IAM360- Certified Public Accountant Offers Personalized Bookkeeping Services

Emil Abedian, Anchor Bookkeeping founder and chief executive officer, is a Certified Public Accountant and partner of CPA firm Abedian and Totlian, a premier boutique accounting firm in the Los Angeles area offering business consulting, accounting, and tax services for small to midsize businesses.

After working alongside frustrated small business owners for more than a decade, Emil founded Anchor Bookkeeping in 2018, recognizing a need in the market for affordable yet personalized, one-on-one bookkeeping services for small business owners.

• CEO Hack: Listening to books
• CEO Nugget: Look at the big picture when doing something
• CEO Defined: Putting your clients and employees first for a happy experience

Website: https://www.anchorbookkeeping.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnchorBooks/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anchorbookkeeping_/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anchor_Books
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18600166/admin/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilabedian/

Full Interview

Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Emil Abedian of Anchor Bookkeeping. Emile, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Emil Abedian 0:39

Thank you so much. Gresh pleasure being here.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

No problem super excited to have you on. I wanted to read a little bit more about Emil so you can hear some of those awesome things.

Emil Abedian, Anchor Bookkeeping founder and chief executive officer, is a Certified Public Accountant and partner of CPA firm Abedian and Totlian, a premier boutique accounting firm in the Los Angeles area offering business consulting, accounting, and tax services for small to midsize businesses.

After working alongside frustrated small business owners for more than a decade, Emil founded Anchor Bookkeeping in 2018, recognizing a need in the market for affordable yet personalized, one-on-one bookkeeping services for small business owners.

Emil, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Emil Abedian 1:23

I am ready Gresh. Let's do it.

Gresham Harkless 1:24

Let's do it. So to kick everything off,  I want to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you to start your business?

Emil Abedian 1:33

Now I've been doing this for quite some time. I started my CPA firm 10 years ago, and prior to that, I worked with firms and all that. But the main reason I founded Anchor Bookkeeping is because I want to create a bookkeeping or accounting solution for the smallest businesses. And when I say smallest businesses, I refer to really micro companies 50-100 to $3000-$4000 revenue, annual revenue clients. I wanted these kinds of businesses to have the same kind of access that larger million-dollar companies have to their CPAs and consultants throughout the year, but yet at an affordable monthly flat fee.

So they know exactly what they're getting, and at what cost. So this is really why I wanted to create, Anchor Bookkeeping. As I mentioned, I've been working with this business for over a decade, close to 15 years, and I see the issues and problems they're facing on a daily basis, whether it's with their marketing, accounting, or how to get funding or even management issues they are facing, obviously, I can help them with all of these things.

It's not my specialty. But if I can do just what I do best, which is accounting, I can help them with that portion. That will make me happy. That's the goal of Anchor Bookkeeping. That's why I started.

Gresham Harkless 2:51

Nice. And I'm sure that definitely also makes them happy as well because I think that there are so many different things that you have to juggle whenever you're starting a business, that if you can take even just one of those balls and put it into an expert's hands and be able to make sure that you don't have to worry about that. It helps out tremendously as far as being able to focus on those other things.

Emil Abedian 3:10

That's the idea. Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 3:13

Yeah. And that makes perfect sense. And I appreciate the fact too, because you have that mastery of your specific industry you've been working in and as you say, for like 15 years, so to be able to see what the strengths and weaknesses or opportunities are within that industry. Because you've been in there, you've been working with these entrepreneurs and business owners. So I always have said that it seems like the ability to take what is a maybe inexpensive service and be able to make it commonplace or affordable for everybody is really where a lot of opportunities lie. So it's kind of great to hear you doing that with Anchor. Appreciate it.

Emil Abedian 3:48

Yes.

Gresham Harkless 3:49

So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. Can you tell us a little bit more about anchor tell us, you know, if somebody wants to get started how exactly they should do that?

Emil Abedian 3:57

Yeah. So as I mentioned, it's straightforward. We provide bookkeeping services mainly, strictly, really. We're not a software company where the business owner has to subscribe to it to do their own bookkeeping. We want to simplify the bookkeeping process for the smallest business owners, and by utilizing the technology we're using technology to do that for our business owners. As I mentioned we are a bookkeeping company we provide each business that we work with their own dedicated bookkeeper. Our in-house Glendale base Calif Glenda California based bookkeepers who do their bookkeeping prepare the financial statements on an ongoing basis on monthly basis and just upload those financial statements back to the client portal on our website.

So they have access to it at any given time whenever they need it, if they need to sit down to talk to their CPA for tax planning purposes, or just if the bank requires it. So they have access to it at any given time basically. Not only that we provide them with the financials and the bookkeeping, their debt Okay, the bookkeepers are available at any given time for them just through chat, text, email, or just a phone call away. So they pick up the phone and call their dedicated bookkeeper, the bookkeeper has done their bookkeeping, and they know exactly what they've gone through, it's not just a customer service person, just picking up the phone has happened, that you'd have to explain the entire process. So you work very closely with your own bookkeeper throughout the year, and as long as you're within group bookkeeping.

Gresham Harkless 5:28

Nice, I definitely appreciate that motto. Definitely correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like with accounting and understanding your books, it's definitely obviously the science to do on it. But I feel like it's also an art. So I feel like that's a really great advantage to be able to talk to your regular bookkeeper, where you can tap into their expertise and understand exactly if you should do A, B, and C and why exactly you should do that, or vice versa. Because sometimes when you just have the system, you don't really get that expertise.

Emil Abedian 5:55

That's the problem Gresh that we see with a lot of small business owners, They might have bookkeepers doing the work for them, but they don't understand the numbers you have to understand your numbers to make smart decisions about your own business. Or they might just get software that does the work for them, which I don't think it doesn't work, but they think that it does. But you have to understand it, you have to have support from your team who can explain it to you. Why did this number go up and down throughout the year? So you understand what's going on, again, to make wise decisions. Not only that, the IRS requires it and different government agencies require it. But just for your growth purpose, you need to know numbers.

Gresham Harkless 6:38

Yeah, absolutely. You understand like, yeah, obviously, no one wants to ever get in any hot water. So you stay away from that, but at the same time to be able to think about your business, not just today, but also 5-10 years, 15 years down the line, it's important that you take those steps in the very beginning. So I appreciate you for making that accessible at an affordable rate for small to medium-sized businesses. And did you consider that to be like, what I would call your secret sauce, and it can be for you or it can be for your organization? But the thing that kind of sets you apart?

Emil Abedian 7:07

That's part of it. Yes talking to small business owners, a lot of them think that bookkeeping is the same thing as data entry. And unfortunately, there are lots of bookkeepers out there, quote-unquote, that just do data entry, they enter the data and then send it over to the client or the client CPA for tax return preparation, and it's their own responsibility. I did my part, I'm just a bookkeeper. We don't see it that way. What I see bookkeeping is more than that. It's accounting, its financial statements. When you do your accounting for your personal finances, and a lot of people do budgeting and put together some small numbers in common expenses for your own personal finances, you can do it the way you want to. Because no one looks at it, as long as you understand it, that's perfectly fine. But when it comes to business, accounting, and bookkeeping, not only that, you have to understand the numbers, and your CPA has to understand it because he or she will have to prepare the tax return. But more importantly, the IRS needs to understand it.

And IRS has its own ways of putting the numbers together and putting them into the tax returns. So you have to make sure all three people, your CPA, tax preparer, whoever does that, and more importantly, the IRS understand it. And that's what we do. And we've been doing this as a measure for 10-15 years now. And we know what the IRS is looking for and what they want. And that's what we provide our small business owners, and not only to them, we provide it to their CPAs also, and the CPAs or the client can contact us at any given time with any questions.

We have a lot of CPS contacts during the tax season asking us questions about the financials and our bookkeepers are right there responding to them, again, through chat, text, and phone, however, they want to contact us doesn't matter to us. That's why we say it's our secret sauce for our client, we just don't do the work and shift their order, then we continue the relationship and explain it to that then the CPA and prepare it in a way that the IRS wants it and understands it. That's what I think would be our secret sauce in this game.

Gresham Harkless 9:08

I definitely appreciate that. Because I think a lot of times, I always talk about communication, just on a general level, it's like a lot of people don't realize that communication is all about the person on the other end understanding. So just like you were talking about where you have the numbers, you have that raw data, but does the CPA understand it? Does the business owner understand it? Does the IRS understand it? Is it in alignment with all those different things, to be able to translate that and make sure that everybody is on the same page is definitely important.

So I appreciate that perspective and that difference in that perspective on of your secret sauce. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Emil Abedian 9:53

That's a good one. And as an entrepreneur, these are going up and down your motivation levels go up and down from one day to another one day, you get a great idea you're burning, you're flying high, and you can't sleep at night, it's excellent. And a couple of weeks later, or even a few days later, life sucks, you don't know how you're going to cover your next payroll, and you're losing your business, it goes up and down, like a roller coaster, and I'm sure you talk to all the CEOs all the time, how it is, which is fine, that's part of it, that's part of the business.

And because you put a lot of time and effort in and a lot of energy, it goes up and down. But you got to do things to keep your motivation level up, as much as possible. Obviously, it's normal for it to go down once in a while, but we can't afford to lose momentum, we got to keep working as business owners and entrepreneurs and what I do for myself or for my businesses, keep reading books. Sorry, let me correct myself, I don't read, I listen to books, I listen to books all the time. I'm in the car all the time. So while I'm driving, I listen to books, at the gym, or when I'm out walking. So that keeps me going.

Gresham Harkless 11:08

Nice. I definitely appreciate that. And I'm a loyal subscriber to Audible. So I'm always listening to books as well, too. And I think it's funny when you put it in perspective, I read a quote or something that said you pay maybe $25, or whatever, for a book or an audiobook. And you can get one or two nuggets out of it, that completely change your life, change your business. So it's like such a great investment in a great opportunity to get incredible ROI just by getting that small little hack that's within those things. Now, I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you could happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Emil Abedian 11:44

So my biggest advice I give to entrepreneurs, and really anyone it doesn't even need to be for a business, anything you do, do it right from the beginning. And look at the big picture, look at the way you will scale it down the line. If you want to scale the business, you will be able to do it, it's all up to you. And you will get there sooner or later. So you would rather do it right from the beginning than dig into it and go back and try to fix it later on. That will save you a lot of time and money down the line. That's the biggest advice I can give to anyone starting a business or in life in general.

Gresham Harkless 12:22

Nice, I definitely appreciate that nugget. Because a lot of times you don't put as much emphasis or understand how important it is to put processes and systems in until you start getting further along. And then you want to put those things in place. But you are able to tap into your expertise as well. As far as, how to do that is definitely huge. Because you understand that this is how you would want to build your Anchor Bookkeeping now. So you understand from that experience exactly how you want to do that. So it's important to tap into those words of wisdom and that expertise.

Emil Abedian 12:56

Exactly, exactly.

Gresham Harkless 12:58

Nice. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show.

So Emil, what does being a CEO mean to you,

Emil Abedian 13:07

As a CEO, you have a lot of responsibility. You have to make sure a lot of things are taken care of in the business. But in my opinion, especially in a service-based industry, the biggest thing I see you guys do is have the guts to put your people, your team, your employees, your staff, wherever you go call them first before yourself. Obviously, that's given, but also before your clients and customers.

I didn't do that when I started my first business, I was thinking that the customer, clients are paying the bills, but that's wrong, your employees are paying your bills. Without good staff, good motivation, and engaged employees, you don't have individuals working for you. But that's not a team. That's not a business according to me.

So you have to have the guts to put your people first, motivate them, engage them, and get them involved in your business to get them where you want them because that will reflect on the quality of the work and will reflect on the clients. Also, if you have a good team, motivated team that really is on the same page as your clients will feel it, your clients will see it, they will be much happier also. So you have happy employees, happy clients happy business, you're happy also. So that's my biggest thing your team is number one, absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 14:26

There you go. Yeah, it's like a business perspective of what is a happy wife's happy life. So it's like the same thing where you take care of your employees and then everything else comes into play, and it makes sense because if they're interacting with the clients then all of a sudden you start to have a better experience, they're getting a better product and they're having better service and then it starts to just manifest itself.

Emil Abedian 14:49

Absolutely. I totally believe in it.

Gresham Harkless 14:50

That nice and Emil, I truly appreciate your time what I wanted to do was pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and then of course how best I can get a hold of you.

Emil Abedian 15:00

And as I mentioned in the beginning, you gotta do things right. In my field of accounting and bookkeeping, the number one thing, get the numbers. Number two is to understand the numbers. Make sure you talk to your accountant, your bookkeeper, your CPA, or whoever does the work for you, it doesn't matter that they explain to you that you understand what's going on. Because that's one of the reasons why a lot of businesses fail within the first few years, is because they don't understand the numbers.

Make sure you understand the numbers to be able to take the business to where you want to take it. Obviously, the way you can reach me is by emailing me at anchor@bookkeeping.com. Pick up the phone and call me however you want it. I'm here to answer any questions our small business community wants to ask.

Gresham Harkless 15:52

Nice Well, I definitely appreciate that and we'll have your link to your website as well as your email and phone number and information in the show notes as well but a mail truly appreciates your time even more what you're doing to help out those smaller to medium-sized businesses, micro-businesses and I appreciate your time again, I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Emil Abedian 16:10

My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Outro 16:12

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