If you’ve scheduled time on our calendar, you’re likely facing accounting challenges in your business. Whether it’s tax concerns, bookkeeping headaches, or uncertainty about your financial future, taking this step means you’re ready for clarity and solutions.
We’re excited to chat with you and want our call to be productive. To make sure you come prepared and get maximum value from our time together, we’ve outlined below what you can expect during our discovery call.
After you read this, be sure to check out these other blog articles as well:
Step 1: A Conversation to Learn About Your Business, Goals, and Processes!
When you schedule a call with us, we'll plan for an hour conversation, usually on Zoom. If you're local to Memphis, we can meet in person if you prefer.
You’ll receive two email reminders ahead of time with a Zoom meeting link and an option to reschedule if needed. This extended time allows us to better understand your story and dive deeper into your business goals and challenges, whether those are bookkeeping, payroll, accounting, tax, or growth concerns.
Our big goal during this conversation is to learn:
- Your business journey and goals for the next five years
- Your current challenges and pain points with bookkeeping, payroll, accounting, or tax
- Your fears, worries, or concerns when you think about growing your business
Why We Start With Your Goals
We understand that you’ve booked time with us because you likely have a big concern that you’re interested in solving. Maybe you’re worried about meeting payroll, staffing issues, or a year-end tax bill. Rest assured, we will get to that.
But first, we need to understand your long-term vision so we can recommend the right solutions. We’re going to ask you about what your business means to you and where you want to go in the next five years. We need to know what’s most important to you so we can determine the right type of service for your business (whether that’s working with our team or someone else).
Different goals require different financial strategies. For example, if you want to sell your business within a year, your financial needs will differ significantly from a business owner who wants to step away from day-to-day operations so they can spend more time with their family.
So, as you look toward our meeting, ask yourself:
- Why am I running my business?
- What do I really want to get out of it?
You may not have spent much time thinking about your long-term goals just yet, so to provide you with some inspiration as you consider your own goals, here are some of the goals our current small business owner clients have.
- Spend more time away: Many of our clients are looking for the freedom to break away from work, spend more time with family, or take extended leaves without the business falling apart.
- Make more money and/or grow: These goals center around increasing profitability and maximizing growth by adding efficiencies that allow for expanding through new service lines, locations, or revenue streams.
- Buy a beach house (seriously!): This is all about building personal wealth and creating the financial freedom to make significant personal purchases.
- Grow the business to sell it or pass it down to children: Some of our clients are planning for an exit and want to prepare the business for eventual sale with the right financial structures.
- Work ON the business, not IN it: These business owners are looking for support that allows them to focus on business strategy instead of getting buried in day-to-day tasks and responsibilities that limit their focus.
Step 2: Asking Questions to Understand What You’re Wanting to Solve
After exploring your goals, we’ll dive deeper into your immediate financial concerns. We plan to ask a few critical questions about your revenue and primary expenses to get a clear financial picture of where you stand today. We'll also uncover if there are any areas you may be out of compliance with federal or state laws. We can discuss the pros and cons of do-it-yourself bookkeeping, payroll, and taxes, and talk about when it’s a good time to outsource.
Many small business owners make major mistakes when they first get started, and two of the most common we see are inaccurate bookkeeping and financial records, and no real plan when it comes to filing and paying taxes. Not having the proper financial systems in place can get you in big trouble when you need to obtain a line of credit or want to invest in your business. And it can lead to overpaying your taxes. So, you may have booked time with us because you’ve got something like this going on.
We’ll ask a few other questions. And of course, we’ll leave time for you to ask questions as well.
Step 3: Scheduling a Next-Step Meeting and Requesting Details from You
If, after our call, it feels like a good fit and you think it makes sense to move forward, we’ll want to assess your current financial and tax situation and prepare a solution for your business. This will require us to get several items from you, like:
- Your most recent business tax return
- QuickBooks Online access or your most recent financials
- A couple months of bank and credit card statements
Our services are bundled into monthly services starting at $625/month, which includes monthly bookkeeping, payroll, and tax services. There are a variety of factors that affect your price, like the complexity of your business structure, if we're handling A/P, and heavy volume in your books.
Important note: We believe this integrated approach is fundamental to how we deliver value. That’s why we require payroll services as part of our bundled package. We’re happy to explain more during our call. If that’s not something you’re willing to consider, we’re not going to be the best partner for your small business.
We’re looking forward to learning what’s important to you about your business and showing you how the right accounting partnership can remove some of those pesky admin, bookkeeping, and stressful tax tasks off your plate.
By understanding your goals and challenges first, we can determine whether our approach will truly help your business thrive. Our discovery call is just the first step toward building a financial foundation that gives you more freedom, profitability, and peace of mind.
By now, you might be wondering, "How much will this cost?"
We hear you. That's why we're upfront about our pricing.
Get a personalized estimate. Use our instant pricing calculator to get a ballpark estimate of what our services might cost for your specific needs.
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