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I can honestly say my junior year in high school changed the course of my life. My mother's entire family worked in the medical profession in some way and growing up surrounded by doctors, nurses and pharmacists, I had always planned to do the same. My junior year in high school I had to take an elective class and I picked bookkeeping. To be honest, the primary reason being there were 12 girls and 4 boys in the class, which made bookkeeping seem like a very interesting subject to me. We were required to take chemistry that same year. By the end of the school term, I knew that I hated science, but I excelled at bookkeeping.
I have been a CPA since 1983, I don't wear green eye shades but I can work a calculator by touch. In my career, I have had the typical big firm auditor, controller, CFO types of accounting jobs, but I have also had several non-typical jobs for accountants like vp-operations, president, COO, general manager. I have been responsible for sales, marketing and manufacturing operations and what most entrepreneurs would call "real jobs". In my accounting practice this gives me a much broader perspective on the factors needed for a company to be successful and I know it involves a lot more than great accounting records.
Recently a friend referred me to Outright, because most of my work involves helping small to medium sized companies. It has been my experience that the majority of entrepreneurs are either A) really good salespeople or B) really good technicians and almost never are they really good bookkeepers. The pity of that is a lot of great concepts fail because the people running them simply cannot afford the time to cover the "business" side of their business.
It is so much easier for a company to succeed if you know how much money is coming in and how much is going out. It also helps if the owner knows when and how much to pay the government in taxes, as I find it a lot easier to run your business when you are NOT in jail. I have discovered Outright to be an excellent way to handle the bookkeeping and financial reporting part of a small business. It is geared for a non-accountant to use and very intuitively "walks" you through recording your business transactions. You won't even realize you are doing bookkeeping (don't worry your debits will still equal your credits). Despite the simple interface, it creates the information needed to track your business's finances and help you pay your taxes when they come due. I believe it is an especially good fit for single owner startup ventures, who properly should spend time growing their business rather than setting up accounting software.
I advocate Outright for several of my clients because I do know bookkeeping, but I also know business.
Wray is a Certified Public Accountant and Outright evangelist.
You can find out more about his accounting and consulting practice at www.rives.org or email him at wray@rives.org
