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Kylene O'Connor Carse from BWCO CPAs joins the Accounting Leaders Podcast this week to share her story with Stuart. In an honest chat, they discuss the challenges of constantly being busy and how to balance that when you also have a family. Kylene also talks about capacity planning, burnout, running a female-only firm, and even Peloton. Any accountant who has ever felt the pressure of deadlines and an always-growing workload will relate to this episode.
Join Stuart McLeod as he interviews the world's top accounting leaders to understand their story, how they operate, their goals, mission, and top advice to help you run your accounting firm.
Stuart McLeod: 00:00:06.232 [music] Hi, I'm Stuart McLeod, CEO and co-founder of Karbon. Welcome to the Accounting Leaders podcast, the show where I go behind the scenes with the world's top accounting leaders. [music] Kylene O'Connor Carse from BWCO CPA's has a great relationship with some of my colleagues at Karbon. But today's episode is the first time that I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with her myself. Kylene is the first to admit that she's overcapacity and a bit of a workaholic, to which I'm sure many of you can relate. She is aware that her current workload is just not sustainable over the long term, and this leads us into an interesting discussion on capacity planning, parenting while running a firm, and even some talk about Peloton. I think that my conversation with Kylene is just an honest talk that any accountant who has worked through the past two years can get something out of. So that's enough from me. Let's get into today's episode with Kylene. Good morning, Kylene. Welcome to the Accounting Leaders podcast. How are you?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:01:12.187 I'm good. Thank you for having me on, Stuart.
Stuart McLeod: 00:01:14.549 It's wonderful to have you. It's wonderful to have you on, yeah. Tell us a little bit about your firm. Did a case study with you not that long ago, so I know a little bit. But tell us your firm-- about your firm in Texas and how it's been going through the pandemic and we'll get on to some of your clients because you've got some interesting stories.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:01:34.607 Okay. Yeah. So our firm was actually founded, I guess, back in 2002, officially. Our founder, Pat Bauer left one of the bigger companies here in San Antonio, USAA, went out on her own, opened up her shop. She'd always done tax returns as a hobby and then decided to go out and do it full-time. And then our second founder, Theresa Willis, left USAA and joined her. Shortly thereafter, they formed the company.
Stuart McLeod: 00:02:00.929 Doing taxes as a hobby is-- that's an interesting [laughter].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:02:05.103 It is, right? Yeah.
Stuart McLeod: 00:02:06.582 She talked to somebody about that [laughter].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:02:09.318 No, she did. She used to do it. She used to do old school pencil, fill out the forms. Yeah, and then she got a software called Pencil Pushers, which is--
Stuart McLeod: 00:02:19.074 [laughter] There you go.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:02:20.348 And then I guess that was bought out by Wolters Kluwer CCH at some point in time. So yeah, so they formed the firm in 2002 together, and then I joined the firm in 2003, and I've been with them ever since. So it was a year after I got out of college.
Stuart McLeod: 00:02:36.442 Oh, congrats.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:02:37.533 Yeah. So I was with them for a long time.
Stuart McLeod: 00:02:38.035 So there's not many people with the same firm for, well, at least all of your career so far, but a considerable portion of your adult life. Something must be very satisfying you at the firm.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:02:52.720 Yeah. When I was in college finishing up and talked to a couple of the other bigger firms, just what they told you, what they required of you to work, I was like, "Man, that's really scary [laughter]."
Stuart McLeod: 00:03:06.611 Well, at least they're honest about it.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:03:07.868 They were honest about it, which, I mean, is a good thing.
Stuart McLeod: 00:03:10.722 Usually they just lie about it, and you find out six weeks in, right?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:03:14.032 Yeah. So I actually went and worked for a smaller CPA first. After that, I ran into a friend of mine from school. She worked at the firm and she's like, "Hey, I'm going to be having a baby in November. Do you want to come work for the firm?" And so I was like, "Yeah, cool." So I joined them and then, let's see, I passed my CPA exam in-- I guess I was licensed in 2005, became a partner in 2012.
Stuart McLeod: 00:03:40.095 Oh, congrats. So now you're in it for the-- for even longer then [laughter].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:03:45.111 Long haul. Yeah. So Marisol, my other business partner now, she joined in 2004. And so she's been with us ever since and she became a partner in 2018. And then this January, it's now just the two of us. Our second founder, Theresa, retired the end of twenty seventeen. She got out just in time.
Stuart McLeod: 00:04:05.913 Yeah [laughter]. Before the shit hit the fan.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:04:09.049 Yeah. Exactly. And then Pat, our founder, our original founder, she actually retired as an owner at the beginning of this year. She's still going to be hanging on part time till the end of 2022, and then she's hanging it up. So yeah.
Stuart McLeod: 00:04:24.421 Who's that harder for? Her or you guys?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:04:27.036 What's that?
Stuart McLeod: 00:04:28.394 Who's that harder for, to finally let go, do you think?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:04:32.275 She's doing it very gracefully, I have to say. She's been very graceful and--
Stuart McLeod: 00:04:37.485 Well, there you go. There's a book in that, right? How to retire gracefully from an accounting--
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:04:41.498 She definitely could probably write that or have some examples written about her because she definitely is taking it very gracefully. So yeah. So we've been in San Antonio the entire time and just serving small business owners and individuals, and that's kind of changed over the years kind of what our focus is, but that's pretty much--
Stuart McLeod: 00:05:00.597 To sort of larger clients or more individuals? How's that changed?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:05:05.588 Mostly, our focus has been trying to grow with our small business clients. And a lot of the clients that we have have basically grown up with me, and my soul in the firm, really, there's quite a few of them that we've had with us since we started. And this is really cool to grow with them and see the growth from within, so we do have a lot of growth from within our client base and-- yeah.
Stuart McLeod: 00:05:28.567 You would have also seen a huge expansion in the San Antonio area, population and therefore small business. There's a lot of San Francisco, California expats moving to Texas.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:05:42.329 Yeah, there is. Yeah, Austin is kind of popular, but our area is definitely becoming popular. There's a lot of tech that's coming into the space, so that's cool.
Stuart McLeod: 00:05:51.170 Yeah, yeah. What about some of the clients that you have sort of grown up with? What are some of the success stories that come to mind?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:05:58.797 Sure. Yeah, when we've had-- gosh, one of the longest clients that I've been with. He's actually a doctor, an MD by licensing, but he formed a software company that helps in the EMS, the Emergency Medical Service billing area, helping them with their billing. And he started out as him and his brother and they grew it, and that was actually my first experience with one of our clients being bought. So that was really cool. So then he then from there formed, I don't know, six more companies, and we've had three more acquisitions since-- he's had three more acquisitions since then. So that was pretty cool because he's only two years older than me and we just kind of grew up together and-- yeah.
Stuart McLeod: 00:06:46.132 Billing in the medical space in America, there's got to be plenty of room for software and organization, right?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:06:52.615 Yes, yes. Yeah. And we've just got lots of clients that have been very loyal to us and grown with us. And it's just been eye doctors and in the construction industry.
Stuart McLeod: 00:07:03.651 Yeah, well, especially with the expansion. You're a woman-owned firm. Is that something that you're passionate about? Is that a differentiator for you or it's just sort of happened like that?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:07:13.469 When Pat and T founded the firm, they kind of always said, "We're women-owned." And we've had a couple of men work for us years ago, and they didn't last very long for various reasons. But I mean, I wouldn't say that we're hardcore, we're only going to hire women. It's just kind of always worked that way. And I don't know if it's really a differentiator that we kind of market on. Sometimes, maybe we do. It just kind of really depends on who we're speaking to. So I wouldn't say it sets us apart per se, but--
Stuart McLeod: 00:07:45.445 I mean, it is a-- I guess, it's a difference in the industry, isn't it? I mean, we just don't see a whole lot of women-owned or women only firms, and I'm sure, I'm positive that many clients that would appreciate just a different aspect.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:08:02.593 There are. There are. So I guess that's-- maybe I'm just selling us a little short. Yeah, I mean, I guess there are a lot of clients that do appreciate that. I don't know that all of our clients come to us and say, "I only want to work with women." But definitely we do have some that have come in and they're just like, "Oh, this is just what we wanted."
Stuart McLeod: 00:08:19.468 Oh, good. Good, good. Yeah. I mean, many industries-- I don't know if accounting is that different. Some of that more traditional industries in that it's sort of unfortunately white-dominated, particularly as we were just talking about before, right? Some people getting to retirement age. The golf course membership is heavily populated from ex accountants and ex lawyers, right?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:08:49.863 That's very true [laughter]. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, yeah, I guess you're right. We don't have that kind of stereotypical white male-owned firm, so.
Stuart McLeod: 00:08:59.889 Yeah, I don't think there's any reason you shouldn't be very-- I'm sure you are very proud of it, but don't oversell that aspect. I know there's lots of clients that have probably had bad experiences with perhaps cultures in firms that haven't developed with the times. Let's put it that way. How's that?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:09:18.319 That's a good way. I like that, the culture. No, but that is true. It's very true. And I never worked out for any of the big firms and our founders didn't come from the big firms, so that might actually give us another differentiation on top of it. Mostly good. Maybe there's some aspects that we might have been missing over the years, but.
Stuart McLeod: 00:09:36.280 Oh, no. Just be proud of who you are and what you offer. And as evidenced in the case study, there's plenty of great clients that are very proud of your services and lucky to have you. Well, let's talk about that a bit. Where do you think BWCO is-- what are the plans over the next sort of 5, 10 years? Are you going to-- world domination? Or just a little bit of growth or happy with where you're at? What's the plans?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:10:00.470 Man, that is the question of the year. Marisol and I have really started to kind of talk about that now that it's the two of us. We're trying to figure out where we want to go and how we want to grow and be very intentional about it. I was listening to one of your other podcasts, and I think he used the term right-size, for a firm, and I think that's a really good way to think about it. Certainly, saying goodbye to clients is hard because a lot of clients have been with us for a long time. But at the same time, they may not be the right fit for us anymore. So we're really going to start focusing on that and trying to figure out who's right for us and who possibly needs to maybe go find somebody else that's more right for them.
Stuart McLeod: 00:10:40.900 Yeah. How many staff now?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:10:42.301 We have nine, including myself and Marisol. So we just brought on our ninth member back in July. It's exciting.
Stuart McLeod: 00:10:50.244 So that's a good size. You know exactly who's doing what, when, why, and how. Hopefully with a bit of help from software of some sort. Sort of, what do you think, up to about 20 is a reasonable size, 15 to 20. Beyond that, it's a different type of business, isn't it?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:11:08.063 It is. Well, and I mean, even adding in the ninth person changes things.
Stuart McLeod: 00:11:11.661 You felt it? Did you?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:11:12.826 Yeah, because it's just another-- making sure that nothing falls through the cracks and the training and it just-- and she's great, brings in a new personality and lots of ideas. But yeah, so we've kind of-- when we both started with the firm, our founders were always kind of like, "We don't want to grow, we want to stay small, we want to stay small." But it was never really, I guess, intentionally defined as to what that meant. What they really meant was they didn't want to grow employee size-wise. Because it's hard managing employees and all that [crosstalk].
Stuart McLeod: 00:11:44.289 All the stuff you have to do. Yeah.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:11:46.528 Yeah. Yeah. But the client base grew a lot. And so now we're at a point where I'm over capacity for sure, a lot of the times, and that's hard. So there's a lot of hours. So I think our goal is to do that kind of rightsizing and really figure out how to better play in our capacity and our work so that we don't ever have another experience like we just had with September 15th and the amount of work that we had to push through and-- it's just overwhelming. So that's our focus, is to really figure that part out and then grow intentionally from there.
Stuart McLeod: 00:12:24.233 And it's hard to balance, right, with the busy season in the US, but then throw the spanner that was COVID in and it's like the never ending tax season for the last two years [laughter].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:12:35.494 Yeah, there's the term-- I'm on Twitter a lot with the tax Twitter group and there's a term there called Marchternity.
Stuart McLeod: 00:12:42.080 Yeah, that's-- yeah, exactly.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:12:44.275 And it's true because it just-- man, and it's like it was like a time warp. It seemed like it was going slow, but it was fast and it was just so much thrown at us. So yeah, I mean, we had all of our regular work and then everything else kind of dumped on us, which we were happy to help all of our clients, but definitely it was overwhelming and definitely tried to help us really realize, "Hey, we got to define what our work scope is and also make time for our personal so we don't burnout."
Stuart McLeod: 00:13:14.149 Yeah, then nobody wins, right?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:13:17.537 Mm-mm.
Stuart McLeod: 00:13:18.567 It has seemed overwhelming for you. What do you think the strategies are or the things you can do for the next year or two to try and avoid this same situation? Is it just more staff or?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:13:30.272 No. I don't know that it's more stuff per se. I mean, we kind of already have taken some steps and as you know, I mean, we switched over to Karbon last year. We made that switch in May of 2020. So in addition to everything else, we did a crazy system switch. So that was good. But in all honesty, it was what we needed to have happen so that we could really not have things fall through the cracks and to better monitor. So that was a big step that we took to be able to really have good visibility on what was coming in and what type of work we needed to do. And so we're still working on it, trying to figure out our budget. And that's really something. And so I think our goal is to even be able to learn it and harness it even better to help us really figure out our workflows, our budgets, the capacity, planning. And then also at that point, then I think we can start to assess, "Okay, do we need another team member? Or do we need to let more clients go?"
Stuart McLeod: 00:14:29.684 Yep. Yeah. Hopefully, in one way or another, the numbers sort of spit out as you should be able to sort of sit down for the year and say, "Okay, well, this is the client base that we have. This is the capacity that we have. These are the skills that we have. And then this is when it's all going to come in and we can do extension to there for that half and--"
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:14:48.247 Yes, yes. So we're hoping to have a really big planning session after the 15th of October to really start getting our arms around everything. And the past two years was kind of like we were just hanging on, right, because we had a pretty good handle on the tax and accounting work. And then you throw in everything else that our clients were dealing with, the PPP and all the other-- the COVID relief, the employee retention credit is what we're really dealing with or working through now. So that added a monkey wrench, definitely.
Stuart McLeod: 00:15:19.703 Yeah, I mean, you're right. "It's fine. Okay, great. We'll sit down and, okay, we've got 10,000 hours of work to do and 11,000 employee hours. Sounds about right." And then all of a sudden the pandemic hits and governments around the world want accountants to be the regulator of stimulus funds [laughter].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:15:41.815 Yeah. So nobody can predict that. But I think going into 2022, hopefully, I don't know, maybe we'll at least be able to plan for the whole, "What if this happens?", because we've got a lot more tax changes and legislation coming our way here very soon. And all the other mess that's kind of going on with the stimulus payments and the child tax credits, and IRS being honestly a hot mess, right? So trying to make sure we have time for that and all the notices that our clients are getting, right, wrong or whatever. Yeah, it's been a lot of time to kind of--
Stuart McLeod: 00:16:23.245 Are you conscious of burnout in accounting firms? Have you talked about that with your partners?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:16:28.843 Yeah. So our partner that first retired, Theresa, she retired because she was burnt out. She'd been working pretty much full-time since she was 16 years old, not in accounting, but very shortly thereafter. And she just got to a point where she was just so burnt out and tired of dealing with all that legislation changes and trying to keep up with all the clients and managing the work. And yeah, and we saw it. We saw it happen to her. So both of us are very aware. We try to be very aware of that. And I know that some people-- the danger from working from home is that the work is always there with you. It's 10 feet away, it's always here. I could see my office, it's like, "Oh, I could just pop in there and do this," or it's on your phone. But I think that the upside to it is that at least I'm here. I can be present. I can go and take an hour or two hours away with the kids or go outside [inaudible] and just relax or just take a breather. And I'm not in the car for freaking two hours every day.
Stuart McLeod: 00:17:27.889 Yeah, that is a huge advantage. The days of the commute should be over for most of us, I think.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:17:35.123 Yeah, yeah. I think the only thing I miss is I don't get all my podcasts that I get to listen to anymore. I try to find other times where I can listen to them.
Stuart McLeod: 00:17:42.719 You need a treadmill or go for a walk.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:17:44.281 Yeah, the bike. Yeah. For sure. But yeah, I mean, I think for all of us-- and Marisol has girls that are 10 and 7. No, 11 and 7. And so, yeah, for her, the same thing. Just so that we can be there and not have to worry about hitting traffic, getting stuck in traffic and all of that stuff, so.
Stuart McLeod: 00:18:04.381 Yeah, yeah. Completely. And what about just in terms of how you go about that capacity planning? Can you build in mental health buffer? Is there other things that you can sort of introduce to the firm or introduce into your own life that avoids that sort of same-- going down that same path?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:18:24.096 Yeah, I mean, we try to be very intentional with our team to make sure they are not getting overwhelmed and burned out. And so we probably need to take some of what we try to do with them to us as well. But with owners, that's different, right? You have a different set of hours you're going to have to work and things you're going to have to do. But we do try to make sure that our team is taking time off or if they need to go and they want to go do something with the kids at school. Yeah, I mean, that's encouraged. It's encouraged to do that. Or, "Hey, I need to take this Friday off." Or, "I would really like to work only Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and take Wednesday and do something different." We encourage that as long as the work is getting done. And we know what they're-- I guess they tell us, "Hey, I think I can work 30 hours." "Okay, great." Then we're going to play in our capacity around that right. And then for Marisol and I, we need to get back on this actually. We were doing what we were calling a partner bike ride. We both have the Peloton bike, so we would take a break at like 12:00. We're supposed to be doing it on Tuesdays after our team meeting, and we were supposed to go and ride together. And we did that for a while and it was actually really cool because then you come back and you're energized. You don't actually have to worry about, "Well, I guess I got to go back to the office all sweaty," right? As long as I don't have another Zoom meeting, I'm good [laughter]. So we need to get back on that because that was a really big-- that was a--
Stuart McLeod: 00:19:45.779 Are you a Cody Rigsby kind of cyclist or are you more like a Robin type of person?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:19:52.900 Man, Robin. I love her, but Cody is great and-- I don't know. They're all great. And Alex and Sam-- I don't know. They're just all-- all over the place on it. Just depends on what kind of mood I'm in.
Stuart McLeod: 00:20:04.744 Yeah. Crank out those 90's rides, right?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:20:07.823 Oh yeah. And all of them medal rides.
Stuart McLeod: 00:20:10.514 Oh, there you go.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:20:11.473 The club bangers. It's all in there [laughter].
Stuart McLeod: 00:20:15.437 Well, I'm a Matt Wilpers type of [crosstalk].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:20:16.299 Oh, Matt Wilpers, yeah, the power zone. My husband and I are actually doing the power zone training right now. Yeah, he's pretty cool also. Yeah. But yeah, that's really helped us a lot, so.
Stuart McLeod: 00:20:28.394 Yeah, those kinds of-- it's the sticking to it as-- I've struggled lately. I'm supposed to be doing some half [inaudible] and stuff, it's just with COVID and smoke and fires and the destruction. It's somewhat equivalent-- or nowhere near as bad as a never ending tax. It's always something getting in the way--
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:20:51.053 It's always something. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod: 00:20:52.477 --in the world at the moment, right?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:20:54.386 Yes, there is always something. And so you just have to kind of figured out. We're part of a CPA group called Thriveal with Jason Blumer and Julie Shipp.
Stuart McLeod: 00:21:06.251 How is Jason?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:21:07.680 He's good. We love Jason [laughter]. They encouraged-- we've taken a couple of their different classes and stuff about-- and calendar blocking is huge. And oh, man, that is so tough for me. I'm so bad, but we're really trying to-- that's part of that capacity planning, right? And trying to make sure-- you know what? I was really tough for our team at first because they used to be able to just ping me whenever they wanted to. [crosstalk] on the instant message and restricted that. And so they got a little annoyed, but they're good now.
Stuart McLeod: 00:21:42.276 Now, you have to. The slackers just come this place where all they do is either being hassled or you're hassling somebody [laughter].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:21:50.695 Well, I'm bad at doing that too. I'll just be like, "Hey, I have this idea. Hey, this and that." So I had to stop doing that too, and put it someplace where we can talk about it later. So that's definitely helped. But the calendar blocking, I think, is really big for us. And we were doing pretty good, but the problem is we didn't have enough time to really intentionally plan it out. And so we are like, "Okay, this is what we're going to do." And then it was summer, we're like, "Crap, we didn't plan for the kids."
Stuart McLeod: 00:22:19.505 Oh, yeah, yeah. The other thing now is, I don't know how you guys go in terms of Zoom all day, but I find myself going-- some days it's like seven meetings back to back to back to back to back. And then all of a sudden, it's 7:00 at night and I haven't got off my desk. And so I started doing 51-minute meetings.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:22:41.537 51 minutes?
Stuart McLeod: 00:22:43.134 Yeah, you're not allowed to do an hour meeting, right? Because then you get that nine minutes at the end to get up and get something to eat or something to drink. Or you just use the bathroom for starters [laughter].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:22:57.174 Yeah, that happened to me yesterday. We had meetings and our team meeting and then follow-up meetings, and I look up and I'm like, "Oh, it's 2:30 and I'm starving."
Stuart McLeod: 00:23:06.262 I know. Exactly.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:23:08.731 Yeah. I like that, 51 minutes.
Stuart McLeod: 00:23:12.884 So there you go. Every day's a school day. Should give that a go.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:23:18.241 Yeah. Awesome.
Stuart McLeod: 00:23:20.495 My hair. What else would you like to talk about? What about raising kids as an owner of a firm? How's that?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:23:26.773 Man, it's definitely an eye opening, life changing experience. I had my first son in March of 2012, so it was not maybe the best plan. It was right before the March 15 deadline pretty much.
Stuart McLeod: 00:23:41.011 [laughter] Did you talk to your husband about that? You've been through all those classes, right [laughter]?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:23:45.230 Yeah, I know, right? This is how it works. Supposed to be good at math, right [laughter]? But yeah, and it's still kind of an adjustment because I'm kind of a workaholic recovering-- I'm trying to be recovering from it, but yeah, having our boys definitely put that in perspective. I think even more so after our second. We had our second in April of 2015, but it was after the 15th, so.
Stuart McLeod: 00:24:10.793 There you go.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:24:12.003 Normally we close our office after the 15th, but I worked all the way until the day before I had him [laughter]. Because I had to get it done, right? But yeah, I mean, it's a completely different thing. And my son said to me the other day, and it made me kind of stop. He's like, "Do you always have to work this hard? All of the time? Is that what you have to do?" And I was like, "Hmm. I mean, I guess, right now, yes." It was September 5th, and I was like-- and he goes, "I just worry about you because all you do is work." And I'm like, "Wow." That was a big eye opener for me and now trying to figure that part out. But I would have to say this past summer and with COVID last year, they were home. When things shut down here, they were home from-- they were on spring break, and then they never went off of spring break. It was this long thing. So they were home from March, whatever, they went on spring break like March 9th. And they were home all the way until they went back to school in the end of August of 2020. And so that kind of put a little bit more perspective on how to really better allocate time between the kids and work. And I think it also maybe made the rest of the world more aware of what maybe working parents go through in general, because now they're right behind you, right? If you're trying to do your meeting and they're always in there and they're coming, and it's just kind of-- I think people became more aware of it, which was kind of cool. And so some people will still be like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I can hear the kids." I'm like, "It's not a big deal. It's really not." So I don't know. I try to look at the good that kind of came out of some of that. And I mean, don't get me wrong, having them home and trying to work through tax season and PPP and everybody freaking out, and then trying to figure out e-learning for them. With a first grader and a pre-kinder, that was challenging. But yeah, I think from taking from that, it's just kind of helped us really focus more on, "Okay, this is kid time. This is work time. Try not to let those bleed over into each other. Try not to be on your phone when you're around them as much as possible. Try not to talk about work in front of them." So I try. Not 100% successful.
Stuart McLeod: 00:26:34.678 I don't think anybody is [crosstalk].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:26:37.411 I don't even know if I'm at 50%, to be honest. But his comment to me kind of really opened up my eyes.
Stuart McLeod: 00:26:43.141 Yeah. They're getting to that age where they're more aware of their surroundings and where mom and dad are spending their time. And whether the family unit is functioning as some of their friends do or not. All of that kind of stuff, right?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:26:56.620 Right. No, I mean, I'm fortunate and my husband has a fairly flexible work schedule, and he's here quite a bit. So that helps, definitely helps.
Stuart McLeod: 00:27:08.054 Yeah, no, it'd be-- some of us just imagine how much more difficult it is as single parent families and COVID and kids at home and all that kind of stuff.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:27:19.075 Yes, yeah. He does shift work. So every third night, I kind of get a little tiny taste of it. Yeah, that was fun, especially last year. That was crazy. Yeah. So I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what the right solution is. Just day by day, trying to survive with them and mostly trying to make sure that they're-- when they do ask, try to make them understand, "Mommy and daddy do have to work. And if you like all these things that you like to do, we've got to work hard [laughter]." Try to at least teach them that.
Stuart McLeod: 00:27:50.559 Yeah. Well, I'm sure they'll get a very strong work ethic from their mom and dad [laughter].
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:27:56.201 Yeah. Yeah. I don't-- yeah.
Stuart McLeod: 00:27:58.122 It could be a lot worse than that.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:27:59.900 Could be, true. That's for sure.
Stuart McLeod: 00:28:03.504 And what about in terms of-- now, you've only got one more deadline to go for the year?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:28:10.823 I mean, technically, two. We got one on September 30 and then we've got October 15th, and then we have a small one on November 15th for our nonprofits, but we don't have that many of those.
Stuart McLeod: 00:28:19.928 There you go. So you can ease into the winter. And oh, winter in San Antonio is hardly winter, right [laughter]?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:28:28.520 Well, yeah. But we had that crazy winter storm this past February, which then changed our federal IRS deadlines, so.
Stuart McLeod: 00:28:39.846 It's always something.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:28:40.625 Yeah, the country was moved-- most of the country was moved to May 15th. We were moved to June 15 along with Oklahoma and Louisiana, I think. But I mean, that was really crazy for us. I mean, I was like-- we were down in the single digits for a couple of days. And we had lots of snow. But no, we're mostly chilling in the 60's, which is nice. 50's and 60's.
Stuart McLeod: 00:29:03.828 No, the only good thing about snow is if you can ski. There's no point in having snow, if you can't go and do something.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:29:10.940 Yeah, they thought it was pretty cool until they hit the ice underneath it.
Stuart McLeod: 00:29:14.754 Yeah, that's right [laughter]. Ended up upside down.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:29:19.894 Yeah. Yeah, all three of them [laughter]. But yeah, the summers, I mean, it's actually pretty hot right now. Hopefully, we'll get a cold-- or cooler for the fall.
Stuart McLeod: 00:29:32.582 Well, Kylene, this has been an absolute pleasure to share the morning with you.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:29:38.197 Sure, you too. You have any other questions or anything for me or?
Stuart McLeod: 00:29:43.950 Is there anything else you'd like to bring up?
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:29:45.597 Oh, I mean, I don't know.
Stuart McLeod: 00:29:48.454 It's been fun. It's been fun.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:29:51.274 Yeah, it has been fun. And the feature, the highlight y'all did on us, that was really cool as well. We really liked that.
Stuart McLeod: 00:29:57.410 We really appreciate the case study that we did. And hopefully you can use that a little bit for your marketing and on your website.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:30:06.885 Yeah, that was pretty cool. We already have the one. We have y'all's video up on there and it linked to that. We'll probably some of the footage with the kids on there. That was pretty fun. Doing that, that was pretty cool. It was a good experience. And yeah, working with y'all in general, just on that or in all your other team with Karbon's been really cool.
Stuart McLeod: 00:30:27.725 Excellent. Well, I hope it goes without saying, but if there's anything that we can ever do to help you or your firm out, then we're here to assist and we'd love to be able to do it.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:30:40.196 Yeah, I know. You guys are great. We love it.
Stuart McLeod: 00:30:43.051 Thank you, Kylene. You have a great day.
Kylene O'Connor Carse: 00:30:46.613 Okay. All right. So we're good.
Stuart McLeod: 00:30:55.541 [music] Thanks for listening to this episode. If you found this discussion interesting, fun, you'll find lots more to help you run a successful accounting firm in Karbon magazine. There are more than a thousand free resources there, including guides, articles, templates, webinars and more. Just head to karbonhq.com/resources. [music] I'd also love it if you could leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to this podcast. Let us know you liked this session. We'll be able to keep bringing you more guests for you to learn from and get inspired by. Thanks for joining and see you in the next episode of the Accounting Leaders podcast.