Summit CPA Group | Resource Page

Today, we are joined by Jacob Oberlander, Owner and Principal of Oberlander & Co. and Tom Wadelton CFO and Controller of Summit CPA Group to talk about how the VCFO Playbook Course helped them grow and scale their VCFO services. Sharing important takeaways, the process in which Oberlander & Co. has applied them, and the impact it has made to their business.

Today, we are joined by Jake Grimm, Director of Technology and Jody Grunden to talk about choosing vendors and suppliers. Choosing partners to help you run your business is fundamental to the success of your company. How do you know which vendor would be the best fit for your company? Well, in this episode we will talk about the search, filtering and the elimination process that guided us in choosing them to help us at Summit CPA Group and also we will be sharing those we currently work with, who rightfully received our stamp of approval.

Today, we sit down with Adam Hale and David Bergstein, the Chief Innovation Officer of Bergstein CPA. He is an author, blogger, speaker, educator, and advisor to CPA Firms who is dedicated in helping accounting firms grow their Client Accounting & Advisory Services practices. He calls himself "A Millennial Trapped in a Baby Boomer's Body" in this episode we will understand why so and also, why he passionately believes moving to the cloud and adapting quickly to technological changes are important for accounting professionals and CPA firms.

We are joined by Adam Hale, and Pete Potsos, Strategic Account Manager & Client Accounting Services Strategic Advisor at Bill.com to talk about how businesses use Bill.com to simplify payments and how its features have impacted our processes and how it has made a positive change in our workflow at Summit CPA Group. Gone are the days when you had to look at two or more places to get things done. Bill.com enables you to pay, get paid, and manage your payments process from one place.

In today’s episode we are joined by Kelly Schuknecht, Director of Marketing and Stephen Pope, founder of SGP Labs to discuss the importance of incorporating videos in your marketing strategy. He talks about how videos can help you grow and scale your business and help you reach your target audience better.

The Modern CPA Success Show (Episode 34): “One of the partners there was sharing that their firm no longer has an overdraft thanks to using our payment plans” - Bruce Coombes Today, we are sitting down with Bruce Coombes and Richard Formoe from QuickFee to explain how you can use their products to get paid faster. QuickFee provides quick and hassle-free payment options for your clients to help you can increase sales, build better client relationships, and improve cash flow.

In this episode we are joined by Rick Telberg from CPA Trendlines to talk about the shift towards virtual CFO services. The VCFO space is getting bigger, especially with the increase in online teams in 2020. This is such an interesting time, because businesses are required to change to adapt to the current landscape, and accountants are no exception to this. Listen to learn about the future of the CPA space and the virtual CFO. The finer details of this episode:

We are joined by Jody and Adam to talk to one of our clients. Casey Cobb of Ricochet Group has an amazing backstory, and Summit CPA was able to help Casey Cobb manage his business through incredibly challenging times. We talk about Casey’s story, how he found the blue ocean strategy in growing his business, and the value we were able to bring him with our virtual CFO services.

This is our third time bringing in Tom Barrett, who has been working with Summit CPA for years. We are talking about meetings today. Our meetings at Summit CPA have changed and evolved over the years. Anyone who has been involved with a company would know just how difficult it is to have effective meetings. As a CFO, our job is to run good meetings and advise our clients to do the same. Listen to this episode to learn what your company can do to structure strong and effective meetings.

Today, we are joined by Zach Montroy of Navigate the Journey and Lillian Hocevar of Traveluxe Official to talk about company retreats. We reflect on Summit CPA’s recent retreat, what we got out of it, and lessons we learned that will help you organize your next company retreat.

We decided to bring back Tom Barrett from Navitage the Journey. We are joined by Adam Hale to talk about employees. In this episode, we move beyond the basic job description to talk about the essence of the roles that your employees will be filling. Getting the right people into your company, and having them in the right roles is a cornerstone to running a successful business. Listen for Tom’s insight and tips on organization charts, hiring, and aligning your people with your company’s core values.

In this episode, Jamie Nau and Jody Grunden sit down with one of our clients, Greg Bear from Bear Group. Greg has seen some major growth, and we think it’s important for you to hear about it. Bear Group is a successful web design company, and we will be discussing their process of hiring a CFO and how it helped them to uplevel their business.

Today, we are joined by Dan Kaelus. He hosts a podcast called Small Business Matters, and he is the CEO of two companies. We are going to talk about different lending options for small businesses. We always talk about banking relationships with our clients and we stress the importance of having a relationship with your bank. Today we talk about how you can create a lending relationship to help your business grow.

We know a lot of companies are moving to a distributed model, so we wanted to give some more insight to how the Summit CPA team works remotely. Today, we are talking to two of our employees, Angie Douglas and Mikala Paige, who have unique remote working situations. Listen to learn about how our Summit CPA team lives the remote lifestyle, and tips for anyone who wants to live this lifestyle themselves.

Today, we are sitting down with Michael Frost from Heritage to talk about integrating a family practice into your VCFO firm, and how those two things can work together. Heritage Family Offices is a law firm, wealth management firm, CPA firm, and insurance company all under one roof. In this episode, we are discussing how family offices work behind the scenes and how you can integrate CFO services into this business model.

Today, we are sitting down with Tom Barrett from Navigate the Journey to talk about the EOS system and how you can use it to achieve the vision for your business. EOS is a complete set of simple concepts and practical tools that have helped thousands of entrepreneurs get what they want from their businesses. In this episode, we are discussing what EOS can do for your organization and how you can implement it into your business.

There is a lot that goes into running a business, and small businesses can benefit greatly from delegating their extra admin tasks. But it can be difficult to let go of some of the work, so today we are sitting down with Emily Morgan of Delegate Solutions. We have been working with this company for a couple of years, and it has made a huge difference to have someone take care of our admin tasks. Delegate Solutions focuses on helping entrepreneurs create more time and leverage in their day, so that is what we are talking about on the show today.

We are starting a new trend on the podcast, where we sit down with some of our clients to talk about their experiences with CFOs and their business knowledge. Today, we are sitting down with Matt Westgate, CEO, and co-founder of Lullabot. Matt was one of our first CFO clients, so we are going to talk about his experience. We also speak about his experience working with a distributed team in his business

Imagine starting the business using your personal line of credit, having employees that make more than you and then one day it takes off. The decisions made to offer unique services in a specific industry actually help you stand out and grow your business. You may hear it often to focus on a niche, but does it really pay off, for Jody it did, and he’ll share how and why. Building a large accounting firm offering quality services that bring value to the client is something he’s been doing for years. Listen in and hear how this can apply to your business.

Today, we are sitting down with Jamie Nau, Adam Hale, and Justin Hatch from Reach Reporting to talk about dashboarding and financial statements. Reach Reporting is a company that creates visually appealing financial statements. Signing up for Reach Reporting one of the most valuable changes we have made at Summit CPA, so we are talking about our new processes use this tool.

Before switching to Finagraph, we were using a spreadsheet to track cash flow. Finagraph is a tool that helps businesses manage cash flow and collect accounting data. Today, we are sitting down with Justin Pulgrano from Fingraph to talk about how to measure cash flow and why you should use a tool such as Finagraph rather than keeping your data in excel.

The first weeks after hiring a new employee are extremely busy and important to their success in the future with the company, which is why we are sitting down with Zack Montroy, Jody Grunden, and Adam Hale, COO at Summit CPA to talk about the process of onboarding a new employee. Listen to learn about what the first 90 days look like after a new hire.

Hiring the wrong person can be expensive. This is especially true when you are a service-based business. Hiring is something that Summit CPA struggled with in the past because we didn’t have the proper tools and methods to determine which potential employees would actually fit into the company. We want to help you learn from our mistakes, and we want to share the lessons we have picked up as we build our team. In this episode, we are joined by Zach Montroy, our People, Team & Organizational Strategist, and Adam Hale to talk about hiring assessments we use at Summit CPA.

Over the past couple of weeks, a lot of businesses have gotten money from the PPP loans, so we want to make sure that you are as informed as possible about how the loan forgiveness works. In this episode, we are joined by Jody Grunden and Adam Hale to talk about PPP loan forgiveness and how to get the most forgiven. Listen to learn about how you can use this loan to help your business get through the COVID-19 crisis.

We all have our own knowledge and experience, but it’s important to also learn from other people’s ideas, which is why we are sitting down with Jody Grunden and Adam Hale, COO at Summit CPA to talk about the best books you can read to become a better CFO. Listen to learn about our favorite books and how they have inspired us as professionals.

In this episode, we are sitting down with a special guest, David Cristello, founder and CEO of JetPack Workflow and Adam Hale, the COO at Summit CPA to talk about JetPack Workflow, a project management tool designed for recurring client management. At Summit CPA, we have found JetPack Workflow to be an extremely valuable tool to create workflows that maintain consistency and quality as we grow our business. Listen to learn about how JetPack Workflow can benefit your CPA firm and the best approach to getting started.

In our last episode, we talked about how to navigate your clients through difficult times due to the COVID-19 crisis. This week we want to go more in-depth with tools and resources available to you to help your clients through this pandemic. Today, we are sitting down with Adam Hale, COO at Summit CPA to talk about the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) versus the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and what we are doing for our clients right now. Listen to learn about how you can support yourself and your clients during this crisis.

At the time of recording this episode, we are in the middle of COVID-19, so we thought it would be a great time to talk about tools you can use to help your clients through difficult times with Adam Hale, the COO at Summit CPA. Even if you are listening to this at a later date, there are still some great tools you can use to help clients who are going through rough patches in their business. Listen to learn about how to support your clients and keep their businesses afloat through financial strain.

We created this special episode because the coronavirus has forced a lot of companies to move towards a virtual team. At Summit CPA, we have been virtual since 2013. We have a lot of experience building and scaling a company with an entire staff working from home, so we want to share what we have learned along the way. In this episode, we are joined by Jody Grunden and Adam Hale to talk about best practices for running a distributed company and working remotely. Hopefully, your company will find this helpful if you are being forced into a distributed model due to the current pandemic.

Clients will come to you for a specific reason, and they are looking to get a specific result from working with you. That’s why the onboarding process is so important. It sets the tone for the relationship and clarifies the expectations of both parties. Today we are sitting down with Adam Hale, the COO at Summit CPA to talk first impressions and onboarding new clients. At Summit CPA, this is something we revisit about every 6 months, so this podcast is full of information about things we have tried, things that have gone well, and what we have learned.

Setting up and running meetings with your clients can be one of the more intimidating parts of your Virtual CFO services. It can be hard to know how to set yourself up for success or even to know what to talk about when you have meetings with your clients. Today we are sitting down with Adam Hale, the COO at Summit CPA to talk about how to set up structures and systems for high-value meetings. These in-person experiences you create with your clients are a huge part of offering high-quality services and maintaining client relationships. Tune in to learn how to master this part of your business.

CPA firms are often location-based, so Summit has to approach marketing on a bigger scale than what is normal in our industry, because we are a virtual firm, and we work with clients all over the country. Today we are sitting down with Kelly Schuknecht, Director of Marketing at Summit CPA and Adam Hale to talk about how Summit CPA markets itself to a national market. Marketing isn’t a priority for a lot of CPA firms, but if you want your business to grow and reach an audience beyond your local area, you can learn from the practices that Summit CPA uses.

Being a Virtual CFO is about being creative and flexible, but if you want to scale anything or delegate your work to staff, creating a process is absolutely essential, so we are sitting down with Adam Hale to talk about how to build a process for your Virtual CFO services. When we are working with our clients, we usually allow things to flow to fit the client’s needs, but everything we do behind the scenes is backed by processes and systems. In this episode, we talk about how Summit CPA balances the need for creativity and flexibility with clients; and the need to standardize for the purpose of scaling.

Taxes are a natural fit with any kind of CPA services you provide, so we are sitting down with David Danic, the Director of Tax at Summit CPA, and Adam Hale to talk about how to integrate tax services in with Virtual CFO services. Many firms believe that taxes are the way that you get CFO clients, but we do it differently at Summit CPA. In this episode, we talk about how Summit CPA builds tax services into our Virtual CFO services in a way that supports the services that we already provide for our clients instead of leading with them.

You can’t do great work if you don’t have great clients, so we are sitting down with Adam Hale, one of the owners of Summit CPA to talk about the essential parts of the sales process. The sales process is about laying the foundation for long-term relationships that you can build on for years to come. In this episode, we talk about how Summit CPA structures its sales process to determine and meet the needs of our clients, so we can bring them value for the long haul.

Jake Grimm, Summit CPA Director of Technology, and COO Adam Hale join Jamie Nau after having attended the Live 360 IT conference in Orlando to talk about what they learned and what they're going to be bringing back to the firm. It’s important to attend conferences that are relevant to your industry or relevant to different aspects of running your business. This conference was not specific to CPA firms specifically, but it was relevant in the technology necessary for managing our team. Making conferences like this a priority for your business will be an important way to stay up to date on the latest tech or other industry standards.

Hiring the wrong person can be detrimental to an organization. Therefore, business owners must have a tight process for bringing in the right people. In this episode, Hiring HR Guru Zach Montroy and Summit CPA COO Adam Hale join Jamie Nau for a chat about hiring the right way and critical questions you must ask during the process.

Despite what many people believe about distributed teams, they can be both efficient and scalable. There are nuances that one must take into account, such as technology and having a dedicated workspace, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. In this episode, Jamie Nau sits down with CEO Jody Grunden and COO, Adam Hale, for a chat about how Summit CPA developed into a distributed team, the technology they use, and why the model continues to work.

Despite what many people believe about distributed teams, they can be both efficient and scalable. There are nuances that one must take into account, such as technology and having a dedicated workspace, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. In this episode, Jamie Nau sits down with CEO Jody Grunden and COO, Adam Hale, for a chat about how Summit CPA developed into a distributed team, the technology they use, and why the model continues to work.

For over 17 years, Summit CPA Group has worked with companies all over the U.S. to help them improve their businesses. Here is where it all began and how they are assisting other firms to do the same. In this episode, Jamie Nau sits down with CEO Jody Grunden and COO, Adam Hale, for a chat about the humble beginnings of Summit CPA and how it became one of the first distributed virtual CFO firms in North America.

How many accounting firms do you know that do value-based pricing, or embrace being a distributed company? Adam Hale, partner and COO of Summit CPA, the premier CPA for digital agencies enlightens host Ivan Stegic on how his progressive firm is changing the way people think about accounting.

As a distributed company, we at Summit CPA fully understand the accounting, bookkeeping, cash flow management, and business tax nuances that come with being distributed. We love using forecasting and metrics to help our clients overcome these challenges through our own experience and expertise.

A CPA firm isn't the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to innovative, distributed team, but that's exactly the case with Jody Grunden from Summit CPA. They took a simple idea of helping businesses with their finances to growing into a virtual CFO company that services all types of companies around the country. Did I mention that one of their core values is humor? If you have a remote team or are interested in things like core values and people, you don't want to miss this episode.

Jody Grunden is the managing member of Summit CPA Group. Jody focuses his attentions primarily on Virtual CFO Services. Jody meets with business owners on a weekly basis to assist them with Cash Flow Management, Forecasting, Budgeting, Debt Restructuring, Cost Accounting, and Cutting Edge Tax Planning. Jody takes great pride in helping business owner strive in all economic conditions. He strongly believes that a well run company will excel in both a good and bad economy. Jody began developing his extensive background in accounting and tax by bringing together his experiences in both corporate and public accounting.