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Leeroy Beeby is a co-founder of the innovative, technology-focused practice, Check The Level. He grew up in a family of small business owners and watched his parents struggle with time and money, which inspired him to establish a career in business. In this episode, Leeroy and Stuart talk about his experience living in different countries, and how his MBA helped him in his entrepreneurial journey, which later led him to start an accounting and bookkeeping firm for contractors. They also discuss technology, operations, and life-changing impact on his clients’ lives.
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 00:00:05.897 [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. Leeroy Beeby from Check The Level, welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast.
Leeroy Beeby 00:00:25.977 Thank you, Stuart. It's great to be here.
Stuart McLeod 00:00:27.832 I'll probably pick up the accent. It's still quite evident there though. Originally from South Africa. We've had another guest on the podcast that was originally South African, now resides in Toronto. So I don't know whether that's you guys are trailblazing or following a well-worn path.
Leeroy Beeby 00:00:45.209 Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. Right. I mean, I'm assuming he's an accountant [also?]?
Stuart McLeod 00:00:48.840 Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leeroy Beeby 00:00:51.192 Well, I mean, when we qualified, we were the best chartered accountants globally, at least when I did. So maybe that's why.
Stuart McLeod 00:00:57.898 Well, you say that a little bit in jest, but Aaron was saying the accounting programs in South Africa were of considerable depth and very difficult to achieve qualification.
Leeroy Beeby 00:01:12.297 Yeah. And our audit standards are pretty strict, so every second company has to be audited. So it's intense in those big four firms.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:19.917 Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure. And speaking of big four, you spent some time in KPMG in South Africa, is that right?
Leeroy Beeby 00:01:29.147 Yeah, correct. Cape Town. KPMG, Cape Town.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:31.376 And a bit like me, you're not the greatest employee in the world. Is that right? Is that kind of what you sort of thought starting your own firm might be the way to go?
Leeroy Beeby 00:01:42.411 Yeah. I mean, I've always struggled with authority. All right, so, I think one of the challenges you have in that audit environment is you come into these companies and you feel like a police officer, right? And no one wants a police officer in the office. So it's really hard work, right? And trying to add value to a company becomes very difficult, whereas Check The Level is completely private. We don't do any assurance work. And just the welcoming that we get from clients that are actually seeking help, it's a lot more fulfilling, the work, at least, for me.
Stuart McLeod 00:02:12.639 Yeah. No, I can understand that. And let's talk a little bit about growing up in South Africa. Your parents were very entrepreneurial.
Leeroy Beeby 00:02:21.283 Yeah. They've started close to 12 businesses when I was growing up, yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:02:25.269 And what effect did that have on you?
Leeroy Beeby 00:02:27.452 I think with parents like that, they were very absent. I think when you have parents like that, it's hard to manage time and money. I just knew their financials were always a mess. I think once my dad told me revenue equals net profit. And I was like, "That's not the case, dad." [laughter] Right.
Stuart McLeod 00:02:43.992 And were you able to go back and provide some clarification? [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:02:49.043 Yeah. Yeah, I advise my parents. I mean, they still have a couple of businesses going, and they're always asking me for advice. And I don't know, my parents, the one thing that I'll never forget is that I often think as the definition of success is perseverance, and my parents are pretty much that. They persevered through a lot growing up, as well as in their businesses. That's rubbed off on me quite a lot, right? I think a big part of why I started business, I wanted to become an entrepreneur, is because of my parents. They inspired me a lot. And the problems they experienced are the problems that I'm trying to solve for other family members who have parents that have started businesses.
Stuart McLeod 00:03:21.720 And there's a work ethic, not only in your family but in South Africa as well. Definitely.
Leeroy Beeby 00:03:27.147 Yeah. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:03:28.349 Through your journey and through South Africa, just watching your parents start these companies, let's talk about sort of some of the businesses that they did start, and perhaps what were some of the lessons? What were some of the more successful ones that they're involved with?
Leeroy Beeby 00:03:44.039 Yeah. So my dad has over 40 years of experience in construction. So a couple of businesses he started were in construction. My dad's a little hard-headed, so if you're hearing this, at least back then he was. He always struggled with adding additional employees into his business. I think he really struggled with delegating. Whereas my mum, she's a clinical psychologist, so she's actually started a psychiatric ward that's doing really well. So from the lessons that I've learned is-- at least a lot of the lessons I've learned from running a business is in terms of that business, just because it's one of the more recent ones. And what stands out about that company is it's a very boutique-like, psychologist-like rehab center. And it's very focused on providing an amazing customer experience for these people who are mentally ill. And they have a waiting list of like three to four months just to get into their clinic, especially now with COVID, now that it's boutique and it's really small. What stands out to me there is just having a different element in whatever product or service you're providing is really important, right? Like that book, I don't know if you've read it, The Purple Cow, it's like, "What is the purple cow in your business?" Right? So [crosstalk]--
Stuart McLeod 00:04:53.038 Yeah. And as we'll get into some of your success with Check The Level, but in terms of your mum's purple cow then, how long ago did she start that? What sort of led to that? And in terms of COVID and their experience in South Africa, how has that been?
Leeroy Beeby 00:05:12.340 They're all fine. My entire family is fine. And I'm a first-generation immigrant to Canada, so I don't have any family here, but they're all well. I speak to them very often through WhatsApp and things like that. No issues at the moment. They're approaching retirement, so they're looking at selling their business. They started that business I think it was like 15 years ago, something like that. And now it's just been interesting to see how that's growing and it's continuing to grow. And now they're getting ready to retire, which I think is always a challenge, right? Letting go can be difficult.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:39.675 Yes. Are you an only child, then? Is there expectation of grandkids if they're close to retirement to keep them occupied?
Leeroy Beeby 00:05:49.128 I have three sisters, actually.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:50.401 Oh, there you go. So the pressure is off a little bit. [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:05:53.583 Yeah. Only boy. But yeah, no, we've got grandkids. I got a niece and nephew. They're growing up quickly, so.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:59.188 Good. Good. Have those sisters followed you to Toronto?
Leeroy Beeby 00:06:03.260 One of them is thinking about it, but the others, I think the other one is a lawyer. She's going to stick around there, and the other one's a doctor, and she's becoming a psychiatrist, so she's busy studying for that over there.
Stuart McLeod 00:06:14.654 Following your mother's footsteps?
Leeroy Beeby 00:06:16.131 Yeah, pretty much.
Stuart McLeod 00:06:17.279 So how long ago did you move to Toronto, and did that coincide with starting the accounting firm?
Leeroy Beeby 00:06:24.213 So we moved to-- well, I moved to Canada in 2017 or 2018 around then. Why I moved here was to do my MBA. So prior to moving to Canada, I finished my articles at KPMG, qualified as a chartered accountant. My mom always said from a young age I wanted to move abroad and experience that sort of lifestyle. So I was packing my bags from a young age, apparently. So one of the things that came across my desk when I was at KPMG was an opportunity to become a consultant in Bermuda, where you would implement financial systems for organizations. That sounded great to me. So I ended up working there for two years, helping companies create ways to do accounting for deposits or whatever the case may be, just helping them streamline processes for that. I really enjoyed it, but wanted to learn more about business and ended up doing my MBA at the University of Toronto. It was at that time that I actually got to work for a startup for a few weeks or months. I really enjoyed the experience, didn't really get along with the co-founder, and came to the realization that if I'm going to do something, it has to be my way. That's the only way I would really enjoy it and not have take that chance in trusting someone else. So one thing I did make a decision on was that the company had to be technology-focused. So I started networking in Toronto, and Toronto is actually a great scene for technology. I mean, they call Toronto the Silicon Valley of Canada, and there's a lot of money getting poured into the tech space and a lot of new hires happening over here. So sort of intermingled myself into the startup community. I met my co-founder Riley at a Techstars event. Yeah, we met at the start of the event and we're supposed to be networking, but I mean, an hour and a half later, we haven't networked with anyone else. And we're like, "Hey, this sounds like a good idea. Let's go grab a coffee." And he's completely technical, so he does all the coding, and then I'm on the accounting business side of Check The Level.
Stuart McLeod 00:08:15.422 Well, let's talk about Bermuda because that sounds pretty interesting. Is it just all cocktails and sitting on the beach and check through some email occasionally? [laughter] That's what it appears like. Is that the case? [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:08:29.254 There is that. One of the other big reasons, I mean, outside of work, I love rock climbing. Rock climbing is a big hobby of mine. And there's actually quite a very cool rock climbing scene in Bermuda. I mean, you get to climb next to the water. There's turtles everywhere. And that I really enjoyed. So a big part of why I moved there as well was the opportunity to do something that I really enjoyed personally. But, yeah, from an accounting standpoint, yeah, I mean, there's more companies there than people, right? So you get the opportunity to work for companies like-- I think I worked for General Electric for once as a consultant. There were some other really cool companies that I'm working for over there, companies that grow really quickly, so.
Stuart McLeod 00:09:06.012 And the lifestyle is certainly part of it, right? [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:09:10.953 Yeah, yeah, part of it. Yeah, just beaches, warm weather. They love their cricket as well, which helps, yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:09:16.444 Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that. The West Indies haven't been a powerhouse in cricket for a while, though, since the Lara-Ambrose days, right?
Leeroy Beeby 00:09:28.222 Yeah. Yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:09:29.602 And so from Bermuda, sitting on the beach, drinking cocktails, not doing much, climbing a rock here and there, you went north to the cold flatlands of Toronto. [laughter] That would have been a bit of a shock to the system, at least temperature-wise.
Leeroy Beeby 00:09:47.121 Yeah. Yeah, and it was the first time I saw snow was when I came to Toronto. So you don't get much of that in South Africa either, right? So.
Stuart McLeod 00:09:53.505 No. And during your MBA, what was that experience like?
Leeroy Beeby 00:09:58.800 I really enjoyed it. Interesting fact about the University of Toronto, the MBA program there, it's about 50% of the class is international students, so it was great to meet-- it was easy to meet new people. I think one of the reasons why I decided to do my MBA was to accelerate my opportunity in the job market here. When you're trying to get a job in Canada, it's helpful if you have some form of Canadian experience. But little did I know that I was going to just start my own thing, so it didn't really matter. But I wouldn't have started my business unless I did my MBA. So I really enjoyed that. And I really focused on operations during that time, and that's been really helpful in starting a company and what I think the future of accounting looks like, especially from an operations perspective and being able to scale your value. So a lot of what I learned during the MBA is what I'm implementing in our business today.
Stuart McLeod 00:10:50.590 Well, let's talk about that. Can you provide sort of some examples? And theory is always great, but being able to actually apply what you've learned during MBA into real life is often the pit that goes missing. What comes to mind when you sort of say, "Okay, well, I studied that. I looked at that, and, okay, so some of it made sense. And this is what we're doing with it in our business?"
Leeroy Beeby 00:11:16.172 Yeah. So I was one of the few students that really like operations.
Stuart McLeod 00:11:20.087 That's all right. I can be there with you on that. I quite like the operational side of our organization. [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:11:26.605 Yeah. And our professors sort of always draw this into us, which was like, what causes stress in any operation system or operational system? And the answer is variability, right? Variability puts a lot of stress on your operations. It can create bottlenecks. It slows everything down. So what's unique about a service operation like an accounting firm is that customers are an input into the end product, right? And thinking about how to reduce variability and improve the efficiency of your operations, what you've got to look at is, okay, well, what if I reduce the variability around the customers that I serve, right? Check The Level only works with contractors. 100% of our clients are contractors. And in so doing, we don't have to worry about specific compliance or any other sort of regulations that would be required if you were dealing with something like a nonprofit organization, right? So streamlining around one customer has done wonders for our business, because at Level, we have our own standardized set of chart of accounts that we get all our clients on. It just streamlines your operations incredibly, and you can see that the cost of value is so much lower, right? Because, I mean, I love sales calls where I know one of the clients is speaking to another accountant, and I'm just like, "Okay, with that accountant, do they serve multiple industries? Are they asking you about your estimate process, and are they mapping your estimates to your chart of accounts?" These are just the basics to ensure that you, the customer, is getting the best value for money out of the accountant that you're going with.
Stuart McLeod 00:13:05.267 Yep, yep. So there's quite a lot of advantages, too. I mean, in America, the word is niche, which they really enjoy, but sort of southern hemisphere is niche. Let's just call it a vertical, right? So to standardize on your vertical, there's lots of advantages, right? So you can drive margin easier. You can drive value to the customer easier. You understand their business, hopefully much better. You can deliver services or sort of above and beyond services. You can increase value easier because you do a project for one client, and you can probably productize that result across at least some of the other customer base, right?
Leeroy Beeby 00:13:49.716 Yeah. And also onboarding employees, right? That's the other part. Yeah. Training your employees becomes a lot easier when you're like, "Okay, well, everyone has to follow this way."
Stuart McLeod 00:13:57.385 Yep.
Leeroy Beeby 00:13:57.861 Yeah, so.
Stuart McLeod 00:13:58.613 The only downside is in a recession, if all your clients are struggling cash flow-wise or folding up or all of that kind of thing, right?
Leeroy Beeby 00:14:08.871 Yeah. Yeah, that's a risk. I think construction is pretty recession-proof to some extent. There are circumstances and types of recessions that might be impacted, but, I mean, COVID has done incredible things to construction. I mean, the waiting list just to get a home reno done or trying to get a garage door is like three or four months, right? These guys are swinging hammers and starting a business at $100,000, in three years, they've grown to $3 million. They don't have any business degree. There's no access to support that's specialized to them. And 9 out of these 10 businesses fail. And it's really because, one, they're not charging enough for their work. And we're big on job costing in our company. So if you go with bookkeeping with us, we do your job costing. And what job costing is just basically allocating all your costs to a specific project. So if you do use our service, we help you do that. Because if there ever is a silver bullet in this industry, it's job costing. It really can help your business. The second element to that is cash flow. So two things kill these businesses: one, don't charge enough. Two is when you start financing job cost and you're like, "Okay, well, I'm profitable on this job," but have no idea that it takes like 30, 40 thousand dollars to complete this job in working capital that you need to inject in this project. So you turn up the advertising, you get 10 of these jobs and you realize you need $400,000 of working capital to actually execute on these, and it just drives your business into bankruptcy. So a lot of the things we do as well, we have these sort of graphs in our company called like the holy shit graphs because it's things that you look at and you're like, "Holy shit, how is that even possible?" So a big thing that we're doing is because we own the GL, we can actually plot on a timeline what your cash flow on a project is. So we can tell you the exact date and the amount that you're financing your job costs by. So that gives you data to go, "Okay, well, let me go back and add maybe another payment schedule, increase the customer deposit that I asked for upfront" because most of these companies go through roller coasters. And the reality is the primary culprit is your production, your revenue generating activities. If you don't have a grasp on whether that's actually generating cash for you or you actually have to finance it to get to the end, you're just shooting in the dark every time and you're going to run into trouble. And it's so funny because then-- not funny, but it's just interesting to be in this space because job costing will always become a bottleneck. It doesn't matter where you start, once you hit a certain size, you need to do job costing and that needs to be tied back to your accounting records. And I'd much rather have you implement a job costing system when you're a small organization doing under a million and you only have to train four or five people, as opposed to a $10 million organization, 60 employees, and you have to get them on time tracking apps and set up a POS system. It becomes a lot more headache. I mean, I don't mind because we charge you more if you're a larger company, but--
Stuart McLeod 00:17:07.090 The change in management is just a more stressful process to go through, though, if you do it late in your life.
Leeroy Beeby 00:17:12.407 Yeah, 100%.
Stuart McLeod 00:17:13.411 And what tech stack do you use to sort of execute for these clients?
Leeroy Beeby 00:17:18.040 Yeah, so we have our own in-house technology. And so it's pretty much a business management tool. So you can go as far as managing your customers through your sales department, very basic. And then the primary thing is there's time tracking and you can upload like receipts and supply invoices to our software, but that's dealt on a per-project basis. So pretty much client. We set you up with a software and already there, we're saving you money because you don't have to buy like TSheets or QuickBooks Time now. You can remove your current time tracking tool. If you're using a basic CRM, you can remove that. So there's already we're saving you 200, 300 dollars when you're just deciding to go with us as a bookkeeper on monthly subscriptions. And we also work exclusively with QuickBooks Online. We find that QuickBooks Online has the best project profitability tool. Their QuickBooks Projects is pretty good, but there are some limitations to that that we're aiming to solve, which is right now, no CRM can write a project into QuickBooks. It has to be done manually. So that means if you're growing your business, you have to rely solely on QuickBooks Projects to get job costing data in an easy fashion, which is that CRM isn't that great. So, yeah, we're looking at ways to actually help businesses who want to grow get more accessible job costing data and automate more in their business.
Stuart McLeod 00:18:39.037 Yeah. So the software that you wrote, or that you and your co-founder, is that just for your clients, is that sort of a mobile app that you wrote for your clients?
Leeroy Beeby 00:18:48.764 Yes, so, I mean, you can buy the product standalone, but there are certain features that are locked to-- that are only available to bookkeeping clients. The reason being, in our experience, the books, 90% of books aren't really well done. I think, especially when it comes to unreconciled bank transactions, it's a little scary to me to see how people just don't deal with that and just don't communicate. Well, like a bookkeeper won't communicate that to a client and it's just double entry of sales. They end up paying more tax. So we've closed that because we're just not comfortable giving users data that they're going to be making business decisions on where the data isn't good, right? Garbage in, garbage out, right? So again, this is really a level-based bookkeeping. The real value-creating aspects of our product are if you are one of our bookkeeping clients. I mean, we go as far as-- so I don't even think of ourselves as bookkeepers, to be honest. I think of ourselves as pricing consultants or pricing solution, because one of the biggest challenges you have, and no one's been able to solve this for a contractor, is, okay, so you can tell me how much that job costs based on the materials and labor it's going to take, but what do you mark that up by? What do you mark that up by so that you're charging enough to cover the cost of your overhead, right, and then take home that net profit target that you're going after? So our platform does that for you, right? We pull your QuickBooks data to tell you, "Hey, this is how much you should mark your job up just to break even. And this is just insert your net profit and that's what you go up. That's how you price your job." So what we're doing is we're helping business owners with the most important decision in their business, which is to price a job, while at the same time requiring them to upload documentation and supporting documentation to do the books. So we've completely gamified the experience, right? Like, "Do you want to price your job as well? Well, make sure that we've got timely reporting processes in place and you're submitting the documents in time."
Stuart McLeod 00:20:51.550 Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And so primarily your clients sort of in Toronto or all over Canada?
Leeroy Beeby 00:20:58.783 So we serve Canada and North America-- I mean, USA. So it's 50/50 right now. So we've got clients in both.
Stuart McLeod 00:21:04.304 And you can tell me to shut up. How long ago did you start, and kind of how has growth been, and where to next? Although that's too many questions. [laughter] Where did you start?
Leeroy Beeby 00:21:13.814 Our journey is quite interesting. So, I mean, when we started the company, we started in September 2019, that's when we incorporated. We started as a software company. We identified the problem in job costing and built a solution to help track those costs. But what we realized was that our target segments because we go really after residential contractors, more to mid-size, so under 3 million is like our sweet spot across any trade. So that's GCs or even specialty contractors. What we realized, though, was like, okay, we bought this tool that halves your bookkeeping time and gives you job costing data. What we realized was that our client base was extremely financially illiterate and from a bookkeeping standpoint, they didn't even know how to do their books properly. So what we did was we went to our user base and we said, "Okay, well, what if we do your books?" And we did this, we asked this in June of this year, and like half our user base said yes.
Stuart McLeod 00:22:07.859 Wow.
Leeroy Beeby 00:22:08.077 So--
Stuart McLeod 00:22:08.931 That [inaudible]. Was that disappointing or elating? [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:22:13.113 It was elating. I was like, because it just made sense, right?
Stuart McLeod 00:22:16.217 Yeah. [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:22:16.217 When you think about job costing or any sort of financial system in a business, your bookkeeper is a significant stakeholder. I almost think in a-- and business owners are turning to bookkeepers and accountants to digitize their businesses. That's happening, right? So if you just combine like, "Hey, I'll digitize your business, and I'll do your books for you," I mean, it's like a no-brainer. And our growth has been insane. We have 20X revenue since June. We have a two-month waiting list just to get your books done with us.
Stuart McLeod 00:22:45.827 Here's Leeroy thinking, "Oh, I got out of fucking KPMG."
Leeroy Beeby 00:22:50.214 Yeah. [laughter]
Stuart McLeod 00:22:50.824 I asked my customers if they want a bookkeeper, and here I am. [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:22:55.113 Drinking water out of a firing hose. That's pretty much it. [laughter]
Stuart McLeod 00:22:58.409 Did all this MBA to go and do bookkeeping for contractors and then solve their mess, clean up their mess. [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:23:08.260 But it's great to see how you turn these businesses around, right? Our customers absolutely love us. And it's such a heartwarming experience just to see how we turn their businesses around, because, I mean, a lot of the time, these guys are family members. They've got kids. They want to take their kids to school, buy them a car, whatever the case is, helping them understand, okay, well, if you have these salary goals in mind, this is how you price your job to hit those targets. And let's sit down with you to make sure that you're hitting those numbers every month or whether there needs to be adjustments anywhere. And we can automate that because we're plugging into your QuickBooks and we've got a set. We call them scoreboards. And some of those are holy shit graphs. We can just look at that, click a button and go, "Okay, well, you're trending in this direction. Go look at this, try fix this, and let's meet next month." And I think every business owner wants that. If someone can come to you and just tell you what direction you need to go or what decisions you can make, that's huge because most of the time as entrepreneurs, we're just figuring it out.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:06.224 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've said this before in the podcast, but the satisfaction that you gain and that the company gains from the success of your clients is a major driver in the reason you do what you do, yeah?
Leeroy Beeby 00:24:20.241 Yeah. 100%.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:21.667 Pick one client of yours, you don't have to name names, of course, but we will do a case study on them later. What comes to mind when you think, all right, we've really had an amazing impact on this particular customer or client?
Leeroy Beeby 00:24:34.353 Yeah, well, one client, I mean, when he joined the call with me, the sales call with me, he just burst out crying. He realized he was on the edge of bankruptcy. And one of the challenges I always "bump uglies" with in this industry is that far too many times, accountants prioritize external reporting over internal reporting, right? Like, for example, withdrawals or dividends. Now we have something that's a little considered controversial in accounting, but we actually add the draw into the PNL and then post the general entry at year-end because we know our users are looking at the PNL to understand whether they're making money or not. So, for example, a lot of these owners will take draws instead of a salary. So I mean, to me, that's an operational expense, and it should be incorporated as a cost of an overhead from an internal standpoint. And I get from an external standpoint, that's not the case. And we obviously deal with it that way when we have to do year-end audit, or whatever the case may be. But this client was taking significant amounts of money in draws, and their previous bookkeeper wasn't informing them that, "Hey, if you're doing this, your markup is going to go up to this percent." So we sat down with him, worked with him for like three months to get his pricing on point, helping him identify which services are the most profitable and which ones he should go after. And after three months, he's had his first profitable month cash coming in to pay himself a salary. Like, so happy, you know what I mean? He's like, "I don't know how you-- I don't know how you guys do it." And it's just because everything we do at our company is focused on helping you run a better construction business, right? And we grow with your business. It starts off like, "Let's help you pricing," but then it goes beyond that into helping you create a service or product matrix. Like, "Okay, you're offering all these different services. Which ones of those are those are most profitable, so by the time you want to advertise, you can go, 'Okay, that one over there has the highest profit but poor cash flow, probably not a good idea, but that one's healthy cash flow, healthy profit. Let's double down on that?'" So that's every business owner wants that. I want that for my business. [laughter]
Stuart McLeod 00:26:44.074 You've come to the right place. I know a guy. Well, I mean, we joke. We jest. But we do similar things, right? We build software and services for an industry that we know well that we enjoy working with, that we know we can add impact and make an impact. So I don't know which one's better, accountants or constructions. [laughter] I think I'd rather construction. But anyway, no, no. I'm joking. I'm joking. We love our accountants. So where to next? I mean, 20X growth is ridiculous. You're probably stressed out of your-- [laughter] You don't have time--
Leeroy Beeby 00:27:24.086 I don't have hair for a reason now. [laughter]
Stuart McLeod 00:27:24.962 [crosstalk]. Yeah, talk to me. All your hair is gone. You lost all your suntan from Bermuda. [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:27:33.211 Yeah, the Great White North, yeah.
Stuart McLeod 00:27:36.497 You've got just Toronto to suntan again, that's for sure. [laughter]
Leeroy Beeby 00:27:39.911 We've got exciting plans. I mean, our goal is to have 100,000 clients, bookkeeping clients.
Stuart McLeod 00:27:45.649 100,000?
Leeroy Beeby 00:27:45.649 I'm just so excited by it.
Stuart McLeod 00:27:47.698 That's a truckload.
Leeroy Beeby 00:27:49.073 A truckload. Yeah. And the reason being because I think what really excites me about this, yeah, and you can see it happening with Pilot, right? Like, Pilot is a verticalized tech-enabled accounting service that specializes in startups. All their marketing is focused on startups. And when we think about the future, or at least when I do, as business owners, you're always going to look for ways that are going to give you a competitive edge. And your bookkeeper or accountant is a big way to do that, especially in construction. If you know your numbers, you're a shark swimming in a goldfish pond, pretty much. And one of my favorite sayings is you don't need to be perfect. You just need to be a little bit better than everyone else. And it's pretty easy to do that in construction if you know your numbers. But the prospect of having 100,000 clients, what excites me is that gives me buying power. That gives Check The Level buying power. Now we've got a little marketplace of users that we can go to a supplier and say, "Hey, we have all these users. They got great cash flow. They pay their bills on time, give them a discount because they're good clients to have." And now what ends up happening is these companies start getting even better comparative advantages just by being with us, right? So I get really excited by that prospect.
Stuart McLeod 00:28:59.703 Right. One thing that can't-- I mean, I'm not going to tell you how to run your business, but I'm sure that factoring organizations would be thrilled to work with your client base, right?
Leeroy Beeby 00:29:09.171 Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Especially if they know the books are accurate.
Stuart McLeod 00:29:13.279 Exactly. What easy credit to write.
Leeroy Beeby 00:29:15.263 Yeah. That's also one of the journeys that we're looking at is we do want to become a fintech-enabled platform where you can get easy access to credit without having to put your home up. And it's really based on what we call your level score, right? Like, we look at how cash flow positive or healthy your projects are, how much you have in accounts receivable, and they're aging, and we control that and we know it's good, right? Our favorite activity at Level is bank recs. If you speak to any of our employees, it's like bank recs number one and deal with any unreconciled items because that ensures the data is accurate, right? Which is a big thing.
Stuart McLeod 00:29:52.359 Are you fully remote?
Leeroy Beeby 00:29:54.105 Fully remote. All our employees get stock options, so they own a piece of the company. There's unlimited leave and vacation days. So really, if you want to come work at an awesome company, we are hiring. Feel free to email me at jobs@checkthelevel.com. I always look at the resumes that come through there. So it's really exciting to be in our company at the moment.
Stuart McLeod 00:30:14.322 I'm sure. Well, Leeroy, on that note, thank you so much for joining the Accounting Leaders Podcast. And there is no doubt in my mind that you're definitely an accounting leader. Congratulations on all your success so far, and--
Leeroy Beeby 00:30:28.246 Thank you, Stuart.
Stuart McLeod 00:30:28.887 --thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate it.
Leeroy Beeby 00:30:31.468 Yeah. Awesome. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. [music]
Stuart McLeod 00:30:40.277 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. [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 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.