Bookkeeping is a skill and a task not everyone wants to perform. Most business owners really just want to focus on the products and services they’re passionate about.
And typically, doing your books doesn’t directly make you money, but proactive guidance will!
These are some of the reasons why Heather Kwitschau established The Executive Geek, a Chicago-based cloud accounting and bookkeeping business.
Kwitschau left a corporate role in financial planning to focus on family and raising her young children. Some years ago, she decided to step back into the world of work. Initially, this involved doing bookkeeping and operations for her local church.
“I thought to myself, ‘I really enjoy this, I’d love to do more of it and for more people,’” she explains. She was also well aware of the demand for this type of service – after all, bookkeeping doesn’t rise to the top of everyone’s list of favorite tasks!
And so, The Executive Geek was born.
Within her first year in business, Kwitschau signed on eight clients, most of whom operate in the non-profit space, including religious and animal welfare organizations. Her primary activities include backend bookkeeping, categorizing general ledgers, keeping her clients’ books clean, and helping them gain a clear picture of the status of their finances every month.
Focusing on what matters
“I find that having regular monthly check-ins with my clients helps them determine whether they’re focusing their time and effort on the areas that are most meaningful and impactful to the causes they’re championing. I’ll look after the finances so they can focus on what they do best,” says Kwitschau.
Apart from QuickBooks Online, Kwitschau makes regular use of Rewind Backups for QuickBooks Online.
As many people who’ve started their own small business after working in a corporate environment will attest, the move introduces many new considerations – and potential risks. “There’s no IT department. Apart from putting mechanisms in place to ensure I get the right information from my clients when I need it, I have to make sure I’m operating securely and responsibly, and that’s where Rewind comes in,” explains Kwitschau.
After hearing glowing reviews about Rewind from fellow accounting and bookkeeping attendees at a QuickBooks Connect conference, it’s become a fixture of Kwitschau’s business model. “Rewind is the default; it’s a given. I automatically build it into my service, and I back up every client that way.”
“Rewind is the default; it’s a given. I automatically build it into my service, and I back up every client that way.”
Heather Kwitschau
The Executive Geek
Fortunately, Kwitschau has never needed to perform a Rewind restore to deal with a devastating data loss, but it’s hugely valuable when she’s performing large-scale data cleanups. “I like knowing that as I start, I’m backing everything up. If I ever encounter an issue while in the midst of things, I can quickly revert to a set point or an individual transaction.”
It ain’t broken…
“Rewind is also useful in the event that a client makes changes to their QuickBooks database that aren’t the right ones or even accidentally deletes files, explains Kwitschau.
“This is the kind of thing everybody needs. I have more and more clients who want to be involved and perform some of their own updates in QuickBooks Online. They know enough to be ‘dangerous!’ But now, it’s okay: I have a good backup. I can undo whatever they do.”
“This is the kind of thing everybody needs. I have more and more clients who want to be involved and perform some of their own updates in QuickBooks Online. They know enough to be ‘dangerous!’ But now, it’s okay: I have a good backup. I can undo whatever they do.”
Heather Kwitschau
The Executive Geek
….But we can fix it
“That can easily happen in the non-profit space because so much of the work is community-based,” explains Kwitschau. “It’s not always a professional accountant updating files in the system; it might be a student, intern, or volunteer. I say to my clients, ‘If someone breaks things, it’s okay; we can fix them.’”
“I say to my clients, ‘If someone breaks things, it’s okay. We can fix them.’”
Heather Kwitschau
The Executive Geek
Having a robust and reliable backup solution in place also ensures that community and non-profit organizations can better and more easily demonstrate that they’re free from any form of financial misconduct that could harm their reputation.
“With Rewind, they can prove that all the right checks, balances, and oversight are there,” says Kwitschau.
