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Neal Winokur: I was shocked not only did he reply, but he called me. I got a phone call I emailed him. I thought I’ll never hear back from this guy within three hours. He called me
Neal Winokur: I actually spoke to the author of The Wealthy Barbara David Chilton and he liked my idea to write this book and he gave me some great ideas. He was very helpful really nice guy.
Patrick Villemaire: the people find value in different things. It’s like there’s this frictional thing. 10 dollars for a book, but then you’re saying frappa wappa woof woof, there’s thing I’ll give you 30 dollars, right?
Neal Winokur: monthly booking I think is the key here to not having any sort of annual crisis after the fiscal year is over.
Patrick Villemaire: So I got Neal winokur with me today Cpaca Neal winokur CEO Finance Without Borders entrepreneur author of the grumpy accountant. So Neal’s here with me today to talk about for my web series how to avoid The annual crisis is the process of creating annual reports. Neal thanks for joining me today.
Patrick Villemaire: So, maybe you can just give us a beef brief background of who you are and then I’d love to kind of figure out why did you get into writing the book the grumpy accountant and then we can talk about audit of financials for nonprofits and share your organizations.
Neal Winokur: Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I started out as an accountant. I obtained my CA designation back when it was CA and 2013.
Neal Winokur: And I started my own little practice preparing and filing tax returns for Canadians personal tax returns and corporate tax returns for small and medium-sized business owners. And after a few years of that. I started to realize wow the tax system here is really ridiculously complicated and I realized very quickly it doesn’t have to be so complicated. Why is it so complicated and I just started to kind of blog about it and right articles about it and my thoughts and opinions on the tax system and as I was writing that as I kind of realize there’s a lot here. This could be a whole book, and the idea of writing a book started to enter into my head. And of course, I had no idea how to write a book and no idea how much work that would entail but I started doing it thinking this will be a fun project and it was a lot of work because self-published it I know while I was doing but it turns out
Neal Winokur: I guess okay the accountant and Grumpy in terms of people who know me will laugh because they know that I’m a big complainer and I come across as grumpy but the idea that it’s a job that there are thousands of people across the country that
Neal Winokur: Help Canadians file their tax returns it’s just ridiculous and of itself. That’s what the book is about. this shouldn’t even be necessary. My job’s not exist like a tax filer. It’s so silly and the amount of people that work at CRA. I mean, there’s over now 50,000 employees. That’s your age series one of the biggest Employers in Canada, which is wild when you think about it and if you compare the other countries in the US if you compare the amount of employees at the IRS, there’s maybe double at the IRS, but the US has 10 times the population of Canada, So it’s kind of a walk to be fair. Every state for Most states will have a state tax Authority where there’s more employees. So it’s not a perfect comparison, but it gives you an idea of how overly complicated
Neal Winokur: Our system has become so that’s where the idea of the book was like.
Neal Winokur: I cannot remain silent on this I should not have it this job of tax accountants should all exist and it kind of bothered me. That’s why I pivoted to Finance Without Borders Inc Which is less focused on the tax. Although we do tax. We have a tax department and we help people with their personal corporate tax returns, but the focus of this accounting firm finds to the borders, what we do is more on the internal accounting for small means this is owners businesses who need help with their bookkeeping and Maybe they need a functional CFO bookkeeping account Stephenville accounts payable payroll.We do a lot of payroll. So providing more of a value-added service where it’s not just tax compliance filing your tax returns, but also ensuring that you as the business owner have the data you need from your monthly financials to understand your business and see where it’s going but the book is, grumpy.
Neal Winokur: Thousand.ca you can check it out. It was a very fun project. And it’s just my thoughts and ideas of how to fix and simplify the Canadian tax system.
Patrick Villemaire: So when I first looked into the book, my thought was why is this guy still doing, Financial Accounting sounds like she’s doing advocacy and…
Patrick Villemaire: government lobbying and get,
Patrick Villemaire: getting them to change the system how’s your book made any impact in terms of people thinking differently about the system?
Neal Winokur: I don’t think it’s really made any significant impact but every week there are articles in the National newspapers in Canada. People writing op ads advocating for simplifying the tax system. I mean and it’s been going on for years. So this was just another, trying to push towards that. The only thing stopping simplification of the toxic stem is politics. it just requires political will on whichever party is in power to do something about it. So,
Neal Winokur: Everything in politics, honestly just moves very slowly. So I don’t know if change will ever happen. maybe what did my book have an impact probably not, but I got it out there I tried. After a couple years, I just stopped marketing it because I didn’t have the bandwidth for it. But this is a known problem in Canada and CPA Canada is advocating for tax litigation. There’s a lot of the top tax people in the country who write articles right offense in National newspapers at the king for this change. So I hope things will change eventually. I’m not optimistic about it.
Patrick Villemaire: That’s serious. it’s a slow Big Bowler that’s just constantly being pushed. Right? And until we see, near Neal for PM, signs everywhere, who knows, when change will happen right when it comes to bring the book. What was the most challenging part?
Neal Winokur: I think the most it’s interesting writing. It wasn’t the challenging part because all the ideas are in my head and the way I write it’s kind of how I talk and I actually wrote the book as a story. It reads as a novel kind of like The Wealthy Barber people have read The Wealthy Barber I was inspired by it and I actually spoke to the author of The Wealthy Barbara David Chilton and he liked my idea to write this book and he gave me some great ideas. He was very helpful really nice guy. So it reads as a story so writing it wasn’t challenging. The challenge was everything else involved in self-publishing a book. I had no idea what I was doing and there wasn’t a lot of resources to help. So just getting
Neal Winokur: everything together in terms of editing and the cover design and the actual design of the book and that all these moving pieces. It was just overwhelming just email the work involved.
Neal Winokur: I would say that was probably the biggest challenge.
Patrick Villemaire: So just stepping back for a second. So many when you talk to the author The Wealthy Barber, what was his kind of tips or…
Patrick Villemaire: advice that?
Neal Winokur: I reached out to him because After I read his book. I was inspired to write my book in the same way. It was like a story like a novel so I’m a big Seinfeld fan.
Neal Winokur: So I peppered into the book a lot of Seinfeld references. The main characters of my novel are different originally. So any Seinfeld plans watching this, we’ll get a kick out of it. But Dave Chilton said I kind of asked him permission to do it because I didn’t want to rip off his idea and he was like, of course you can do it for it, but the best advice to give me was The chapters should be short you don’t have too long chapters chopped short chapters, and he’s like Neal No One’s Gonna read a book about the king tax system.
Neal Winokur: Is boring so you have to make the book fun, but also put in tax tips at the end of every chapter and that’s a brilliant idea. I didn’t think of that. He’s give information so that way when they’re buying a book they’ll get something out of it, So at the end of every chapter, there’s a little tax tip that relates to the material in that chapter and I was a really good idea. He also has a book course online called the Chilton method, which I did his course. It’s for people writing and self-publishing their own book. And I found it really helpful a lot of great tips in there as well.
Patrick Villemaire: Did you do that course before he reached out to or after?
Neal Winokur: I don’t remember. I feel like it was after. But I don’t remember exactly the timing.
Patrick Villemaire: To me. this is interesting now. We’re going off on a tangent,…
Patrick Villemaire: but not I’d imagine that Dave get so many emails from people. So, just the fact that he looked at your email replied to you and got back to you and yet this conversation with you.
Neal Winokur: If you’re self-employed, will your sole proprietor or you have a corporation? You see the complexity of the tax system much more than someone who’s an employee who receives a T4 slip. I was shocked not only did he reply, but he called me. I got a phone call I emailed him. I thought I’ll never hear back from this guy within three hours. He called me. And he was so nice and we spoke on the phone from it wasn’t such a long call, but he was just so nice and he just was so encouraging and supportive and I was really moved by that. he’s really really nice. Because even someone who’s employed who receives a T4 slip might still see a lot of complexity and toxins because they might still have investment income and medical expenses and donations. there’s over a hundred thirty. I think tax credits and deductions on the personal tax return. So the feedback I got from the book was in resonates with the law of the people who have experience the complexity of the tax system and that frustration I don’t know. I think he’s just a nice guy and he likes helping people like there was no trick. I just wrote an honest email I said, hey, I read your book.
Neal Winokur:
Neal Winokur:
Neal Winokur: It’s just non-stop every stage in life every single life occurrence,…
Neal Winokur: I’m writing a book now, but the tax system. I’m a disgruntled grumpy accountant. I want to call the carpet count it.
Neal Winokur: basically has a tax implication now…
Neal Winokur: I want to write this book as a novel as a story kind of like…
Neal Winokur: because the way the tax system is it’s like politicians Pander to every single kind of voter at every single stage in life.
Neal Winokur: how you wrote Wealthy Barber, but I don’t want you to sue me. I don’t want to rip off your idea and he called me no, of course it’s not my idea.
Neal Winokur: So you have the child care tax credit and…
Neal Winokur: Anyone can do this and…
Neal Winokur: you have a disability tax credit anything that happens in your life.
Neal Winokur: go ahead and it’s great. And I didn’t have tips or…
Neal Winokur: There might be a tax implication.
Neal Winokur: else No One’s Gonna read it. I’m like wow, so he’s just a really nice guy. Yeah. You might be eligible some credit or deduction which that’s good. Because you’ll save money on your taxes, but the bad thing is now the CRA needs to verify all of this. So it just increases the cost for the complexity for everyone. It’s kind of unfair because a lot of people don’t even have the knowledge to know what they’re eligible for. So you have to hire people so these are more expensive for you to comply with it and benefit from it. So, I think it resonated with people who have personally experienced this frustration. right
Neal Winokur:
Neal Winokur:
Patrick Villemaire: Right, and I’d imagine that you probably get the most interest of your book around tax time because if you’re six months out of tax season first lady,…
Neal Winokur: I think a lot of people right…
Patrick Villemaire: I’m not thinking about taxes,…
Neal Winokur: who are anyone in Canada has their own business. right…
Patrick Villemaire: right, the books are being done every month …
Neal Winokur: Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: that’s under control, we’re doing it taking care of our dstc payments and…
Neal Winokur: right
Patrick Villemaire: all the government wants every month a quarter from us again outside. That’s like,…
Neal Winokur: Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: let’s just, once November hits we’re gonna start, thinking about it, right?
Neal Winokur: I think a lot of business owners. It’s a struggle throughout the year because they have to remember about Making installments, let’s say you’re in court you have a corporations. There’s a corporate income tax installments. You have your GS Theory to see installments. And if you have employees, they have payroll tax, you have to pay every month or every quarter it just goes on and on and you forget one payment boom penalties interest there There’s no okay, you can apply for taxpayer relief, but that could take months and months and months and it’s like never then you have to follow your corporate protection. You have to reality Force. It’s really just see just your turn. You have to buy your personal tax return you don’t do thats it’s a never ending thing. I think people really struggle with it.
Patrick Villemaire: So when it comes to marketing so, again, you know that I’m thinking the other titanium reports is it’s not just creating it now. It’s the marketing it and getting the interforce goes stakeholders to go to the board. They go to their current donors, they go to perspective donors and then there’s the opportunity to use all the content material and general day to day marketing social media. Somebody comes to your book. How was the process of marketing? What did you find effect at? What was the most challenging part?
Neal Winokur: yeah, I think I remember I did a lot of interviews. About the book just kind of online podcasts and things and that was really fun. I wrote a few Ops. I got into the financial post the National Post and the print version and online. It’s got a lot of views. I don’t know. how much that generated sales of the book. Although it did a little bit the marketing was challenging because to get people to actually buy the book is the challenge but The easy part was I did a lot of those interviews got the Argon op-eds. it was a lot of fun, but it was challenging. it’s very hard as a self-publisher. To get the word out there and really drive a lot of sales it was very humbling experience. it wasn’t easy,
Patrick Villemaire: But it’s funny because I have my book as Right and you assume it’s like inbox or $20, that’s like one Starbucks drink, right and you’re like, okay, how can I get someone to trade one Starbucks drink to buy my book which has valuable information plus entertainment and it’s gonna last more than you five and…
Neal Winokur: But yeah.
Patrick Villemaire:
Patrick Villemaire: a half minutes. Right, but this is like,…
Neal Winokur: right
Patrick Villemaire: the people find value in different things. It’s like there’s this frictional thing. 10 dollars for a book, but then you’re saying a frappu apple, there’s thing I’ll give you 30 dollars, right?
Neal Winokur: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s challenging and I think that It’s about somehow creating out demand and that’s why Dave Chilton told me put in tax tips, right so that helps with it. But yeah, look the marketing and sales was a challenge. It was challenging for sure.
Patrick Villemaire: Yeah, no for And yes, it’s always gonna figure out who cares why do they care and then trying to get another take action, Even if you get their attention,…
Neal Winokur: Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: people get distracted so easily and then they may never come back. right, that’s
Neal Winokur: Right, I even tried to get a part Partnerships with for example Turbo Tax.
Neal Winokur: Which is owned by Intuit, I think it’s yeah,…
Patrick Villemaire: Yeah.
Neal Winokur: I think into it which owns QuickBooks and turbo talk. I want to get a big partnership with them they just buy my book 10,000 copies and They just give it for free as a positive promotion to people who are purchasing TurboTax to file their taxes, but they’re like that. It’s one of the largest corporations. it was very challenging to try to get anyone there to acknowledge, so It’s definitely a challenge for self-publishing in Canada. it was not easy.
Patrick Villemaire: I mean as I’m sure senior just proud of being able to produce something and when someone actually buys it that’s for me when I wrote my book, the biggest, excitement that I got was when someone in the states bought it that I had no connection to yeah, it’s not necessarily,…
Neal Winokur: nice.
Patrick Villemaire: they thought on social media they end up purchasing my book.
Neal Winokur: Yeah. right Yeah,…
Patrick Villemaire: They sent me a comment, we have a little conversation and to me it’s something outside of my network,…
Neal Winokur: yeah, that’s cool.
Patrick Villemaire: even my country, and not even on the same Coast on the other coast, yeah, this is cool.
Neal Winokur: Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: Let’s get going but then it’s like you get that one sale in this like you keep grinding and…
Neal Winokur: right Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: grinding and grinding it’s kind of like, how much working putting in for ten dollars here, four dollars there right like it’s but yeah,…
Neal Winokur: right Right exactly.
Patrick Villemaire: I think it’s just how you use it to you. Is it just awareness for your tax firm or is it like you want to just sell books, right?
Neal Winokur: Yeah.
Neal Winokur: Yeah.
Neal Winokur: mmm
Patrick Villemaire: Which is how yeah, it’s that nice, kind of marketing piece for your business as well, which is kind of cool. So when it comes to, nonprofits and nonprofits, in my mind, I know you told me when we just opened up the nonprofits and registered Charities are different in my mind, they’re the same because they’re not, for-profit but regardless, basically, what we’re trying to figure out is how to help help nonprofits in registered Charities avoid the annual crisis of any reports and one of the key components everyone needs to have is the other financials. So basically we see kind of two different ways, they’re kind of displayed up within the annual report one is just kind of like the table financials so,…
Neal Winokur: Yeah, I mean the first step if you need all the financial statements the audit firm whichever accounting firm is going to do that all it engagement.
Patrick Villemaire: it’s a lot someone have a foundation and they have the corporation so they’ll have two sets of different financials somehow …
Neal Winokur: They will want to see. The books being completed there has to be a clean.
Patrick Villemaire: audited document that is maybe 10 pages long and it has the financials and …
Neal Winokur: Complete accurate set of books means bookkeeping accounting.
Patrick Villemaire: the kind of note from the Financial company that did the auditing that the processes they went through and…
Neal Winokur: So you can’t start an audit engagement.
Patrick Villemaire: some notes on the data in there.
Neal Winokur: They can’t start doing all the financial statements…
Neal Winokur: if the bookkeeping wasn’t done for the year and…
Patrick Villemaire: So we’re looking at you…
Patrick Villemaire: how can we keep these,…
Neal Winokur: bookkeeping means, you…
Patrick Villemaire: organizations on track throughout the year and…
Neal Winokur: your bank account credit card, every transaction has to be And whether it’s a registered charity or…
Patrick Villemaire: get these honors financials as painlessly as possible.
Neal Winokur: be recorded whether you’re using an offer profit in Canada,…
Neal Winokur: using books online or you have to file by six months after the…
Patrick Villemaire: What is kind of your tips?
Patrick Villemaire: What’s the best approach?
Neal Winokur: zero or crippled desktop or whatever accounting system you’re using There should be booking being done not at the end of the year not after the Let’s say it’s December 31st year end and you have to have those financial statements out by two or three or four or five months to have the annual meeting. For example. the year end. So you need those financial statements within six months of the year end. and the other firm might need two months to get that audit on maybe less right but it varies so you have to bookkeeping done. I would highly recommend an urge that that’s the first step. So anyone running an offer property charity here. should ensure that there is a bookkeeping service
Neal Winokur: Someone is doing is responsible for the bookkeeping every single month during the year, maybe every quarter, if there’s not a lot of transactions but monthly bookkeeping is the key to this because let’s say it’s January to December you fiscal year end. If you’re doing monthly bookkeeping and by let’s say the 15th or the 20th of each month. The previous months books are done completed bank is reconciled. Everything is done then in January after December 31st. You just actually one month finish December close of the books January to December sure you’re good to go and you could start the process right away. So I think a lot of
Neal Winokur: a lot of people these Charities with for-profit businesses the it’s the same struggle is getting this stuff done throughout the year consistently monthly or quarterly. So at the end of the year you’re ahead of the game and you’re ready and you’re not scrambling to try to do bookkeeping for the past 12 months. You’re not going to remember eight months ago. What does a hundred dollar transfer of the bank account was right. but if you’re doing it monthly you will remember. two weeks ago. Yeah. I remember what that was. monthly booking I think is the key here to not having any sort of annual crisis after the fiscal year is over.
Neal Winokur: mmm
Neal Winokur: Yeah, and that’s why all these organizations that have some sort of service a bookkeeping service or a bookkeeper. It can be once a month that might be sufficient for organizations that don’t have as many transactions, for small organizations and there’s a lot of bookkeepers out there. I mean our accounting firm offers these kinds of bookkeeping services monthly bookkeeping or quarterly bookkeeping and there’s a lot of people doing that offering that kind of service so you…
Patrick Villemaire: So one thing looks like I know it’s like we work with organizations all different sizes.
Neal Winokur: but the point is behind and
Patrick Villemaire: Right? So the ones that have full-on tax departments and house, accounting departments and…
Neal Winokur: If it doesn’t matter the size of the organization the book still needs to be completed,…
Patrick Villemaire: they have somewhere, if we don’t submit our invoice to them by the last Thursday of every month,…
Neal Winokur: right if you and…
Patrick Villemaire: it’s gonna take an extra month to get paid…
Neal Winokur: even if you don’t need an audit…
Patrick Villemaire: because someone comes in for you…
Neal Winokur: if some not for profits and…
Patrick Villemaire: a couple days to do everything…
Neal Winokur: Charities do not require on it financial statements.
Patrick Villemaire: then I imagine that the challenge with the smaller organizations are in that boat,…
Neal Winokur: They can do a review engagement or just the annual T2 filing for nonprofit or…
Patrick Villemaire: the problem is if there’s that, $100 transaction that’s not labeled.
Neal Winokur: T30 10, but in either case,…
Patrick Villemaire: They have to send a question,…
Neal Winokur: you still need a set of financial statements,…
Patrick Villemaire: saying, what is this and…
Neal Winokur: you’re supposed to report that to the CRA.
Patrick Villemaire: if they’re not in for any other, you…
Neal Winokur: You need the balance sheet.
Patrick Villemaire: three or four weeks. Then that I can imagine that’d be worrying on things start falling apart, right?
Neal Winokur: You think I’m saying it and you need up for that you will need to present it. So there has to be some form of bookkeeping and there should be a system in place and a person place responsible for that.
Neal Winokur: No, I mean you could use anything you want. But there are certain ones that are better than others. some people have different preferences like the two most common now being used QuickBooks online and zero zero spell with an x-ray x e r o. Those are the two most commonly used ones now for register to share these other tax receipts whether throughout the year at the end of the year, there’s different apps and different service providers that offer that and kind of automate that as well, but it doesn’t really matter what you’re using what we recommend as people use something like QuickBooks liner zero because what allows you to do is you can go in there connect the bank account.
Patrick Villemaire: So when it comes to using, software systems doesn’t matter what they use.
Neal Winokur: And then it will automatically upload all the transactions from as they hit the bank account and then we’re just going in or someone on your end or RN or whoever’s doing the bookkeeping can just categorize this transactions. So it eliminates a lot of the manual entry of how people used to do bookkeeping. Let’s say with an Excel spreadsheet or couples desktop before they had that ability to all thematically kind of import all the bank transactions. Now, even the desktop versions have that ability as well. So it doesn’t like what I always tell people is which software you’re using isn’t as important as the people who are doing it to make sure that they’re responsible. They’re going to get done. It’s getting done and timely manners being done correctly, but I definitely recommend a system that allows for the sort of automated importing of all the transactions the bank account the credit card that eliminates a lot of manual entry that used to be required and cuts down all the time.
Neal Winokur: I think Having it on monthly quarterly. The other big thing would be keeping documents, especially for an audit. So in an audit when an accounting from comes into doing on it going to request to see a whole bunch of different kinds of documents invoices and receipts and bills and lease agreements and…
Patrick Villemaire: So when it comes to Common pitfalls other than not keeping the books,…
Neal Winokur: other kinds of legal agreements and donation taxi,…
Patrick Villemaire: up to date every month.
Neal Winokur: there’s a lot of stuff they want to see so If…
Patrick Villemaire: Is there anything else that raises a flag that …
Neal Winokur: if you’re keeping paper records in a physical office and…
Patrick Villemaire: these people need to be aware of?
Neal Winokur: you have boxes of paper and folders that could make the process kind of inefficient less efficient and cumbersome
Neal Winokur: so I would say to make it easier. It might be a good idea to invest in a really good scanner have everything scanned in and there’s a lot of different now, secure file sharing systems that people like to use file Dropbox Google Drive. I mean, they’re one drive. There’s a lot of different ones and the audit for you can just have everything in the Scanned and just share that folder with the audit firm and they’ll have everything they need right or whatever they ask for you can drop it in there. So part of the process that makes an audit engagement kind of annoying or frustrating is
Neal Winokur: The audit firm will send you a list of everything they want to see and then it’s gonna take time for you to gather everything right, but if you have it all ready to go, right if everything’s kind of scanned in and organize you have a folder and there’s some folders with whatever, that can make it a lot easier. Whereas if you kind of just keep everything throughout the year and a big box and it’s not organized that will make it harder. So we do this with our clients. We advise them we get to know the client and what they’re like and then we will set them up on there’s different systems and apps out there that we like to set them up on.
Neal Winokur: In order to scan receipts throughout the year very easy with just take a picture on your phone. there’s all these different apps and I think a lot easier dragons draw up on your desktop or even if you have a receipt in your email, you can just forward it into your system so easy. So you want to print and scan everything. So I definitely recommend, implementing some sort of system where you are keeping records and files and documents in a more efficient manner because that will make you all the cross as much smoother.
Neal Winokur: Yeah, that’s exactly it. Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: So it sounds like the key takeaways in his monthly bookkeeping and…
Neal Winokur: I mean look obviously varies, right it can take anywhere from I would say at least a few weeks a month,…
Patrick Villemaire: then when you’re doing the monthly bookkeeping make sure at the end of the month every received document is scanned in some sort of secure file system.
Neal Winokur: maybe two months could be longer depending on…
Patrick Villemaire: And then …
Neal Winokur: how large the organization is…
Patrick Villemaire: you release agreements you have your receipts month by month any other documents and…
Neal Winokur: how much they’re and…
Patrick Villemaire: then you give it to the audit firm and…
Neal Winokur: the nature of the activity of the organization,…
Patrick Villemaire: then hopefully they have everything they need.
Neal Winokur: you…
Neal Winokur: all the firm has to do its work according to the rules of you…
Patrick Villemaire: And then,…
Patrick Villemaire: they turn around and you’re good to go.
Neal Winokur: CPA, whichever Province. They’re in right there’s …
Patrick Villemaire: When it comes to the other process,…
Neal Winokur: so Yeah,…
Patrick Villemaire: so how long would I mean obviously there’s something different complexities.
Neal Winokur: it could take a couple months at some time.
Patrick Villemaire: But how long would that process usually take with would it be reasonable to assume that’s going to take two month process?
Neal Winokur: At least. I mean it really varies. There’s no one answer to that but there could be back and forth because Once you send the auditor the initial information, like what we call a trial balance and a general ledger like the books are completed on your end. Send it to the other and they’re gonna then send you a list of everything. They want to see.
Neal Winokur: Right. all the firms are more organized than others. So in some other firms, you might get 10 different emails from tensor from people asking to see a million different things. the more organized ones will send you you have one person running it right and they’ll send you a big list. So then you have to gather everything send it to them. They have to do their work examine everything take all their notes so it could be a long drawn out process and then the financial statements and the notes the French statements and then on there and they have to review it and sign off on it and you have to sign off on it. So it’s a process, but it’s hard to say it should take this amount of time and really cares.
Neal Winokur: I think that’s exactly right organization is key If you have an organization an offer profit charity and you need an audit and you need a new all that firm, you should definitely ask them. About this …
Patrick Villemaire: That makes sense. So it seems like you…
Neal Winokur: how does their service work?
Patrick Villemaire: if you’re looking for a new auditor or…
Neal Winokur: What will it look like who will they be dealing with?
Patrick Villemaire: you don’t have one or…
Neal Winokur: Are they organized?
Patrick Villemaire: you want to change it up that you’re looking for.
Neal Winokur: Right try to get that information beforehand…
Patrick Villemaire: Someone that has basically a list of this is what everything you need and…
Neal Winokur: because that …
Patrick Villemaire: there’s gonna be one contact person and…
Neal Winokur: that would make the process smoother…
Patrick Villemaire: you’re not gonna go through the system. So it seems like you like not saying that you…
Neal Winokur: if they have a lot of experience with it and…
Patrick Villemaire: this organized ones might be great…
Neal Winokur: they have a good system in place that could definitely help for sure.
Patrick Villemaire: what they do but basically organizations probably key for a living alleviating a lot of the stress in the pain ones.
Neal Winokur:
Neal Winokur: I guess it would be showing people the value of getting this done. Right. So…
Patrick Villemaire: And that makes sense. So Neal.
Neal Winokur: if you’re responsible for an offer profit or…
Patrick Villemaire: Thank you so much for this chat today.
Neal Winokur: charity and…
Patrick Villemaire: I have one kind of closing tradition that we do so I asked Chad GTP I give it some prompts about you and…
Neal Winokur: you hate all that financial statement process every year look at it just change your perspective and mindset to
Patrick Villemaire: what we’re talking about and I asked for a question to ask and…
Neal Winokur: Realizing that this process can actually help your organization the others might find things that you have missed.
Patrick Villemaire: so the question I got back was as the grumpy accountant. So when we’re talking about, nonprofit annual reports Financial team.
Neal Winokur: They might suggest efficiencies. They might just better internal controls.
Patrick Villemaire: It’s easy to see why someone becoming company.
Neal Winokur: They might suggest other accounting systems.
Patrick Villemaire: How do we flip that around and…
Neal Winokur: There might be improvements that they might find that you’re spending unnecessarily in certain areas and…
Patrick Villemaire: make people excited about it?
Neal Winokur: could save you money. They might find certain revenue streams like student types of activities are more. I don’t want to say profitable but generate more donations or more or more, incoming receipts of money than others like they might find things really help your organization.
Neal Winokur: and that’s the same thing with the tax system the tax system is too complicated. But that means that there’s ways for you to benefit from And so it’s just looking at it from a different perspective. Look at the audit process as this is going to help identified problems fixed problems, right? So, it’s just like that. It’s just kind of trying to change your mindset a little bit.
Neal Winokur: right
Neal Winokur: exactly exactly.
Neal Winokur: Yeah. Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: Yes. So you’re basically changing your framing for something that’s passive and…
Neal Winokur: exactly Okay.
Patrick Villemaire: reactive to something that you’re getting all this data you’re doing analysis and now some strategic review process for the organization.
Patrick Villemaire: So yes, you get the audited financial statements, but it’s also okay this is…
Neal Winokur: Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: we’re seeing, traction with it, revenue or profits or even expenses, we see expenses going up on this side and can we look at this to see if there’s ways that we change Know about other financial statements and it’s like a four or five minute video clip.
Neal Winokur: Right. Okay,…
Patrick Villemaire: change things so it’s more of an opportunity and Then there’s gonna be more attraction is more shareable. not just a…
Patrick Villemaire:
Neal Winokur: That’s smart.
Patrick Villemaire: a task that needs to be completed.
Patrick Villemaire: a…
Neal Winokur: I love it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Patrick Villemaire: And the other nice things I…
Patrick Villemaire: I got so I think last time we’ve had it we were talking about, virtual assistants right like us guiding now I’m like, okay let’s look at the books. Let’s do some financials, just reframing it.
Patrick Villemaire:
Neal Winokur: Okay. right
Patrick Villemaire: guiding when we first met I think it’s people more excited. We see more opportunities. I’ll probably Neal thank you so much It was a pleasure.
Neal Winokur: Thanks for having me. Thank you.