need a doctor?
In a very real sense, an accountant is your organization’s doctor.
As she watches the numbers, she’s in a perfect position to catch any threats to your organization’s financial health early on, while you still have lots of choices on how to fix problems. Or, if things are going well, the numbers give both of you that news, too, so you can take advantage of opportunities.
The numbers can show a lot:
- Are expenses going up in one area faster than others?
- Are you concentrating on the most profitable products and services? Or is a big revenue-generator actually costing you more in labor or other expenses than it should – and sapping profits as a result?
- Are you buying equipment and supplies profitably, with a procedure that controls costs and takes advantage of all the incentives in the tax code?
How to pick a great accountant.
Like a great doctor for your family, your accountant should have lots of experience – and insight into the specifics of your business.
The more situations she’s seen, the better. She’ll know what to do, and if hard times ever come, you won’t be able to shock her or throw her off her game.
Naturally, we recommend Kathy Hall.
Kathy and her team have seen it all:
- Changes in the tax laws – and in how those laws get enforced from year to year.
- Brushes with bankruptcy and amazing success – often from the same people.
- Complicated business structures and situations.
- Personal finance: when does personal become business, or business become personal?
And she combines that experience with a commitment to small-town, personal service that treats everyone in a client organization like the client, from the receptionist and the cleaning crew on up to the CEO.
It’s one thing for us to recommend Kathy.
But why have so many other very smart organizations put their trust in her?
Find out here.
Another thing that makes a great business adviser, whether accountant or any other kind of consultant:
Civic pride and community service.
When Kathy and her family came to the water’s edge in 1997, she joined a well-established firm in town that had been the choice of every business in the county – and beyond – for years and years. When she took over that firm in 2004, she too was an established member of the community, with her own civic portfolio.
Today Kathy sits on the Foundation board of the area’s signature event, the Urbanna Oyster Festival, which draws thousands of fans to the area every fall. The Festival Foundation also puts on a full calendar of events that support a variety of charities and lead up to the Festival itself.
Family values and duty to country.
Family was a big part of the reason Kathy moved to the water: To spend more time with husband Ed and their kids.
To live life at a slower pace than they could in the city, in a more wholesome environment. And as they grew into the ways of small-town life, they adopted another small-town tradition: they became a military family.
One son, David, has been in the Navy for most of this century, with assignments in Italy, Kuwait and Iraq under his belt. (This shot of Kathy and David is at David’s graduation from basic training in 2002.)
Second son Daniel is a technician on infrastructure projects; Matt, the youngest, is an engineer. Ed’s daughter Ashley is a healthcare administrator.