Areas of Focus

Outsourced Controllership and Fractional CFO Services; Quickbooks and Third-Party Application Implementation, Training and Troubleshooting

Member Profile

Amy’s is a Partner with Daszkal Bolton’s Strategic Business Solutions Group in Fort Lauderdale, FL, where she provides operational accounting and finance support, including outsourced controllership, fractional CFO services and accounting software implementation, training and support, to small- and mid-sized businesses. Prior to joining Daszkal Bolton, Amy spent time in both public accounting and business and industry. Her diverse background includes internal auditing, financial and operational process improvement in a Fortune 500 setting, as well as external financial statement audit work for KPMG. Amy’s varied experience has given her an uncommon appreciation for the uniqueness of every business and a concrete understanding of how important it is to take a holistic approach when evaluating and implementing financial management solutions for clients. Amy’s unique sensitivity to the individual needs of her clients and her desire to bring her Fortune 500 and Big 4 experience with internal controls and process improvement to small to mid-sized businesses were the momentum for AV Accounting Services, Inc., the accounting services company she founded five years ago.

Although she was settled in her client-centered approach, and determined to run her own business, she was not set on what kind of services she intended to offer. “When I was looking to start a business, I didn’t want to own an audit practice because I was fearful of the liability it brought with it,” she says. “I originally decided to start a bookkeeping service.” She saw the QuickBooks certification on another accountant’s advertisement, and decided to go that route herself. Although she had prior experience with large-scale implementations like SAP and JD Edwards, she had never used QuickBooks before.

With AV Accounting Services, Amy focused on outsourced controllership and bookkeeping services. Once she received her QuickBooks certification, she added QuickBooks consultations as an additional service line. She became increasingly excited about the QuickBooks product, when she realized that she could use the system to help her clients achieve a more comprehensive understanding of their businesses, and in turn help them increase efficiencies and improve cash flow management. “It was so gratifying seeing how you could turn around these companies’ business processes and cash management by showing them through an accounting system how to more effectively run their business.”

Amy’s holistic, client-centric approach immediately caught the attention of Daszkal Bolton’s partners, whom she met nearly a year ago at networking function. Both parties quickly recognized the potential synergy that could exist between the two businesses, and the potential for the two to compliment eachother. It was a natural fit when Amy joined the firm’s Strategic Solutions Group in 2005. “All the people at Daszkal Bolton are top notch,” she notes. “There is always an expert to go to when a client needs help in an arena that I am not familiar [with]. The merger has worked because the firm is a very entrepreneurial-thinking firm for the public accounting profession.”

It didn’t take long for Amy and her new firm to realize the benefits of the merger. The firm gained an established book of business, and Amy was able to leverage a broader range of services for her clients and benefit from referrals from other practices within the firm. Also, because Daszkal Bolton worked with more mid-sized clients, Amy was able to increase her involvement with QuickBooks Enterprise offering. Today the firm is one of only a few firms in the country participating in Intuit’s exclusive Enterprise Solution Provider Program.

In 2007 Amy was made a Partner. She has also become an accomplished QuickBooks speaker and author, teaching as an adjunct professor at local universities and speaking nationally to consultant and application user groups on a variety of QuickBooks-related topics. She has also co-authored QuickBooks reference materials, including a manual published by The Sleeter Group, Inc. Despite all of her accomplishments and the numerous responsibilities competing for her time, Amy has remained true to the client-focused approach that is the root of her success. “When I meet with a prospective client, I find out what they are currently doing….by listening to them and the hardships they believe they encounter, I impress upon them how technology is their friend, not foe. I can show them how they are duplicating work, and by using the right accounting software, how to eliminate manual calculations and duplication in an effort to achieve better analysis tools rather than being inundated with manual data entry.”