Tag Archives: insightful accountant

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Vote For The Dancing Accountant In the 2024 Top 100 ProAdvisor Awards!

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So very pleased to announce that Nancy been nominated once again for Insightful Accountant’s prestigious “Top 100 ProAdvisors Award”! It’s her fifth time being nominated, and after last year’s win, we’re hoping to make it a two-fer.

One small challenge this year is that due to an administrative snafu, the name “Nancy McClelland” shows as the very last one on the list, rather than in alphabetical order. We have the utmost confidence that you can figure it out anyway — and just scroll to the end to check the box.

If you find this blog of value, please consider voting as a way to show your appreciation and support. It has been quite a labor of love these past 10 years!

QuickBooks ProAdvisors are first nominated, and then go through a lengthy vetting process, before eventually opening up to a public vote. Applicants for this prestigious award are ranked based on their performance across various categories, measuring everything from QuickBooks knowledge and continuing education, to utilizing the best tools and partner apps within the QuickBooks ecosystem. Real-world experience with clients is a requirement. For Nancy, winning last year opened up doors to additional speaking opportunities and interviews, as well as gave her the opportunity to collaborate with other awardees.

Recipients will be formally recognized at the Scaling New Heights Accounting Technology conference, to be held June 16-19, 2024 in Orlando — at which Nancy will be presenting a session called “The Tax-Ready Bookkeeper”! (Registering with this link will get you $50 off your registration, by the way.)

Voting for the Top 100 closes April 2 at midnight, so please do us the honor of popping in there as soon as possible. Awards like these drive traffic to the blog and lead to more speaking engagements; this educational component of our company’s mission is something about which Nancy is extremely passionate, and it feels meaningful and satisfying.

The voting form requests a bunch of info (it’s not a spammy organization), but you can enter N/A for some of the items (except state, zip & country) if you prefer. Although they ask about your title and number of employees in your firm, you do not need to be a business owner to participate in voting. Just complete those fields with “Owner” and “1”. Voting closes April 2, at 11:59 pm Pacific.

Thank you so very much for your support! Please vote!

Education, Site News

The Dancing Accountant To Join Insightful Accountant Inaugural Advisory Panel

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Thanks so much to Insightful Accountant — a leader in news and education for our industry — for inviting me to join a truly exceptional group of colleagues on the inaugural advisory panel.

“The primary purpose of the panel is to help us stay in touch with the audience we serve and to continue to provide the content you want. The panel members will also be instrumental in helping us shape the future of Insightful Accountant by identifying areas of improvement, new opportunities and being a collective sounding board for us as we explore what is next for our business.“

I’m looking forward to getting to know some new friends and reconnecting with old ones… and most importantly, helping shape a future for Insightful Accountant that addresses the needs of our industry. It’s through these connections that we can truly understand and address the evolving needs of accountants, bookkeepers, tax preparers, advisors, apps and vendors, and of course — the small businesses that we serve.

Read more about the rockstars on this year’s panel here!

And if you’re a member of our community, please reach out and let me know what you find valuable about the content, education, and opportunities Insightful Accountant affords you, as well as what you’d like to see improve.

If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Education, Site News, Tips

The Confluence of Bookkeeping, Tax & Advisory: How to Thrive in the New Accounting Landscape (12/6 @ 3:30 pm ET)

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Insightful Accountant is hosting their last Future Forward virtual conference of the year on December 5-6, and I’m delighted to be presenting an exciting topic that resonates with the theme of Niches, Trends, and Predictions for 2024.

I love this particular webinar series, as it’s a fabulous opportunity to connect with peers, get the latest industry updates, and explore best practices, new tech, and other developments in accounting. They do a nice job of speaking both to bookkeepers and tax professionals, as well as tech-related and accounting-adjacent firms. This round will comprise 2 days, 9 speakers, and 11 topics as we share our knowledge, strategies and tactics. If you’re focused on launching, transforming, or growing your business — this is for you. Plus, it’s free if you attend live ($25 fee for the recording, which is totally worth it, as they’re able to subsidize the education without your having to sit through vendor commercial plugs).

My session will be held on Day 2 December 6th at 3:30 pm Eastern, and is called “The Confluence of Bookkeeping, Tax, and Advisory: How to Thrive in the New Accounting Landscape“. It was written with two groups in mind — bookkeepers and tax preparers, both running their own practices — who are getting all sorts of pressure to expand into advisory services. It’s about the trend toward co-firming and other ways to work together in order to serve the clients better, add value/charge more, and develop professional relationships that will bring you more business.

I recently attended QuickBooks Connect, and it got me all riled up (again) about the confluence we’re seeing between CPA firms moving into Client Accounting & Advisory Services (CAAS) and bookkeeping firms moving into advisory services… two previously distinct worlds starting to converge. I feel like the bookkeeping and accounting practices are often dancing technology circles around tax firms — and yet CPAs still look down on them as if they were data entry robots.

It’s time to start communicating with each other!

Bookkeepers –> learn how to “speak tax” with CPAs. Own your spot at the table.

CPAs/EAs –> bookkeepers are your friends! They have the personal relationships and tech know-how that you lack!

Let’s talk about co-firming as one of the accounting trends of 2024.

1. Discover how the scope at CPA and bookkeeping firms is starting to overlap and converge, and why that’s a good thing for you and your clients.

2. Identify the potential challenges and opportunities that this new accounting landscape brings, and how to turn them to your advantage.

3. Apply strategies and techniques to partner across or within firms, to update your accounting practice and stay ahead of the curve.

Join Insightful Accountant and me at Future Forward on December 6th as we talk about what this landscape can look like.

The Confluence of Bookkeeping, Tax, and Advisory: How to Thrive in the New Accounting Landscape – Future Forward December 5-6 2023 by Insightful Accountant (heysummit.com)

But it’s not just me! There’s an amazing lineup of speakers and sessions:

Day 1 – Dec 5

  • Checking in with QuickBooks Checking + Envelopes with Alicia Katz Pollock with Royalwise Solutions, Inc.
  • Strategies For Niching Success with Kellie Parks from Calmwaters Cloud Accounting
  • Niche to an Ideal Client Roster with Debra Kilsheimer from Profit Creator
  • Firm of the Future: Unlocking the Power of the Vertical Niche with Gregg Bossen – Creator/President of QuickBooks® Made Easy™

Day 2 – Dec 6

  • 5 Strategies to Maximize Firm Success Through Onboarding Mastery and Strategic Outsourcing with Vanessa Vasquez from QuickBooks en Espanol
  • Automate Tax Season with AI with Christine Gervais from Epiphany Group
  • Grow Your Practice with Highly Profitable Reporting for Multi-Entity Clients with Charles Nagel from Qvinci and William Murphy from Insightful Accountant
  • The Confluence of Bookkeeping, Tax, and Advisory: How to Thrive in the New Accounting Landscape with Nancy McClelland from the Dancing Accountant

The live event is free, the recordings will be made available for a nominal fee. Just click on this link to sign up.

See you there!

Cooperatives, Education, Site News, Tips

Nancy McClelland Featured on Accounting Insiders Podcast

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Check out the podcast on Insightful Accountant’s YouTube channel.

I met the charming and intelligent Christine Gervais earlier this year, having shared an article of hers from Tax Practice News to my LinkedIn feed with my own perspectives. We immediately connected and met via zoom to get to know each other better, compare notes on our practices, and discuss ways in which we might collaborate. (Side note: TPN picked up an important article of mine shortly afterwards due to Christine’s recommendation.)

What an honor that some months later, I was named one of Insightful Accountant’s Top 100 ProAdvisors of the Year and accepted the award at the annual Scaling New Heights conference. I had recommended the jam-packed educational event to Christine, and to my delight, she attended and we met in-person. What neither of us expected was that she ended up being the interviewer in my Top 100 spot with Insightful Accountant, as Tax Practice News is a sister publication.

The question posed was, “if you could start your own practice over again, what would you do differently?” As anyone who has been in the industry — or run their own business — for a while knows, we are constantly making mistakes and learning from them. The goal is not to make the same one twice. So it’s natural to have regrets. But sharing those stories can be immensely helpful to others in the space — whether it’s younger entrepreneurs wondering which next steps to take, or colleagues who feel isolated because they think they’re the only ones who don’t have it all figured out yet.

We had a lovely chat — she’s very easygoing and conversational — and covered the following topics, among others:

  • Hiring your first employee
  • Traits in an ideal team member – intelligence, written skills, ability to learn, detail-oriented, team-player, caring attitude, enthusiasm
  • Interviewing with an eye toward building team culture
  • How teams can collaborate
  • Networking with colleagues
  • Trusting your team and clients to support each other
  • Importance of joining a professional organization and attending conferences
  • Standardizing systems and establishing workflows
  • Teaching accountants and bookkeepers what they need to know to specialize and establish a niche
  • How to find your professional community
  • Identifying and improving processes

I also give a shout-out to a few favorite resources, such as Keeper, AICPA Town Hall series, NATP’s tax education, NSAC and Co-op Professionals Guild, and of course, Bookkeeping Buds.

So check it out! And as always, please give us a like and a comment if you enjoyed it — really does mean so much to us and is very helpful in continuing to reach our audience.

If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

QuickBooks Software, Site News

The Dancing Accountant Named Top 100 ProAdvisor by Insightful Accountant

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I am truly honored and delighted to make the Insightful Accountant Top 100 ProAdvisor list!

Insightful Accountant identifies and recognizes the Top 100 QuickBooks ProAdvisors across the globe each year in its annual award program, formally recognizing recipients at the Scaling New Heights Accounting Technology conference, to be held June 25-28, 2023 in St. Louis.

QuickBooks ProAdvisors are first nominated, and then go through a lengthy vetting process, before eventually opening up to a public vote. Applicants for this prestigious award are ranked based on their performance across various categories, measuring everything from QuickBooks knowledge and continuing education, to utilizing the best tools and partner apps within the QuickBooks ecosystem. Real-world experience with clients is a requirement. Winners have said the Top 100 recognition by peers and their industry has opened doors and provided inspiration and new perspectives.

I would love to express great appreciation to Gary DeHart and the entire Insightful Accountant team for their hard work evaluating the nominees — it’s quite special to receive an award from a publication that has been a trusted go-to resource for so many years. And special thanks to all those who voted, in particular my esteemed colleagues and valued clients. It’s extremely exciting to share space with luminaries in the Intuit QuickBooks world such as Alicia Katz Pollock, Lynda Artesani, Michelle Long, Caleb Jenkins, Marnie Stretch, Stacey Byrne, and Veronica Wasek. Looking forward to the formal announcement at Scaling New Heights. If you see me there, please come on up and introduce yourself!

https://www.intuitiveaccountant.com/in-the-news/top-100-proadvisors/meet-our-top-100-proadvisors-and-top-25-up-n-/

If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.