Welcome back to Geeks R. Sexy. I'm Jason Ladute your host for the fourth Thursday. I got it right this time last time I said Friday. The fourth Thursday of every month taken over for Michelle Davis on the show. We're back with my good friend Cynthia Nutter. She is the owner of CJ Nutter Accounting which you just started this year. I mean like real recently like the last part of the year right? Last quarter. Last quarter. So and her mission is to promote and empower small business and what I really like about what your mission statement is is that you're there to protect the financial security of hard working individuals and I know a lot of accountants. I don't hear them talking about it that way. I think that's really cool that that it's not just about the numbers or the profits. It's really about financial security and it's about people. Right. And that's what I really like about what you're doing. So tell us how you got started in accounting because that story goes way back that goes all the way back to the end run collapse back in 2001 with your pricemen all day talking about that nightmare. Yes. But tell us how you got started in accounting. Also when I was I was at the time where I was thinking about where like what I wanted to study I always thought I was going to study law. And I just remember about the time that Inron collapsed there was so much drama surrounded or you know in there was so many there were so many people that suffered and I lived in Houston at the time. So I watched people go home with boxes in their hands. I literally went to a retirement party one week and then the next week you know they lost everything. Their entire entire savings entire all their investments were just down tubes and they had a lot of investments a lot of holdings in in run companies. So it was hard watching people who should have been retiring have to get jobs at Walmart. You know anything to get by it was just heartbreaking for me to watch that. And I just remember being glued to the TV and anything to do with Inron. I just I didn't understand it. I didn't understand. I was so young. I didn't understand what was going on. It was super confusing even if you weren't young. And there's a great documentary about Inron. It's called the smartest guys. I don't know if you've seen it. The stuff that was going on at Inron. It was bonkers. It was arrogance and hubris and just to the to the next level stuff. But so you were very confused about what was going on. Right. And I wanted to understand it and I saw these people that I guess now I know that they're auditors. I was like who are those people? That's what I want to do. I want to investigate this kind of crime. But this is horrible. So many lives are being you know destroyed because of you know just the criminal activity not only the criminal activity. But also how people will twist and bend the law to you don't even have to be a criminal in order to destroy lives. You just have to be extremely selfish and willing to hurt other people. And our legal and especially our generally accepted accounting practices are supposed to prevent that kind of thing from happening. Right. Right. Well before before Inron that wasn't in the scope of an auditor to do. They weren't supposed to determine whether or not they were subject to fraud. They just were supposed to make sure that the financial statements were accurately represented. And it wasn't until they passed the Sarbings Oxley Act where it is now the responsibility of an auditor to to some degree you know express whether or not there was concern for fraud. Okay. And in addition to that now also the officers have to sign off on that. So because that was one of the that's a lot a lot of how people got away within the past was saying why didn't I didn't know I didn't know now they have to know when they have to sign off the thing no exactly was happening. They have to take responsibility. So. So you studied accounting. Yes. And then you did accounting for other people for a long long time. Tell us about that. I worked in the private sector for the first part of my accounting career. And then I went into the public industry. And I helped a couple of counties develop their bookkeeping practice portion of it. I got into tax work. And the rest is history. So tell us why you left that to start your own firm. When I went into public accounting I worked for a very good CPA out here. And the way that the work was conducted was very carefully. It was he was very much an alignment with the way that I thought caring about making sure that it was all about your client making sure that we were doing everything to protect the client making sure that our work even though the client didn't see our work making sure that our work was protecting the client in case of an audit in case anybody came back after them. When I went to work for other public accounting firms because I wanted to spread my wings to plastic. I wanted to become an auditor that was always part of the plan. So when I went to other accounting firms I realized that the quality of work that these big accounting firms do. It's really not. It's really about the bottom line for them. Which I understand you want to you want to make money. Well in business we're all you know businesses make money. That's what we're supposed to do. Right. So while I always looked at the quality of work as an issue I still try to you know do as they asked me to do but it was it just became increasingly difficult to do what they wanted me to do knowing that there was a way that I could be protecting the client and the way that I presented work because I saw so many ways that they could not that these other companies did anything intentionally but they just it was careless in some ways and I just always have my like like you said I always think about the individual. It sounds like you you put a human face on every on every client. Absolutely. And keep that in mind as you're as you're doing your work for them. Absolutely. So we're coming to the end of a year it's almost the end of 2018 we're about to start 2019. What's some advice or what's some tips you might have for some small business owners or even some families about their accounting of their financial planning coming up. What are things they should be thinking about as a new year kicks off? I think it's new I mean I think it's the same for every new year. Okay. Get your books in order get your books online. Make sure that you're on top of it sooner than later. You know and that way your CPA your accountant can get through the tax season smoothly with you. Yeah. Yeah. I would just think it. So what does that mean to get books in line? Like what are some of the common mistakes some of the common gotchas that you see when a small business owner? Well one is probably if you're a small business owner and March comes around and you're like here do my taxes you're probably already behind the curve right? Right. So what what else do you see? What are some of the gotchas that small business owners especially new small business owners might have for their first year of going through taxes as a small business. Wow. I guess just not having every not having your bookkeeping done through for the year. If you wait till the last minute to get it done it's going to take longer and your CPA is going to have to do somebody has to put in the work. Right. And so if you can go through a bookkeeper like myself you can go through I also do taxes but if you utilize somebody throughout the year you prevent yourself from getting the search at the beginning of the following year. Right. So keep your books current. Right. Keep them clean it sounds like. Save those receipts. Yep. And you can do that digitally now right? You can save all that digitally you don't have to have all this paper hanging around. Right. So keep your books current. Keep them clean. Keep them up to date. Right. Because you can do that yourself if you're so inclined to. If not absolutely find someone to do that for you right? You're much better off spending a little money than you are spending time driving yourself crazy. But have some you know make sure that's done because when it does count when it comes to your taxes especially this time of year if that's not already done the account is going to bill you for doing all that work to get them cleaned up. Right. So right. Any other financial tips or accounting tips for us for 2019? I would say that a lot of business owners that I see have a hard time distinguishing the difference between the federal tax laws and the local tax laws. Okay. Yeah really important. Yeah that is very important. One example is you know if you have employees the federal government has their outline for what they consider an employee and then the state has their outline the states usually going to be a little bit more stringent a lot of especially if you're in California if you're watching this in California changes this year or so. Right. Right. So a lot of what business owners do is they pay attention to the federal long they're like okay it's an employee so I can pay them as a contractor and who I am and play employee taxes and then the state will come in and audit and then you'll have fines and penalties to pay on top of that. You don't want to do that. So all right well thank you so much for being here today. Sit right there because we're going to have you we're going to bring the others back for our panel discussion but before we go tell us who you're looking to connect with and tell us how our audience can get in touch with you. So any business owner is who I'd like to connect with that especially business owners that are needing bookkeeper or a tax repair. I offer part-time CFO services as well as staff development services so anybody who already hasn't established bookkeeping department in their business who might need somebody to come in who's experienced and knows how the services should present. I also help their staff learn the bookkeeping processes. I like to also see people like this guy who do business consulting. Yeah I'm always looking to connect with people so but it's not about me today but thank you so much for being here. We're going to we're going to come back in just a few minutes with our panel discussion. I'm Jason Ladute this is Geeks our sexy we'll be right back.