesome at it unintentionally, because I just talk and I listen and I’m curious, you know? And so we would be chatting and I would ask about their struggles and challenges, and almost invariably it would come up that, you know, they didn’t know what they were doing with their books or their taxes. And I’d be like, oh, that’s kind of a cool coincidence, here’s my card. And the next thing you know, we had accidentally built a hyper-local practice. 

But one of the things that’s really interesting about that is that our firm is fully remote. We’ve never had a brick and mortar location because all of my team members, initially they were in Chicago, but as you know, they wanted to move to different places, Atlanta and New York, and it seemed like a shame to lose them. There was this cool thing called Zoom, and so I was like, I guess we don’t really need to lose you. So we became a remote firm because we wanted to hang on to our people. And I was the only one who met with clients anyway, and I was meeting with them at, like, Cafe Mustache is one of my favorite cafes and bars as somebody who likes to go out in the neighborhood, and so it kind of became my office, either there or Reno, I’d meet people there or I’d meet them at their businesses and yeah. It was extremely organic at this point, you know, it’s very intentional. We rarely take on new clients, and when we do, they have to meet everything that we have set out in our ideal client profile. And one of those things is that they need to be geographically, you know, located in or around our neighborhood. And also they have to be mission based themselves. So we work with a lot of mental health professionals. We work with, you know, all sorts of organizations that are doing great things for nonprofits, etc.

I really like that story. I could listen to that—we can go another hour just hearing about this whole, we better not the way you set up—we won’t, because I wanted to go to something else. But before we do that, I just have to tell you a story: when you were talking there and telling us this whole, you know how you got new business and it was curiosity, really, passion for what was going on in the community, these new businesses coming in, and curiosity…

That’s something that you talk about a lot at Bridging the Gap. Curiosity that is. You know, curiosity I also think is one of the pillars of mental health, and a sustainable practice. 

Oh, for sure. You know what? I need to build curiosity more into what I say because I think that’s important. But, so Kathy and I, you mentioned, we were in California. We just spent 27 hours driving back or 30 hours from California. We just got back and one of the books we listened to on the drive was called Funny Story. I don’t know if you ever heard of the book. 

No I haven’t. 

Great book. 

Oh, I can’t wait. 

But in there, the main character, and I always forget characters’ names, but I’m pretty sure his name was Miles or one of the two main characters, Miles. Now I’m gonna give a book review—basically we really could talk for hours. 

It would be the best way I could think of to spend the day. 

So Miles just is one of these personalities that is like you people, like one of the characters would say to him, I just don’t understand how, why everybody loves you. Because you’re curious, you ask questions, you wanna know, you wanna hear what’s happening and just be having that curiosity was cool. And so I can see, I can just picture you building your business, being in this new cafe that is like, this is amazing, how did you start this? What’s going on? What’s your goals? And that just paying off. So I love that as a business development technique, even though that’s not what it is.

Right. I mean, I think that’s one of the things that, that made it so special is that it truly was inadvertent. Yes. Now knowing 24 years later, knowing what I know, it is a piece of advice I give to everybody everywhere, you know? I think you and I are both huge fans of John Garrett, and I’m always bragging about the fact that I was the first guest on his podcast, What’s Your “And?”. And that’s something that he talks about in terms of the people that you work with: Be curious about them, ask them questions. But I would argue that you can take that so much further. It’s not just the people that you work with, it’s, you know, have curiosity about your own client base, have curiosity about human beings in general. And you know, I really believe everybody’s like, oh, AI is gonna take our jobs away. And I’m like, bring it on! I want AI to take care of all the drudgery. Yep. I want them to leave the personal relationships to me. That’s something that I excel at because I actually care.

What was it you were saying? The other day I was saying, oh, how amazing you are, you know, thank you for being so supportive and you, you said, “Well…”

“All you have to do is be nice.”

Yeah! And fun. And fun.

Well, we added the fun later because you asked, I had to apologize for not getting, well, stuff done for our conference, so it was really apologizing to myself but apologizing to you that I hadn’t sent some information, ’cause you’re helping us with the conference, and my excuse was, I was just having too much fun ’cause family was visiting us in California. So we, but you came up with this name, right? You and I have to start our own podcast and we’ll call it the Nice and Fun podcast.

The Nice and Fun podcast. Absolutely. If I could give anybody one piece of advice about building a client space, just be nice and fun.

Be nice and have fun. Alright, well, we can have be nice and have fun all day. We’ll stick to the nice, we’ll stick to the fun. But let’s get to the regularly scheduled program, which was really talking about, and I’m not even gonna get there yet, the “Ask a CPA” Community, because before we do that, you know, we have to talk about the Dancing Accountant and where this came from. Was your business called the Dancing Accountant from day one, or did this evolve into that? 

Absolutely not. 

Okay. 

No, I had the world’s most creative name you could possibly imagine for my company: It was called “Nancy McClelland, LLC.”

Yep. Well, you may have been the most unique one and the only one that existed, so. 

Yeah, that is possible. Yeah, so it was called Nancy McClelland, LLC, and I wanted to rename it because I was just like, you know, this doesn’t reflect who I am. It’s my name, but what does it say, right? And who’s it going to attract? Because another piece of advice that I give to people when they are. Building their accounting and bookkeeping firm is that you should be auditioning these clients, these potential clients as much as they’re auditioning you, right? Like you, you wanna make sure that it is a good fit from both sides. And I don’t want to work with people who are boring or who think that I am unprofessional because I, you know, wear colorful clothing, and because I speak my mind, you know? I mean, I want to work with people who are engaging and interesting and vibrant and nice and fun, as you were saying. So I really wanted to change my name so that I would attract that kind of clientele. 

And so I just kept thinking about, well, you know, we’re a geographically hyperlocal firm, so maybe I’ll call it Blue Line Accounting because—

—I know what that means!

You know what that means. Chicago Blue Line, I’m on the Logan Square stop. And I was like, well, I don’t really take the Blue Line that often to clients because I can just walk there or ride my bike there, so that doesn’t work. And I came up with a bunch of other ideas and nothing was really sticking. And one day, well, I’m a dancer. I am a 1960s style Go-go dancer. So think tall white boots, Nancy Sinatra, These Boots Are Made for Walkin’. So one day I was going to a little, it was sort of a performance, it was this neat thing that we do at a pro bono client of mine is Unity Park, which is in our neighborhood, not surprisingly. And they have a great program for the year. Their Advisory Council is just really active in creating a dynamic, engaging, you know, whole series of entertainment and stuff for the families in the neighborhood. And they had a thing where it was a go-go troupe that was teaching little kids how to go-go dance and, which is my very favorite part. I also dance in Fabulous Ladies of Fitness, which is a fake 80s Jazzercise troop where we have the audience dance along with us. I also dance in a glam marching band, and my favorite thing to do there is when we go to like Kids’ Day at the local farmer’s market, you know, and we’re dancing with the kids, it’s so much fun. 

I was wearing, you know, my tall white boots and my mini skirt, and that was all made up and everything. And I get there and there was a client who was picnicking with her kids and attending the event. And I just like had to take a deep breath because it was the first time—since then, it’s happened zillions of times—but it was the first time that I was like, in costume doing this thing that a lot of people would think was kind of silly, right? And just like, you know, is she gonna be able to take me seriously when I do this kind of thing, but I’m also, you know, basically her outsource CFO and her tax accountant, right? And I walked up and I said, hi. And she goes, “Look, kids, it’s the dancing accountant!”

Awesome!

And it stuck. And every year they’ll come up on Facebook, there’ll be like pictures of that event, and she’ll send it to me and she’ll say, “Hey, the day I gave you your, your company name, wasn’t it?” And she’s still a client. All these years later, she’s still a client. 

Well that’s cool. And, you said, they think it’s silly. Silly’s fun, and that goes back to fun. 

Well, and to go back to the point I was making about the ideal client profile and attracting the right kind of client, somebody who’s gonna be a good fit, somebody who thinks that the name, “The Dancing Accountant” is stupid, they’re not gonna come to me. I’m screening before they even—

You’re pre-screening new clients. Nice. 

Yeah. One time I was at a client, it was a wine shop, which of course, I’m a certified sake professional, and I love sake, and I love wine also. I love beer, I love cocktails. I’m a drinker. But I would say sake and wine are my favorites, and so I’ve had lots of wine clients throughout the years and I was at his shop and one of his reps came in and we were doing a tasting together. And I said, “Oh look, at the time, I’m gonna miss my bus if I don’t run out.” Now, this is Chicago, right? Public transit is a very important piece of the fabric of our daily lives. So I saw on the bus tracker that it was coming and I ran out the door. I found out from that client later that the rep went, “Your CPA rides the bus?” in a really derogatory way. 

Wow. 

And he was like, “Yeah, and I’m really proud to work with her because A, maybe we should be taking lessons from her on this because financially it makes sense. But also, this shows that she like, trusts this neighborhood that she lives in and she feels safe and she feels engaged. Like that’s exactly who I wanna be working with.”

So we’re gonna have to talk about this wine shop after the show. I may know who you’re talking about. We’ll have to see if I do or not. And then the sake—there’s this beer shop in Sedona, Arizona, Jesse Lee’s. We became friends with this guy that owns it because Kathy and I, part of our winter trip is Sedona, and we stopped. And it’s like you, I get in there, I talk to the guy, curious about what he is doing, exciting, but he also, they’re making some interesting sake in Arizona. And so he gave us one, well, we bought it. He gives us a nice discount. 

One of the reasons I love working with wine shops!

Yep. But it was this interesting one and it was like herb and something else. And you know, Kathy and I were talking to him because, so what do would you use this for? You just drink it by itself? He goes, oh, what I do is I mix it two to one with bourbon and it makes it really cool old fashioned.

Oh, with sake! I have never tried that in all of these years. Now I’m the sake and the wine person in the family and Mark is the beer and the cocktail person in this family. So now I am going to have to tell him, Hey, it looks like we’ve got a crossover here with the sake and the cocktail.

There you go. Yeah, there you go. 

I drink it chilled; premium sake, you should generally drink chilled, and on its own. You know, I don’t, certainly don’t use it as a mixer, but it certainly can be used as a mixer and yeah, I don’t know if you knew this, but sake is actually brewed like beer. It’s not like wine, and it’s not a distillate. It’s actually a brewed concoction, and the process is very similar to the brewing process for beer. 

Yep. It technically probably is beer. ’cause it’s using grains as a base, right?

Yeah, using rice as a base. But the thing is that it does not malt from within the grain. You actually have to add what’s called koji in order to break the starches down into simple sugars, whereas with beer, the grain actually, once it sits there and it’s warm and moist enough, it will sprout its own enzymes to break down. the starches into sugars. We’ll cut that part out, but 

No, never! 

It’s important. It’s important. 

No, this is our new podcast, the Unique Sake Show.

The Unique Drinkers! The Drinking CPAs!

Alright, so now let’s get to where we wanted to talk about, because I mean I saw this, I don’t know how early on, but I saw this right when you were at least I think, announcing this new community, “Ask a CPA,” which I remember you doing a really cool presentation on it at the Tax Twitter retreat last year. So let’s get into that. We talked about you starting as a bookkeeper and becoming a CPA, so what was really the inspiration to create this community, “Ask a CPA?”

Well, you started out by talking about how I really want to bridge the gap. I mean, the fact that your conference, my favorite conference, is called Bridging the Gap, it’s really like not a surprise at all, and by the way, I have to brag on myself for a moment because last year I did win Mentor of the Year, that award at Bridging the Gap, which was an amazing experience for me because it turned out, I found out afterward that the big group in the corner of the room that cheered the loudest when I got that award? Those are all people who ended up joining “Ask A CPA.”

Wow. 

And yeah, they were the ones who nominated me. It turns out that Melissa Miller Ferguson reached out to Dawn Slokin, who reached out to Hope Brown, who reached out to the next person, and the next person, and the next person, and they all got together and nominated me. It was—I didn’t know about that until after the fact. So that was really, it turns out in retrospect, an even bigger moment in my life than I knew as it was happening. I don’t think I mentioned that to you, so.

No, that’s pretty cool. 

I’m glad I got a chance. So I really, I would love to bridge the gap in this long standing divide that exists between bookkeepers and tax practitioners. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it does not serve anyone well. And you know, we talked about my background starting as a bookkeeper and later becoming a CPA. So I know from personal experience what it feels like on both sides of that divide. I also know from personal experience that it can be addressed in a way that benefits both parties. And ultimately—and this was the point I was trying to make at Tax Twitter retreat—the biggest winner is the small business clients that we’re all trying to care for. 

So that’s what I came out of. I’ve experienced how differently a bookkeeper gets treated at conferences by licensed tax pros. I don’t know if “differently” is the perfect word for that. It’s not a great experience to be honest. That’s one of the reasons that I started “Ask a CPA.” It is a non-judgmental space for bookkeepers to ask a CPA things that they can’t necessarily talk about with their client’s Tax Pro for whatever reason, and there are a lot of reasons. By teaching them to prepare tax ready books, this can actually go a long way toward addressing the pipeline crisis for tax preparers. 

You just mentioned pipeline, which is obviously a big issue. We’ve been hearing a lot about it actually. You just mentioned that this can help solve that, so this collaboration, you know, better collaboration between bookkeepers and CPAs, how is that gonna address or help the pipeline issue? 

I think that if we could get this right, we’d not only make life easier for everyone involved, we’d actually help address this massive talent gap that’s causing so much burnout and turnover, you know? To go back to, you know, some of the tenets that we address at Bridging the Gap Conference, I truly believe that shifting this mindset could be a huge part of the solution because it’s just common sense that having bookkeepers and tax pros work throughout the year, together, it just makes tax season take less work! And as you know, I know you don’t do taxes anymore, but an hour during tax season is worth like four or five hours during the rest of the year, right? 

Yep, yep. 

So I mean that disconnect between bookkeepers and tax pros and small business owners, it’s not just an inconvenience, Randy—it’s actively costing everyone time and money, and sanity, and the more work that I do with bookkeepers in “Ask a CPA,” the clearer that it becomes to me that this isn’t just a process issue, it’s a people issue. You know, it’s a mindset issue. It’s the classic, “But this is the way it’s always been done” issue. 

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yep. 

We need to teach the art of collaboration, not just its mechanics. We need to like, zoom out, and we need to look at where each person fits into this larger, constantly rotating cycle. I want to change this—it can unquestionably be one of the angles that we can come at to address the pipeline crisis.

Well, yeah. I can see if we have collaboration, obviously that can make everything more efficient. So why do you think there’s—you know, CPAs that maybe have misconceptions about bookkeepers have misconceptions about CPAs? I guess were there some common ones and why do they exist? Why haven’t we solved this earlier? 

Yeah, that’s a great question. I don’t know why we haven’t solved this earlier. As a matter of fact, when I started “Ask a CPA,” not only did bookkeepers start coming out of the woodwork and saying, “Oh my God, I’ve wanted this forever, I’ve wanted somebody to go to,” right? Because the tax pros that their clients are working with, they’re often condescending, they’re often nonresponsive. And on the other side of things, tax pros will often get really frustrated, understandably, when during tax season they’re given financial statements that make no sense whatsoever, but instead of doing something about it, right—and this is what that Tax Twitter Retreat and also my WorkflowCon presentation was all about—instead of doing something about it, they will complain that the bookkeepers don’t know what they’re doing and it’s not their job to teach them, or I don’t have time to teach them, right? 

It’s time consuming. I get that it takes energy. I get that it also requires vulnerability. And you know, vulnerability as a strength, that’s what I spoke on in Bridging the Gap last year, this is a huge area that I think we need to work on personally in our industry—probably in most industries. It’s so much easier to just avoid this problem and stick with the way we’ve always done it. It is. And for bookkeepers, that means “I’m just categorizing things the way the client says to—the tax preparer can deal with this.” Not taking ownership and not learning the subtleties of what it means to prepare books that are tax-ready. And for tax pros, this means “I’m gonna have to do all sorts of cleanup because the bookkeepers don’t know what they’re doing,” right? And believe me, at this point, I have heard, I promise, every imaginable scenario from both sides. And I promise you this is avoidable. This is not an insurmountable problem. 

Tax pros who mentor and collaborate with and encourage bookkeepers, they are saving themselves a giant headache come tax season. They really are. There’s a lot that you can take off of your shoulders, off of your plate and give to the bookkeepers. Also lifting them up—it increases the likelihood that they will excel and grow. When you put people down, you inhibit their growth. When you lift them up and encourage them, you give them the opportunity to blossom. But this is not how it’s been done. It’s always been—as a matter of fact, I have a friend who used to work at a firm that did both tax and bookkeeping, ’cause all of the tenets that I’m talking about here, they’re things that happen whether tax and bookkeeping are done in the same firm, or two different firms, same situation.

So these two departments didn’t get along and they were constantly complaining to each other in their own department about the idiots over there in the next department, right? Like they were both doing, the bookkeepers were complaining about the idiots over the tax department. Tax people complain about the idiots over in the bookkeeping department. So the partners decided this was their—you’re gonna love this—this was their approach: to move their desks into the same space so that they were all mixed up with each other. So they didn’t do anything else. They didn’t set expectations. They didn’t create workflows, they didn’t provide education. They didn’t establish regular meetings or anything, right? They just moved their desks around so that they were intermingled and that was gonna like fix this problem. Which turned out to mean that now they had to walk across the room to complain about each other with the people who are in their department, right? Like this solves nothing. 

My point is that without creating systems and expectations and shared resources, like the things that actually make collaboration possible, it doesn’t matter where you’re sitting. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the same office. Everyone needs this. The first step really is like in understanding why you should even bother.

 

Thank you for joining us for part one of Randy Crabtree’s conversation about community in the profession with Nancy McClelland, The Dancing Accountant. Part two will air April 1st. Be sure to subscribe and go to TheUniqueCPA.com so you don’t miss it or any of our other episodes, and we’ll see you next time on The Unique CPA.