Numbers Tell Stories…

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I love the title to this blog post: Numbers Tell Stories.  We dweebs too often forget that real people doing hard things under various circumstances create financial statements every month.  As usual, we focus on a product and outcome (boring financial statements) as opposed to a relationship and human interactions.

INTRIGUING EXAMPLE: I met with a new client today and they were blown away when I spelled out our firm’s view of helping you prepare your financials.  Here is what I said:

“You want us to help you prepare a reviewed financial statement at year end, and make sure your financials are timely and accurate.  But we can’t start with your financials.  I want to leave the office and go out into your plant and see where the numbers happen.  There are people out there right now doing work and building relationships with other co-workers.  They don’t know it, but their daily actions have dollar values attached to them, when viewed from the owner’s perspective.  We can walk through an organization, talk to the staff, count the inventory and see the effects on the financial statements literally walking around and interacting with us.  When we understand that world, we will then begin to see that financial statements are simply depictions of activities that generate cost, create value, create too much expense, create just the right amount of expense, etc.  Our firm starts with the relationships that create the ultimate financial statements that we analyze at the end of each month.  I’m interested in your people and processes.  When we nail those down, then the financials prepare themselves.  So let’s leave this boring office – let’s go look at your business and let me tell you what I see.  There’s dollars walking around out there.”

The client’s mouth drops open every time – “I’ve never heard it put that way before.”  That’s because CPAs and accountants are the biggest dorks on the planet (besides actuaries and people with a PhD in molecular nano bio-mass technology, or whatever).  We don’t know how to build relationships so we sure can’t help our clients see the relationships behind their numbers.  Hello?  Wake up.  Add real value to your clients for once.

I’ve included a picture of dancers just to drive my point home.

Numbers do tell stories.  Are you helping your clients hear the tales? Leave it in the comments.

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