EP429: Tim Sernett - Technology Vs Tradition: How To Embrace Both

Tim Sernett (July 30): 2.5 months during tax season, that's all you're focused on. So it's 2 steps forward with trying to build the accounting and bookkeeping business, 3 steps backward during tax season, then a couple steps forward the rest of the year, then another 3 steps back during extension season. So realizing now the tax practice was a good tool to put food on the table and put some kids through, through education, I should have sooner gotten rid of the tax practice and focused on just what I really wanted to do. And that is working with the small business owners on the accounting and advisory side. You're listening to The Successful Bookkeeper with your host, Michael Palmer. Listen each week as inspiring guests share their secrets of success to help you increase your confidence, work smarter, and build a business you love. This episode of The Successful Bookkeeper is brought to you By PureBookkeeping.com, the proven system to grow your bookkeeping business. Welcome back to the Successful Bookkeeper Podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be a fantastic one. Our guest is a CPA and distinguished expert in restaurant financial management. Bringing over 3 decades of specialized experience to the industry. Tim Cernett, welcome to the show. Thank you, Michael. I'm really happy to be here and look forward to it. Yeah, great to have you and thanks for being on the show. Tim, it sounds like you've had a very focused career on, on a particular industry, and I'd love for you to share your career journey leading up to this point.

Okay. So I graduated with an accounting degree, became a CPA with a firm out in San Francisco Bay Area called Hood and Strong. After about 4 or 5 years, I realized that audit was not where I wanted to be and went actually back to my family business, my father's business, which is a retail business in Iowa. He had about 7 stores in small towns in Iowa in the county seats. After about 2 years, figured out that wasn't for me either. At that point, we moved to Kansas City where my wife is from and I started my own firm. Probably a little too early to start your own firm, but I did it anyway. And at that point, the focus was small business. Because of my background growing up in a, in a business-owned, business-owner environment and, and raised by a business owner, that's who I wanted to focus on was helping small business owners. And of course, at the beginning, it involved everything from tax to