Gregg Wind, CPA: Building Your Business

Music

>> Vince Thompson: Hi! Welcome to Dog & Pony. I'm Vince Thompson. So you wanna start a business but how? What form should you fill out and which tax considerations need to be made? Gregg Wind is a partner at Wind Bremer Hockenberg, a CPA firm offering a more hands-on approach when working with startups. So, at what point does an entity become an entity?

>> Gregg Wind: Just about right out of the gate. If you have an idea and you have some capital and you got your books set up, you're an entity. Question is whether to be a proprietor, whether to incorporate or whether to set up some other kind of entity.

>> Vince Thompson: How do you answer those questions for startups?

>> Gregg Wind: There's no real hard and fast for all. When I first started in public accounting, for some reason, people used to say, "Well, when I get to be about 100,000 dollars a year in sales, that's when I'll incorporate but actually, there is no magic number. Corporations, LLCs offer different things that somebody might need, liability protection, maybe the ability to pay taxes at certain times during the year rather than quarterly. So there's no real easy answer.

>> Vince Thompson: I'm an entrepreneur and I have an idea. I got a PowerPoint. Now I got a little money. I start executing on my idea. When do I need a CPA?

>> Gregg Wind: Of course, I'm bias but I would say right at the beginning. We always say that failing to plan is planning to fail because you really need that plan to start with. You need to know how much money you have to set aside for equipment, how much money to pay your employees, how much money to pay for the products that you'll need. It behooves you to do your homework ahead of time so that you'll know all of that. Assess your competition. Determine what it is that makes you special as compared to everybody else.

>> Vince Thompson: When will I keep my books, could I just open an Excel spreadsheet and keep track of where money comes in and out or is there a better system you can recommend?

>> Gregg Wind: We would suggest if it's a specialized business maybe some proprietary software, for example, the construction industry uses a software package called Timberline just as an example. But we find that some out-of-the-box programs like QuickBooks and MYOB work just great for most small businesses. It just takes a little bit of foresight to set it up, but once it's set up, it's very easy to maintain.

>> Vince Thompson: What are some of the other things that you help clients with?

>> Gregg Wind: We pay bills for clients. We call it business management services. We help them with their estate planning. Any point in their life or particularly when they're at the other side of 40, talking about whether they wanna leave a legacy to their children or their heirs or whether they're philanthropic and they wanna start a charitable foundation. The key is finding out what's really important to the client. What do they really wanna do, what's really their legacy, and to help them achieve it and often times, it's more than just preparing tax returns or -- or writing checks. It's really bringing another professionals or helping them think, acting as a sounding board. CPAs are very objective. So we frequently get questions from clients because they know we're not trying to sell them anything.

>> Vince Thompson: As the Vice Chairman of the California Society of CPAs, right? Speaking on behalf of your organization, are there people that we can find that are CPAs like you who specialize in startups, who spend a little extra time and are willing to get involved with this level?

>> Gregg Wind: We have a great finder CPA feature on our website calcpa.org. I encourage everybody to interview several CPAs because I think at the end of the day, it's based on personal relationships, it's who you feel comfortable working with. A good CPA should provide more value than the cost and if stuttering ever a client doesn't feel that way, it might be time to think about making a change or redefining the relationship. But I'd like to think that when I work with my clients, whatever they pay me, I'm bringing more values. So I think that's a key.

>> Vince Thompson: How much does a CPA cost?

>> Gregg Wind: Well, that's a wide open question. I think you'll probably find hourly billing rates from -- starting at maybe 100 dollars up to 400 dollars an hour. Some CPAs charge flat fee, some CPAs charge based on the number of forms in your tax return. So it's best to have a real clear understanding about that at the beginning and also request an engagement letter from your CPA. An engagement letter is like a contract between the CPA and the client to find exactly what's gonna be done and how much it's gonna cost or estimates of the fee range just so that there are no surprises later.

>> Vince Thompson: So anytime I work with somebody who bills by the hour, a lawyer or a CPA, I always ask myself, "How can I take advantage of every minute, right?" I don't wanna go tell a story about my family when I'm sitting there. I wanna get my results. What advice do you give for that cash-stripped entrepreneur who wants to maximize that hour or those hours? How can they prepare it?

>> Gregg Wind: We have a funny expression in the CPA profession. It's called shoe-box client and that's the, you know, the guy or gal who comes in with a boxfull of receipts said, "Here, do my tax return." Obviously, that's gonna be much more expensive than somebody who's using QuickBooks or MYOB that has nice reports and all their credit card and bank statements behind it. So definitely, be organized, have your questions ready.

>> Vince Thompson: What did you learn working with entrepreneurs that you can share with our audience?

>> Gregg Wind: Well, that I'm very jealous because entrepreneurs are very creative and whatever side of the brain that is, on the other side but I really get a lot of energy working with entrepreneurs. The best part about being a CPA is that I kind of get to look into people's closets and see why they're successful, how they're successful in what they're doing even after the -- all these years, it's still -- it's still really exciting to meet new people and stuttering talk about their successes.

>> Vince Thompson: Gregg Wind, partner with Wind Bremer Hockenberg. Thank you so much for joining us today.

>> Gregg Wind: Thank you, Vince. It's a pleasure.

>> Vince Thompson: As always, if you have questions or comments, please don't hesitate to send them along. Do so at info@dogandpony.com. I'm Vince Thompson. Thanks for watching.

Music