Small Firm Big Plans - August 2009
Entrepreneurial bookkeeper, Paul Voltzenlogel, uses Liberty to turn work into a business.
Success can be a double-edged sword. So when bookkeeper Paul Voltzenlogel reached the point where he had more work than he could handle personally, he had mixed feelings. 'I was pleased at how well PBK Associates was doing, but I knew that I couldn't carry on doing all of the work for all of my clients, and I was concerned about how I would structure the next stage of growth,' he recalls. The sole practitioner wanted to expand, and take on staff, but he also wanted to protect his reputation, his client base, and its data.
'I'd been using traditional software from Sage to meet my client's bookkeeping and payroll needs,' he says, until 2006, when he realised that growing his business would demand a system with more flexibility and control. 'Online accounting offered the perfect solution,' says Voltzenlogel, and he chose Liberty Accounts. 'It was a new, young company, but the online bookkeeping and payroll system was very cost effective, and it did everything I needed.' So he moved his firm and its clients onto the online system.
'My clients have only a basic grasp of how I was doing the bookkeeping, so they were unconcerned by the move,' he explains, 'although one made it clear that he was unhappy about using the internet for anything, while the other was ecstatic about how easily he would be able to look at his books,' and the bookkeeper had no problems making the transition. Most clients' accounts were mid-year, so Voltzenlogel drew a trial balance from their previous accounting systems, uploaded it, and then went forward with Liberty, while carefully maintaining the audit trail.
Building a business
With the online approach to bookkeeping and accounting, client data is stored on Liberty's secure servers and can be accessed from anywhere with internet access by anybody with the necessary authority. This is a double benefit for Voltzenlogel. 'It is much easier to work on clients books, and help them if they need it,' he says, and it supports the bookkeeper in his ambitions for PBK Associates: recruiting and managing support staff, taking on extra clients, and offering multiple service levels.
This has enabled Voltzenlogel to structure PBK Associates so that he can grow it as little or as much as he chooses, at a minimum cost, with minimum effort, and with minimal impact on day-to-day activities. 'So far, I have two bookkeepers working for me,' he says, 'and source data from the clients goes straight to them.' Both bookkeepers work from home on a part-time basis, using their own computer equipment, but they are PBK employees. 'There is mutual loyalty, so we are all pulling together to do what's best for the firm and its clients.'
At PBK Associates, clients range from sole traders to a franchise operation with multiple outlets and hundreds of employees ? and the levels of service and support they require with their bookkeeping and payroll vary widely too. 'Some clients don't want to know at all, and want you to take care of everything for them,' explains Voltzenlogel, 'while others want to do as much as they can themselves, and just need somebody to keep an eye on things for them.' So PBK offers multiple levels of service and support.
With level one support clients can email or phone with queries, and once a month PBK will check what they've done, remotely, using Liberty Accounts. The next level provides this service, plus a more thorough check to see what may not have been done, while level three checks involve regular on site visits to the client's business. In addition, at the end of the financial year, PBK will visit the client and prepare their books, before they are sent to an accountant. 'Accountants should be presented with everything properly prepared,' says the bookkeeper, 'and we can make sure that this happens.'
Voltzenlogel explains: 'The accountants get everything they need, in the right order, when they need it, professionally presented and backed up by all the right information,' saving the accountant time on the job of preparing the year-end accounts and enabling them to focus on giving advice - and it's popular with clients to. 'It generally costs less money to get a bookkeeper to do this work than it would to get an accountant to do it,' says the bookkeeper, 'so it can help the client to save money' ? which helps to explain why PBK's services are proving so popular.
Planning for the future
'I've noticed an increase in the amount of work I've taken on over the past few months,' says Voltzenlogel, despite the recession. 'Some people are outsourcing their bookkeeping because they're too busy to do it, and others are using a bookkeeper because they think they need to be more disciplined, and manage their finances more carefully,' he reports. Either way, it's good news for PBK Associates, and the bookkeeper's plans for his business.
'Using Liberty Accounts to provide bookkeeping and payroll services online has enabled me grow my business in a way that I couldn't have done otherwise,' enthuses the entrepreneurial bookkeeper. 'I don't personally do all of the work for my clients any more,' says Voltzenlogel, who focuses on high end work such as setting up new client engagements, preparing the books for accountants, and handling sales and marketing activities ? and he has high hopes for the future.
Voltzenlogel wants PBK Associates to grow, and as this happens, all of his investment ? in time, money and infrastructure ? become progressively more cost effective. 'I intend to keep on developing the business,' he says. A year from now he expects the firm to be 'much bigger, and more robust,' and two years from now he'd like to be able to get somebody else in to manage the operation for him. 'I now have something that has a worth independent of me,' he says proudly. 'Thanks to Liberty, I have been able to build a business out of what was previously just work.'
