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Kellie Parks is a cloud accounting specialist and coach at Calmwaters Cloud Accounting. In this episode, Kellie and Stuart talk about the early days of cloud accounting, the further development of technology and how it changed the life of Kellie and her clients. As an early adopter of remote work, Kellie shares the stories of the adventures that cloud accounting allowed her to do.
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 00:00:05.687 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. Today, I'm joined by Kellie Parks, cloud accounting specialist and accounting coach at Calmwaters Cloud Accounting. Kellie believes that cloud financial technology is a key to every organization. She adopted cloud technology into her own business in 2009 using FreshBooks for Invoicing, and then successfully migrated all of her clients to Intuit QuickBooks Online in 2012. Kellie is a proud member of the Intuit International Writer Network and the FreshBooks Accountant Council. Cloud technology has made it possible for Kellie to enjoy working from many locations, and I've loved hearing about her travels that cloud accounting has enabled her to do. It is my pleasure to welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast, Kellie Parks. Kellie, you were very early on in tech for accounting. Let me try and translate for some of the Australian audience how some of the transition went there. Essentially, MYOB was sort of stuck on desktop software and flat out refused to go to cloud. Was that a similar experience in Canada for you, do you think or not really?
Kellie Parks 00:01:28.950 Yep. MYOB wasn't really a big thing here.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:32.186 No. No. But with the desktop software that you were using, though, what was the equivalent way back in the day?
Kellie Parks 00:01:37.594 QuickBooks Desktop.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:38.662 Okay. So the QuickBooks Desktop was pretty prevalent in Canada then.
Kellie Parks 00:01:43.730 MYOB, no, was not big here by any stretch. It was Sage. It was QuickBooks. That was the big ones right here.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:51.116 Do you know Ian Hansen reasonably well? Have you worked with him a little bit?
Kellie Parks 00:01:54.587 Okay. So let me tell you a story. And I'm not sure if Ian would remember it because I'm not particularly memorable. I've obviously met him at some conferences because I love the conferences. But way back when-- and this is when I met Chad Davis and I met a guy named Andrew Wall and basically the Canadian super early on adopters. So as soon as you guys came to Canada and the Jamies of Hubdoc had just gone to the accounting side of Hubdoc because Hubdoc started out as a consumer product. So let's say this is 2013 or 2014. I get this invitation to a lunch from this company called Karbon, but I don't know anything about you guys, so I frankly kind of think it's spam. And I'm like, "Okay, that's weird. What is this thing?" And then I followed up. I followed up on the email. Basically, I did a web search and I'm like, "Oh, okay. Cool. This Karbon thing." I go to website, it's legit. "The guy that called me or emailed me does work there. Okay. Cool. So far, so good."
Kellie Parks 00:03:01.608 And we wind up at this really-- also, this was The Draw. It's a restaurant I really like in downtown Toronto. And I get there and Hubdoc is there. And so I meet the Jamies. Chad Davis happened to be in town, and he dropped by, and a small group of other Canadians. And you guys split us up into two rooms, and one Jamie led one room and another Jamie led another room. And I believe it was Ian running around between both rooms. And this was the big thing you were doing then was the email triage. And I'm like, "This is so cool. This is really, really cool." And that was my introduction to Karbon. That was a long time ago.
Stuart McLeod 00:03:43.333 Ian and I split that roadshow, so I must have been somewhere else that day. But the reason I bring him up is he actually worked on the Mac QuickBooks product. Got into it. So if you liked it, I guess you can thank him. If you didn't, you can blame him. But that would have been what, 15, 20 years ago.
Kellie Parks 00:04:01.662 Right. But actually, QuickBooks for Mac never came to Canada. That's why I had parallels running on my Mac. It never came to Canada.
Stuart McLeod 00:04:09.767 You weren't able to sort of butcher it into shape?
Kellie Parks 00:04:13.387 No. So I had a marketing company, and I did branding and all that kind of work before. My background is not accounting. My background is actually marketing and branding. That's why I had the Mac. I love tech, because in marketing and branding, way back when, we're talking 25 years ago, we were totally upended by cloud technology. We went cloud a long time ago in a product called InDesign came in and totally disrupted. We went to digital proofing systems. We went to FTP sites. We were one of the first industries to take on FTP sites. And none of it was pretty. It was just so ugly, but it was so fun. I love all this new stuff. So I kind of was cloud-based, to begin with. So I've actually been working remotely since 2009, running my marketing business. So I've been traveling and working not at a place since 2009. And so when I was doing my own books, I had a number of businesses, actually, and my husband had a business, so I was doing the books for them. So I'm one of those ones that accountants and bookkeepers go, "Oh, don't let the client do their books."
Kellie Parks 00:05:24.115 I love doing the books, but I'm tied to this parallels peg on my Mac for QuickBooks Desktop. And I was also using FreshBooks. So in 2009, I started using FreshBooks for my invoicing. So that was kind of fun. And then I was using Quicken as a bank register. So I kind of had this weird combination going. And then I had an accountant who was putting it all together in the back end, but then it wasn't always going the way that I wanted it to, so I looked for technology that I could pull it all into one place. And I looked at Xero, and I looked at QuickBooks Online, and I looked at them before they came to Canada because I was in the States. I had a US IP address, so I managed to get those there. And they were both, to put it mildly, stinky. But I had already--
Stuart McLeod 00:06:13.717 Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty rough back in the day, wasn't it?
Kellie Parks 00:06:16.356 Pretty rough. But I had gone through the pain with the marketing business and I knew that we were going to go someplace good with the accounting space as well. And it's been great. Right? And so then adopted Hubdoc when it went to the accountant side rather than a commercial product. And that was great fun. I stuck with QuickBooks not because I liked one product better than the other. I'm now building a bookkeeping business. I'm running it side to side with my marketing business. And so then I put my clients on-- because I had to pick one platform, I'm small, right - I had a dozen clients at that point maybe - I had to pick a platform. Although I loved Xero, I did pick QuickBooks, but I had great fun getting certified in Xero and taking a look at that product. And I still love the product. You just got to pick something and run with it. Right?
Stuart McLeod 00:07:04.286 You do. You do. You don't want to be switching context all day. Yeah.
Kellie Parks 00:07:08.814 Not when you're a small player like me. But what was fun was, so I had the very first version of QuickBooks Online here in Canada, and then they changed the platform. And to thank me for being one of the early customers, I was one of the last ones to be migrated to the new platform. So I do bug them about that.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:27.948 Because it was a rough journey into the new platform, huh?
Kellie Parks 00:07:31.821 Well, what they did is they put new customers on and migrated old ones kind of backwards to who had started early in. And now I'm a trainer writer with Intuit. I've been with Intuit--
Stuart McLeod 00:07:42.696 Oh, wonderful.
Kellie Parks 00:07:43.225 --as a trainer writer for-- let's say, four or five years, I've been a trainer writer with Intuit.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:48.210 And rumor has it that given that you're fully cloud-based and not really tied to anywhere, that you're a big skier and adventurer. Are my sources correct?
Kellie Parks 00:07:59.977 Your sources are correct. I am a very avid water skier, snow skier. I am suffering under an ankle injury. I'm also a runner. If I can go outside and play, I am going. But I have an ankle injury right now. So the type of water skiing that I do, I have very high, tight-wrapped boots on my ski, which I can't get in and out of. I also can't come across the lakes. They're really hard. So I have not skied two seasons now because I can't get the surgery on my ankle right now here either. So it's been disappointing. I'm not running, I'm walking. But I'm also not beating myself up like I normally do. So I have a buddy. We have been traveling together since high school. And we had three destinations that owned our heart and it would be just the two of us very often that would go. So his name is Dave Matthews and we used to make fun of him, that he was the real Dave Matthews. I don't know if you know about the Rockstar Dave Matthews.
Stuart McLeod 00:08:57.633 Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Kellie Parks 00:08:58.363 So this is a different Dave Matthews.
Stuart McLeod 00:08:59.606 Very much, and much older.
Kellie Parks 00:09:00.234 So Dave and I would go to Whistler, we would be in Vail in let's say February. We would go somewhere in December, Jackson Hole was our favorite. And then we would go to Whistler in the spring. So we've been doing that since high school and then right at the start of university kind of thing. And we had a leave each other dead on the hill kind of mentality. It was just like all in and don't be a baby. And then I wound up having two kids on my own. I mean, I was married when I had them, but then I'm literally on my own and I am still playing the dead on the hill game, which was really dumb because I live out in the country and I have two kids that I need to get to places. So I didn't learn lessons. So right now I'm actually not hurting myself doing anything the last two years, since the last time I injured my ankle. So I don't know if that's fun or not fun.
Stuart McLeod 00:09:51.571 Being injured when you're such an active person like yourself can be detrimental to your mental health, particularly in COVID. I mean, you've been okay, you're coping all right without being able to sort of get really active?
Kellie Parks 00:10:04.618 Yeah. Actually, I'm still out. I'm still doing mostly the same mileage, I'm just not running it. And what's really cool where we live on the lake that we're on-- so we couldn't go anywhere last winter. We would normally spend quite a bit of time in Florida. And then two years ago or three years ago, we went to New Zealand for a month and we will go back next year for probably-- yeah, we'll probably go for two months next year, maybe even more. This lake that we live on, so I'm able to paddleboard on it and my dogs like to come on the paddleboard. But in the winter, we're frozen. And some of the guys made a four-and-a-half-kilometer track that they're keeping plowed around our lake. And so that has been a really nice place. Last year, we could skate it almost the entire winter. This year it's not as skateable, but you can walk it. So not every day, but I'm on it at least once, but some days I'm out there twice. So I'm still getting the 10 kilometers in. So hats off to our neighbors. It's a wonderful neighborhood to live in. And so last year, even in the thick of COVID, we could be outside playing. So being outside is the key part. That's the thing that's so awesome. And so tell me, what are your hobbies? What's your big sport?
Stuart McLeod 00:11:23.504 I'm supposed to ask the questions. That's okay. We can flip it up, Kellie. We live in Lake Tahoe in Nevada. Just over the--
Kellie Parks 00:11:31.031 Nice.
Stuart McLeod 00:11:31.455 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In Incline Village. I guess I shouldn't give out the address in case my worst enemies. Not that I've got that many. And so our kids, our girls, who are 11 and 9, ski at Diamond Peak. It's the little community-owned hill. I ski at Mount Rose and Kirkwood and a bit of North Star, a bit of Palisades, as it's now known in El Point Meadows. And in summer, we're out on Lake Tahoe extensively. So we love where we live. When we first moved to the US, we were in San Francisco and then Marine, and we sort of just made our way north. And I think we're staying here for the medium term at least.
Kellie Parks 00:12:17.604 Awesome. Well, it's a nice area. Yeah. Good for you. And actually, you have a fellow fintech Australian who has just moved to the US as well, and that is Jamie Beresford of Practice Protect.
Stuart McLeod 00:12:29.775 Oh, Jamie reached out on [inaudible] just on LinkedIn the other day, so okay. Do you know where he moved to?
Kellie Parks 00:12:36.402 Yeah, but I'm not stalking him or anything. But he's in Boulder. He wound up in Boulder. So the reason that I brought it up is we got two Australians in absolutely beautiful areas of the US. Those are two marvelous areas to live in. You've just got heaven on Earth with the mountains and the skiing and the beautiful hiking in the summer. So good for you guys. That's awesome.
Stuart McLeod 00:12:55.668 Yes. As you can imagine. I mean, I don't know how old your kids are. Maybe perhaps I would guess a little bit older maybe. But the environment in which we want to raise them is outdoors. I mean, I don't know how this is going to sound, but we're obviously super proud of them. But they ski 7:00 till 2:00 in the morning and 2:00 in the afternoon and then go horse riding for 2 hours. It's a pretty amazing lifestyle to grow up in.
Kellie Parks 00:13:26.708 Wow. That is a super amazing lifestyle. Wow. Good for you. That's awesome.
Stuart McLeod 00:13:32.676 I think we have an affinity for an alignment on the outdoors. And you've obviously created a lifestyle for yourself and a work environment for yourself where you can sort of ankle injury aside and COVID aside, of course, be pretty much anywhere.
Kellie Parks 00:13:47.910 100%. And it's cloud technology that's allowed us to do that. It let me do that when I had my marketing business, and I wanted it to be exactly the same, and I wanted it the same for my clients. So I had a client last year whose parents got sick. They live in the States. She's up here. She used to say to me, I don't love the technology that I bring to her, but she loves what the technology has done for her business. So whatever I ask my clients to do, I've been lucky enough that they've had the faith in me to do as I ask and to have some trust that it's going to be for their better good. Actually, I'm going to tell the story of Sherry in general. She's an amazing woman. So she had a number of restaurants, some of them were separate entities, and then some of them had class tracking going on and all kinds of-- the one had a bakery and it had corporate sales and it had all kinds of cool things going on. And the first time I walked into her office and her mission statement was on the wall and I'm like, "Oh, I love somebody who already has a mission statement. That's awesome." And when I first took over her books, I lectured her endlessly because her payroll was ridiculous. But she was very clear at that point that one of her life goals was to employ people. And she was a fabulous employer, so she ignored me about the things with payroll because that mattered to her, to have people.
Kellie Parks 00:15:14.802 And one of her employees was the coolest guy, a guy named Peter. And Peter was considering moving on in his life and retiring with his partner. His partner was a school teacher and he was retiring, and so Peter wanted to retire with him. And then we switched some of the technology over because I wanted Sherry to go to online. And then she was using-- I brought her into Hubdoc and I brought her into QuickBooks Online and some Plooto, which is a payment platform. And she was pushing back a little, but Peter was like, "This is fun. This is really, really fun." So he stayed on for I think it was another three or four years just because he was enjoying a whole new way of doing something. And Sherry loved her ability to go in and to check on her finances and to do all that, but that didn't mean that she absolutely loved technology. There was a part of her that still would have liked a paper register, but she understood what it did. When her parents got sick, she was able to go to the States and be with her mum, and she was super grateful that she could still run all the business aspects of her business like her payroll. She was on an online payroll platform. Her payroll, her time tracking, managing her finances, paying bills, all of that. That's the kind of thing that the cloud technology can bring to our clients. So it's not just about, although I try to make it all about Kellie in general.
Stuart McLeod 00:16:48.039 No, I don't believe that for a second.
Kellie Parks 00:16:51.542 Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I'll try and make it all about Kellie. But to try and bring some of those lifestyle benefits to your clients. But also, for Sherry, having all of these different entities and having so many spinning plates in the air and being able to go into-- so I created all this whole series-- I love custom reports. I created all kinds of custom reports so she didn't have to dink around. She could literally go in and find all of the information she needed to make-- and I know this sounds like the rhetoric that you hear, but Sherry is a living, breathing example of what the cloud tech has done for her. It was really an amazing story. And then she actually sold the businesses in the middle of the pandemic. Her finances were up-to-date. The businesses were ultimately viable because they weren't just walk-in restaurants. She had a number of different business models going, and she sold it during the pandemic. Was very cool.
Stuart McLeod 00:17:50.986 Good on it. And she walked off into the sunset or she got the bug again and then she--
Kellie Parks 00:17:58.359 No, she's walked off into the sunset for now. The timing is good. Her mom did ultimately pass away, and she can spend more time focusing on her dad. So, yeah, it's a good news story all round, except for the mom part. And Peter retired and moved up north, the guy that ran a lot of the tech force. He retired and moved up north with his husband. Yeah, it was great.
Stuart McLeod 00:18:17.320 Sitting on the porch of a cabin doing some fishing or something is how I imagine that.
Kellie Parks 00:18:23.218 Yes, pretty much. So now I have to ask another question. When did you move to the States? When did you make the-- because Karbon is still-- is it still Australian-based or is it largely American-based?
Stuart McLeod 00:18:35.272 We've always been US-based. We moved with Xero on December 8, 2012. So we're coming up to 10 years this year in the US, and we had a wonderful journey at Xero. I'm not a very good employee, and so ultimately wanted to sort of venture out and do our own thing. And the team that we sort of put together is just-- honestly, I don't want to sound like a dick, but I really do believe we're the best team that understands accounting and accounting software developers and the most experienced and the most-- entitled is the wrong word. Almost responsibility, I feel, to build systems that make the industry, that progress the industry, that help the industry, that improve morale, that makes your life easier, better, more enjoyable, whatever adjectives you want to use.
Kellie Parks 00:19:37.399 Could we use the word engaged then?
Stuart McLeod 00:19:39.481 Engaged is great. That's a good word. Yeah.
Kellie Parks 00:19:41.978 You're engaged with the community, but you're also creating engagement within the firms that are using your product.
Stuart McLeod 00:19:48.657 I hope so. That's definitely the plan.
Kellie Parks 00:19:50.985 Yeah. Okay. So I learned something new today. I thought all along that Karbon-- and I have a spreadsheet with all the applications and what you do and all of that kind of stuff. I need to update my spreadsheet. It's on my website, so you can go check it out. I need to update my spreadsheet. I had you down as an Australian company.
Stuart McLeod 00:20:09.547 Founded by Australians in America. We're wholly US-based and owned. We don't really have-- I mean, I work out of the Reno office. There's offices that are springing up all over the place now. We have Knoxville, Tennessee, of all places, is starting to become a hub. San Diego has got quite a few success people down there. Andy, who you probably would have come across in your Intuit days as well. Worked closely with Diane at Intuit, and she's just amazing and leading up the success team down there. We're in Seattle. And as I said, we opened up a Halifax office up your way, and that team is a data team that's working on very exciting new products that will enable accountants to answer the tricky questions that you've always wanted to ask and never been able to get good answers for. So that's exciting. And hopefully, we'll release that at our conference.
Kellie Parks 00:21:07.171 That's a bit of a teaser. So we get to answer the tricky questions with a new product that you're bringing into play?
Stuart McLeod 00:21:14.092 I don't want to put words in your mouth, Kellie, but the questions that you always want to ask of your practice. And if you've got employees, it's sort of like, "Well, who are my most productive employees? Who are my most profitable customers? What is my scheduling and budgeting looking like? Can I bring on customers? Do I have to hire people? Should I sack some customers?" Because that's a thing, of course. "What is my revenue per production employee?" is a great question that is often hard to answer. Some accounting practices are running-- I don't know. I'd love to hear from you, but some accounting practices are running their practice like assess business. You have MRR and churn and net revenue retention and all these kinds of things. So we're building a reporting-- yeah, I mean, it's-- no, I don't want to classify it as a reporting product. It brings data to the surface that enables you to answer these imperative questions. And yeah, the idea is to bring that out at our conference, CarbonX, in early June.
Kellie Parks 00:22:14.701 Okay. That sounds very cool, but now I got to move on to CarbonX. I didn't even know there was a CarbonX. Tell me about that event. Am I going to have FOMO for that? Is that an internal thing for you or is that other people come too?
Stuart McLeod 00:22:27.583 This is for you, Kellie, and our audience especially. We're going to do a live podcast. Maybe you could help with that. That'd be fun. We are on stage. So CarbonX is June 3 to 5. Coincidentally, I had nothing to do with the location in Lake Tahoe in Klein Village at the Hyatt here.
Kellie Parks 00:22:47.706 I'm guessing you did.
Stuart McLeod 00:22:49.818 It's like a destination wedding. We bring all our amazing customers that want to come in. We are capped at 100. We are capped at 100 so we can't fit anymore in the room. So 100 of our most wonderful, treasured, best customers like yourself. And we would obviously love to have you there, and those listening. Depending on when you hear this I guess when we get it out, you will be seeing invitations and a little bit of noise about that as we progress through the year. But that's Lockey who heads up marketing out of Melbourne. You were sort of talking about Australia-US division, but a lot of our development, coincidentally, is done in Sydney. My co-founder and CTO, John Freeman, lives in Sydney. So a lot of the R&D is done out of there. But that's why you may think that-- easy to get the impression that we're obviously Australian. I haven't lost my accent yet, my kids have, though.
Kellie Parks 00:23:41.444 Okay. Well, CarbonX. That sounds fun. Oh, okay. Very cool.
Stuart McLeod 00:23:45.959 The idea is that you can get from Reno to Las Vegas and go down to engage on the Monday after Carbon-- or Sunday CarbonX and make that-- it's a pretty easy-- I think there's half a dozen or so flights from Reno to Las Vegas each day. So make the transition from the fun, intimate, enjoyable, sort of smaller events down to the masses in Vegas.
Kellie Parks 00:24:13.503 Right. Yeah, for sure. I know you're supposed to be interviewing me, but I want to back up--
Stuart McLeod 00:24:17.940 This is great. I'm having fun.
Kellie Parks 00:24:19.782 --on something. Oh, first, I want to say, way back in 2012, Xero-- you said you came over with Xero. The only guy I knew from Xero was Bill Kimball. So did your paths cross with Bill or is Bill the steward?
Stuart McLeod 00:24:36.631 Doesn't ring a bell, but let me--
Kellie Parks 00:24:38.465 So then Bill Kimball was basically looking after Xero North America. He was a pretty cool guy too. But the actual thing that I want to get to is you said-- I can't remember the word you used. It was a great word. It wasn't ditching clients.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:53.437 Oh, sucking clients. Yeah.
Kellie Parks 00:24:56.003 Sucking clients. I'm going to have to use that because I don't love the word-- a lot of people use the word firing. I like the word rehoming. Unless they're a complete dickhead, then you can just fire them. Right? If somebody is a dick, just fire them.
Stuart McLeod 00:25:10.755 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to do that to a fellow accountant. Right?
Kellie Parks 00:25:14.468 No. No, just be done and dusted. But I have liked the word rehoming for quite a long time. But sacking is kind of a fun word for the ones that are on the fence of maybe not being a great client versus not a great fit. Because sometimes you have to get rid of clients that are awesome. Right? They can be amazingly fantastic, but you're not bringing them value. I actually have a client like that right now that we parted ways let's say a year ago. I finished off their 2020-- they're an audited financials. I finished off their 2020 and did the audit with the audit firm and then had to rehome them because I didn't offer some of the services that they needed. So I wasn't doing the best job for them that I could. I don't have that many clients, but they tend to be bigger and they tend to have people that do things. I don't do anything. I review. I mean, I'm in the weeds on their books. I can do accounts payable and accounts received. I have a client right now that I am their Wonder Jane that's doing everything for them because hiring administration staff is a nightmare. So I am totally doing the bookkeeper booty call with that client right now, but that's fine. That's going to change as they hire up.
Kellie Parks 00:26:28.172 I don't normally do the bookkeeper booty call. But anyway, this client, I had to rehome them because I wasn't good for them. They have since changed some of their business model and come back to me, and it's so fun having them back. It's been great. And rehoming them when I was the one that couldn't bring the best value to them means that now that they're back, we're having a love fest because I'm perfectly a great fit for them. So who they had in the meantime didn't bring the value at all. They did not. I am doing a clean-up of the entire year of last year for them. If you rehome a client not just because they're not a fit for you but if you can't bring them the best value, you're doing everybody a world of favor, not just yourself. Because you shouldn't be offering services that you don't love. Right? And that's what this case was. And now that they're back and they're a perfect fit, it's awesome having them back in my business.
Stuart McLeod 00:27:30.476 The transparency and the vulnerability that you showed them and the honesty and authenticity that you demonstrated in that situation allowed them to probably build enormous amount of trust, and that's why they're back. They might reconfigure their finances so that you do what you're great at and you can partner with somebody else or some others to provide the services that you don't want to do. And that's a great arrangement. Right? Do you have a specialty or niche that a lot of your clients are in some kind of vertical? Or you do the bookkeeping and you're happy context switching from veterinarian to dance studio to--
Kellie Parks 00:28:09.811 For the most part, I have a niche, or I call it my five-star client. My five-star client-- again, I know you said it probably isn't all about Kellie, but it is about Kellie because I can bring the best value to my clients if I am providing the services that I like and if I am using the technology that I like. I'm not going to force somebody to fit into my tech stack. If they are still suited for desktop, I'm not going to take them on. And those that are suited for desktop generally have things that I don't love. I don't love inventory. I don't love multi-currency. I've had a couple of multi-currency clients. I don't love them. So more than a niche, although for probably five years I did have restaurants. Not just because of the one that had a number of entities, but I had a number of other restaurant clients. I did love them, but my niche is more about the type of work that I do. So it's not going to involve inventory. It's not going to involve heavy payroll. Although I love job costing. Because if a client wants job costing, they care about their books deeply if they're going to do job costing. So my ideal client is a client that's super engaged in their books. I don't want a client that doesn't care about them as much as I do. And job costing loves it. But job costing with labor burden, it doesn't always go well in QuickBooks Online, so I'm not doing that.
Kellie Parks 00:29:39.392 So I don't have construction clients right now. I did. When I was on desktop, job costing was beautiful. Right? And that a lot of the times went hand in hand with inventory. So the short version is, which my dad always says, "Kellie, just wrap it up here," is my niche is by the technology and the services that I love to offer. So accounts payable in a previous life was onerous. You had to be somewhere because the bills were coming in by paper. They were coming in by mail, and the checks had to be written. And Canada is like Australia. I mean, I don't think I've written a check in 10 years. So it wasn't a big stretch to move people to platforms like Plooto or like Veem or like Mealeo or any of the payment platforms like it has been in the States. Here it was a fairly seamless thing. So before, accounts payable was a time consuming, you had to be in the office kind of process. Now, accounts payable is a fairly automated process. The documents go into Hubdoc or DEX, they go into QuickBooks or Xero, and they get paid out of whatever platform is at the back end. And that's a service that I stopped offering for a while on the desktop because you were so tied to it. Because I was doing desktop remote hosted by Qbox as well. Now that's actually a really nice kind of-- you could call that a vertical or a niche if you will.
Kellie Parks 00:31:10.436 There was a time where if it had heavy payables, that wouldn't have been an option, and now heavy payables doesn't really matter. That can still be part of the services that you can offer. So I went way off-topic. You said, do I have a niche? It relates to the services and the technology more than anything. And the other one that I love, I don't have anybody that I'm doing it for right now, but I love because this is the other ideal client, or I call them five-star clients. So a five-star client for me is 100% engaged in their books. Class tracking is so ridiculously satisfying on two levels. The client isn't going to pay to have it done unless they really, really care about their books, and class tracking is in the weeds with the details, making sure that every single thing goes to the right place. And that can be deeply satisfying as much as nerdy and crazy as that sounded.
Stuart McLeod 00:32:05.807 My guess is that your niche is working with people that you love working with.
Kellie Parks 00:32:09.688 Yeah. Providing services that I love. Like I said, I could have what could possibly be the greatest client in the world, the nicest human being, and willing to pay me a fortune, but if they had inventory that they needed builds for, I couldn't take them on. I have to know my limit on that. What's interesting is so Hector Garcia--
Stuart McLeod 00:32:28.905 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kellie Parks 00:32:29.136 I'm pretty sure you've heard of Hector.
Stuart McLeod 00:32:30.542 Yeah, met Hector a few times. Yep.
Kellie Parks 00:32:32.537 Super cool dude. Right?
Stuart McLeod 00:32:34.166 Yep. Yep.
Kellie Parks 00:32:34.589 So I'm at Scaling New Heights in October, and Hector and I started up a conversation about something and wound up talking about inventory. And this is the thing about live events. This is what I miss so much. I have yet to do a Zoom call, a webinar, even the ones where everybody is allowed to unmute and ask questions and be engaged. I have yet to have a random conversation that goes way sideways like I have had at live events, and one of them was with Hector. And Hector and I started talking about he loves inventory. I don't do inventory, but I do rescue work. I love cleaning up a file and getting it caught up. That, again, is in-the-weeds, nitpicky stuff, and I love that. And I took on, I believe it was-- not I believe, it was. It was a Sage migration to QuickBooks Desktop that was insane inventory.
Kellie Parks 00:33:29.963 So Hector and I are just talking about insane inventory projects that we've had. And I said-- and it was so weird because it was an awning company, and you would get 100,000 bolts would come in and you'd need to parse out 10 of them and the canvas that came off a roll and the rods that form the thing to build an awning. So you started out with all of these big pieces, right, and you put them together to create a project. And you needed to know all of the inventory on it, all the inventory management, the build, and the costing at the other end that it went out as cost of goods sold moved from inventory. Man, I'm a nerd. And Hector said, "Oh, I have an awning company that I'm doing that." And he had an awning company, but that's what he does.
Stuart McLeod 00:34:15.117 That's a nichey niche.
Kellie Parks 00:34:17.001 That's a nichey niche. He loves manufacturing. Right? That's a niche of his is manufacturing. And those are the kind of conversations that I really miss. My husband is back here probably listening, going, "I miss you having those conversations with other people," because I try to talk about accounting at home and I get shut down. So although my true love is technology, I love being in the bookkeeping space because of technology, there is this whole other satisfaction that comes from the actual bookkeeping work itself that I completely nerd out on. And so having that conversation with Hector-- because then we got into the weeds on the different kinds of awnings and the different kinds of inventory builds versus cost of goods sold that was happening, and it was super fun and nerdy.
Stuart McLeod 00:35:03.338 Hopefully, today you're satisfied. I've helped out your husband just a tiny bit so we can nerd out together on accounting and bookkeeping.
Kellie Parks 00:35:11.304 Yeah. Actually, Scaling New Heights was fun to nerd out with people in general.
Stuart McLeod 00:35:15.764 We all miss that in person. Well, I certainly do. I really miss it. And we're pretty determined to get-- we've tried for two years in a row to get CarbonX on, and I think we're third time lucky. So the world seems to be marching back to normality, or expect to, and trying to manage it the best the human race can, right, seems to be the philosophy at the moment.
Kellie Parks 00:35:38.562 Yeah. Coming up in May, I am looking forward to-- I'm on a panel at Accounting Web Summit too.
Stuart McLeod 00:35:45.350 Oh, okay. I should be up with my events. Is that in person? Where's that?
Kellie Parks 00:35:49.603 That's in person. It's in San Diego, and it's on a really cool private island, so you need to look that up.
Stuart McLeod 00:35:54.816 Oh, I'm sure the guys are onto it. We've got a very-- I shouldn't say that. I'm sure our wonderful marketing people are onto it. They're all over that stuff, so I have no doubt that that'll be happening. I can't leave you, though, without talking a little bit more about your two-month trip in New Zealand. Are you going hashtag vanlife and rocking around the South Island? What's the plan in New Zealand when you get down there?
Kellie Parks 00:36:18.282 No. So I am not going hashtag vanlife. And my husband, we are united on this, but we love a nomad life. So when we travel, and we did this the first time in New Zealand, we get a flight. That always works. Unless we're here in North America, we love to road trip. We have a couple of dogs. They love the car. They're fantastic. Well, we have a pickup truck. They love the truck. They're great. So here in North America, we road trip back and forth to Florida, and we are very loose on it. It's like we're going to leave on this day and we're going to get in the car and ultimately we'll wind up somewhere in a week from now or whatever the case may be. In New Zealand, or any travels that I've been lucky enough to do a lot of traveling over my life, and it looks the same every time. Get a flight. Get a car if it's a car-appropriate destination because some aren't. Right? Get a car. And depending on what time the flight comes in or the flight goes out, you may need a hotel room. You just may need a hotel room that first night. Everything else in between is a crapshoot. So basically, I love to see where the wind blows. I know a lot of people like to have a full-blown plan or they panic. They need to know every-- I panic immensely if there is a plan.
Stuart McLeod 00:37:37.393 If your schedule to the day is--
Kellie Parks 00:37:39.615 Because what if I get somewhere and I--
Stuart McLeod 00:37:41.319 Want to stay? Yeah.
Kellie Parks 00:37:41.587 --really like it and I-- yeah. What if I really like it and I want to stay? Or what if I get somewhere and I don't like it and I want to go? New Zealand is like a traveler's paradise. It is totally built for people to come and freewheel and travel. So we had the car, spent the first night at-- I have a friend, an old roommate of mine. He lived here in Canada. This is cool. He owns a pottery farm, but we're talking a farm. We're talking gravel trucks, size trucks, big trucks, pulling clay out, and then making gigantic pots of things that they sell all over the world. We're not talking a couple of plates. And stayed up with him and then did the North Island, stopped in Wellington and dropped in on Xero, and just I wanted to see the Xero office. But the South Island owned our heart. So we got to a place called Wanaka and Mount Aspiring - I can't remember if it's Mount Aspiring or Aspiring Mount - and the Rob Roy Valley. Unbelievable. And they have the hot hikes there, so you can do 20 kilometers a day to the next hot through the things. But Mount Aspiring was amazing. My husband is a fly fishing guide, that's what he does for a living, and so New Zealand was his mecca.
Kellie Parks 00:39:05.027 So we would head off into the Rob Roy Valley in the morning from Wanaka, then I would see him 8 hours later, which is what we do-- now, in all fairness, we haven't been to Vail in a little while, but when we used to go to Vail, I had a Colorado card. So I can start at 8:00 in the morning and I can ski till an hour after closing, whatever time that is in the season. And he would go down to the Eagle River, he would go fly. So we would call it the 8 hours of sport. So 8 hours, he'd go down to the river, I'd go 8 hours on the mountain. Then we'd do 8 hours of après-ski, and then we would do 8 hours of sleeping and start it all over again. But in the Rob Roy Valley, we would literally see each other 8 hours later. It was insane and such a cute little town. And then we love Queenston. Queenstown/Queenston.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:56.233 Oh, Queenstown. Yeah.
Kellie Parks 00:39:56.977 It's Queenston here.
Stuart McLeod 00:39:57.909 Oh, I see. I see.
Kellie Parks 00:39:58.819 And I get it mixed up. And Queenstown, so we love that whole area too.
Stuart McLeod 00:40:02.182 You seem like you went in spring or summer. Did you get any skiing at all down there?
Kellie Parks 00:40:07.081 No, we did not. We went in February. And what was interesting was, almost at the same time, Scott and Patty Scharf of Catching Clouds were in New Zealand. I didn't know them except through social media, but I was sending notes of the-- they were ahead of us by a couple of weeks everywhere. And when I saw-- I finally met Scott in real life at Scaling New Heights, so I had to pick his brain, and he had the same experience that we did. His favorite place was Hobbiton. Have you been to Hobbiton?
Stuart McLeod 00:40:37.219 No, I didn't think so.
Kellie Parks 00:40:38.781 Okay. So it's outside let's just call it Rotorua. It's outside Rotorua, and it's The Lord of the Rings, Hobbit Town. And that was one of Scott's favorite times in New Zealand, and I would say that that was one of ours. And at first, I was like, "I don't know. Hobbiton? Is that really something we need to do?" But my husband is a Lord of the Rings freak, so we went, and it was actually a moment. Did I go way off on a tangent there?
Stuart McLeod 00:41:04.109 No. No. No. Well, I asked about New Zealand, so we've mostly skied down there. Obviously, growing up in Melbourne, getting on a plane for three hours was much more likely to occur and go skiing in Wanaka, Queenstown, and Mount Hutt. We did some chopper skiing out of Mount Hutt one year a long time ago. But then coming all the way up here to North America, I mean, I hadn't skied in North America until we moved here, and obviously fell in love with it. But the places that you've been, Vail and Whistler, obviously, and hiking in New Zealand is just amazing experiences. Right? And I guess to put a circle on it, you need to be operating in the cloud the whole time in order to be able to do that. Yeah?
Kellie Parks 00:41:50.286 Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Stuart McLeod 00:41:51.944 You see that? Did you see that?
Kellie Parks 00:41:54.316 I saw that. That was very nicely done. Yeah, for sure.
Stuart McLeod 00:41:57.872 Kellie, this has been an absolute blast.
Kellie Parks 00:42:00.339 I have really enjoyed meeting you and being on here. I've certainly watched all of the things that you've done for our industry and much appreciate all of that work. That's been awesome. Thank you.
Stuart McLeod 00:42:11.091 We've got a mission to keep going and do the best we can to have fun with it and have an impact, and we think we've got a wonderful opportunity to sort of lead the world. So '22 is a big year, and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, the world can return to just a tiny bit of normality, but you never know.
Kellie Parks 00:42:33.168 Oh, it feels like it. I think we're well underway. Yeah. So again, thank you so much for having me.
Stuart McLeod 00:42:38.919 My pleasure, Kellie, it's been wonderful to chat with you, and I would hope to meet in person this year. It'd be fantastic.
Kellie Parks 00:42:46.690 Yeah, for sure. Okay. Great.
Stuart McLeod 00:42:48.737 You have a great afternoon. Thank you.
Kellie Parks 00:42:50.459 You too.
Stuart McLeod 00:42:50.993 Bye.
Kellie Parks 00:42:51.647 Bye.
Stuart McLeod 00:42:58.055 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 at Karbon Magazine. There are more than 1,000 free resources there including guides, articles, templates, webinars, and more. Just head to karbonhq.com/resources. I'd also love it if you could leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to this podcast. Let us know you like 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 on the next episode of the Accounting Leaders Podcast.