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Want to grow your firm’s Client Accounting and Advisory Services (CAS)? The CAS Cache unpacks what works (and what doesn’t) in CAS based on real-world experiences. Tune in for expert insights, success and failure stories, and strategies to help your accounting firm build a stronger CAS offering.
Nicole, welcome to the CAS Clarity in 5. Thanks for joining us. This series spotlights people doing kick CAS things in the accounting community. So before we jump into the questions, always like to open with give us a kind of a quick overview
Luke Templin:of your firm, team size, services, revenue range.
Nikole Mackenzie:Sure. So I'm Nikole. I'm the founder of Momentum Accounting. Our team size, I think we're hiring our thirteenth person right now. We've got both US and Philippines, and we service clients typically in the technology space, restoration space, and professional service businesses, typically in the one up to 15,000,000 revenues.
Nikole Mackenzie:And then we're typically doing bookkeeping, controller, CFO, payroll services. Awesome.
Luke Templin:So since this series is powered by FinDaily.io a tool built to automate financial digest of your numbers, how often do you check your firm's numbers?
Nikole Mackenzie:We have our monthly financial review meeting, and earlier this year, I actually delegated doing the bookkeeping of somebody else for the first time. Was the best decision I ever made. So we have our leadership team looks at those numbers on a monthly basis. I don't really check my bank account much during the week. We usually look at AP and AR during our level 10 meeting on Tuesdays.
Luke Templin:Awesome. Yeah. Not not easy to delegate out your bookkeeping. I still haven't gotten there yet. So now we'll we'll jump into the question.
Luke Templin:So what's the overarching goal or mission kinda driving your firm?
Nikole Mackenzie:Our mission is to make running businesses fun for our clients. So a lot of times, business owners are really great at selling, and they're they have a big vision for their company. But cash flow stress, financial stress makes running a business not fun. And so really what we wanna do is we wanna show up as real people, have real relationship with our clients, and give them financial clarity so that it's not something that they have to stress about.
Luke Templin:Awesome. What is the tech tool that's saving you the most time currently?
Nikole Mackenzie:I'm a big fan of reach reporting. Y'all know I'm a reach reporting girl.
Luke Templin:Nice. What's your favorite KPI? Can either be, client facing or internal and why?
Nikole Mackenzie:If I could only look at one KPI, it'd be gross profit margin. I think that's the absolute most important KPI in any business.
Luke Templin:Yeah. That's a that's a good one. It drives a lot of conversation and a lot of diving deep when it's off. So when you're stuck on either a client decision, growth challenge, or even just a rough day, how do you get unstuck?
Nikole Mackenzie:Chat GPT.
Luke Templin:What is the one thing you wish you did sooner in your firm?
Nikole Mackenzie:Oh, I wish I would have started a newsletter sooner.
Luke Templin:So
Nikole Mackenzie:we spent a lot of time. We implemented HubSpot for something else, and we have, like, all these emails collecting. It was chaotic. And then once we actually started using it and sending out a newsletter and collecting emails and growing our email list, that's been huge for our client acquisition strategy. And I also wish I would have started a LinkedIn newsletter sooner.
Nikole Mackenzie:So newsletters, creating content, building the list, I would have done that.
Luke Templin:Awesome. Alright. This is your turn to share either an additional tip or something you're working on that you think the accounting community would benefit from.
Nikole Mackenzie:I think when it comes to some of my challenges and when I think I'll overcome them, I think I overthink things, and sometimes we just have to jump in and do it. So if you're, like, spinning your wheels on a new service line or you're wondering what somebody's thinking, just go talk to them. Just try the new service line out. Just go do it. And I think you'll get a lot more clarity rather than trying to spin your wheels.
Luke Templin:That's awesome. I recently saw something. I'm a natural procrastinator. It was something around the lines of, like, if you if you reframe it as what it could benefit, so by creating a newsletter, it could potentially lead to more clients. Whereas myself, I kinda look at that kind of stuff and and delay doing things because I'm like, oh, creating a newsletter is a lot of work.
Nikole Mackenzie:Mhmm.
Luke Templin:I look at the negative, not the positive. And and I heard that, recently and I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, I I encourage people because I I struggle with it too to just jump in and you're gonna you're gonna learn more on the fly than you are thinking about it.
Nikole Mackenzie:The other thing I wish you would have done earlier is EOS. The l ten leadership meetings have been really good in prioritizing things. So before, I'd come up with this is the opposite of just doing it. Because before, I'd get an idea, and then I would just be all over the place. And then Jen would be doing one thing, and Millie would be doing another.
Nikole Mackenzie:And now, Tuesday, we get together. And throughout the week, as I have ideas, I just throw them on the board. We use success. I think it's called, which is great if you need some way to manage your l 10 meetings. But just having us all look at here are the 20 things that we wanna do, and now let's prioritize.
Nikole Mackenzie:And then it's funny because I'll think of something, and then by the time we get to that meeting, I'll be like, that's stupid. Take it off. We don't need to do that anymore. So it's like just having that week in between thinking of the idea and then actually seeing it written down helps you prioritize.
Luke Templin:That's awesome. Well, thanks for joining me. Where's the best place for people to follow you on your journey?
Nikole Mackenzie:LinkedIn. I'm always on LinkedIn. It's Nicole with a k.
Luke Templin:Awesome. We'll put a link in the show notes. Thanks, Nicole.
Nikole Mackenzie:Thanks, Luke. Good to see you.