Member of Russell Bedford International, a global network of independent professional service firms.
Member of Russell Bedford International, a global network of independent professional service firms.
Accounting & Advisory Services (CAAS) Manager
Can you see all of your family’s finances in one place? Do you know what changed this quarter, where your money is going and what your tax picture looks like before April?
For many high-net-worth families, the honest answer is “not really.” That’s why more families with a single-family office (a dedicated setup for managing one family’s wealth, investments, and financial affairs) increasingly turn to outsourced accounting. In many cases, the goal isn’t only to “keep the books.” It’s to build an organized financial system that supports smart decisions, smoother tax seasons, strategic planning, and continuity for the family over time.
Unlike investing or employment income managed on a personal level, family wealth rarely sits in one place. It can include multiple accounts, assets, and sometimes related entities. Even in a single-family office, finances can span brokerage and bank accounts, real estate, rentals, concentrated holdings, compensation and equity activity, philanthropy, and complex tax documentation. An outsourced accounting team keeps it all organized and works alongside your attorneys and financial advisorsthroughout the process, which helps ensure everyone is on the same page.
Consolidated financials across accounts and assets
When wealth is spread across many accounts and assets, it’s difficult to know where you stand. Outsourced accountants can combine everything into one set of reports so the family leadership can clearly see:
Fewer surprises at tax time (and better tax readiness year-round)
When bank and investment accounts are reconciled throughout the year, tax preparation becomes smoother. Outsourced accountants help ensure data is organized and reconciled, so the tax conversation starts early, and missing information is addressed well in advance of the due dates.
A deep bench of expertise (especially if aligned with public accounting resources)
Family finances get complicated quickly. Working with an outsourced team gives you access to specialists without hiring a full in-house team. That can include help with:
Better governance and decision-making
When your books are organized, you can answer the questions that matter like:
Your financial reports stop being a rear-view mirror assessment of performance and become a tool for planning ahead.
Time savings and less administrative burden
Chasing receipts, reconciling statements, and manually combining reports can take hours. With an outsourced team handling the routine work, it frees the family office to focus on other priorities.
Every family is different, but here’s how it typically works:
Step 1: Get to know you
We will talk through what the single-family office needs: monthly or quarterly reports, tax-ready records, visibility into your entities and assets, and how often you want updates.
Step 2: Review and cleanup
We review your current records for missing documentation, inconsistent labeling, and transactions that aren’t clearly explained, then builds a plan to fix them.
Step 3: Set up a system
We create a consistent way of labeling income and expenses plus ways to share and store documents.
Step 4: Close the books and report regularly
Each month records are matched to your statements and reviewed to create reliable reporting and combined reports you can count on.
The best family office setups have everyone on the same page. Your accounting team should work closely with your other partners:
The result is one consistent story, so your tax returns, legal documents, and investment reports all agree.
Questions to ask your outsourced accounting firm
To get the most value early, use your first conversation to ask:
Outsourced accounting can turn scattered records into a clear and consolidated picture of your family’s finances and keep your whole advisory team in sync. You can start with the process and deliverables, then deepen the partnership as complexity grows.
Thinking about outsourced accounting for your family office? Cray Kaiser can help you get organized, combine your reporting and work with your advisors. Contact us at 630.953.4900 and we’ll be happy to discuss your situation and help you map out practical next steps.
Accounting & Advisory Services (CAAS) Manager
The end of the year will be here before you know it. Now is the perfect time to pause and ask a few important questions about your accounting operations. Are your books up to date? Are there cleanup projects that will take longer than expected if you wait? Is your team getting the most out of your systems, especially when things speed up in January?
Year-end is more than a deadline to “get entries posted.” It’s a chance to see where your accounting really stands, identify problems early, and fix them now so your year-end close and the start of the new year will go more smoothly and be less stressful.
Use the questions below to start a conversation with your team and, ideally, with your advisors.
Before year-end arrives, take a close look at where things stand with your accounting. Ask yourself:
If something feels off, don’t wait, year-end is the time to address it. Waiting until the week before close is often how small problems become large ones.
Accounting cleanup doesn’t have to mean redoing everything. Often, it’s a handful of specific fixes:
The earlier you start, the more time you give your team to find out why something went wrong instead of just patching symptoms. This also helps you produce year-end reporting that you can trust.
Many organizations rely on manual steps that worked when you had fewer transactions. But even when your team is diligent, as your business grows, manual processes can slow you down and increase the likelihood of mistakes, especially during busy periods.
Ask yourself these questions:
Year-end is a smart time to identify what’s repetitive and what is error-prone. That’s where automation tends to cut down on rework and mistakes and ensure a more predictable close.
Most businesses use only a portion of what their accounting software offers. Sometimes a feature is there but not set up correctly. Other times, nobody has been trained on how to use it.
Ask internally:
A software “refresh” doesn’t necessarily require new tools. It can be as simple as reconfiguring workflows, improving settings, and ensuring your team is fully utilizing the system’s capabilities.
If you still have manual steps after reviewing your software features and internal workflows, a new app may help. These tools can:
The key is timing. Many employers are tempted to add tools mid-year, which can create rework if workflows change halfway through. Year-end gives you a reason to plan now. Your advisor can help you compare options, set things up properly, make sure your data transfers correctly and get your team ready.
Internal controls are simply the safeguards that employers use to protect accuracy, compliance, and consistency. Year-end tends to show where the gaps are.
Consider:
Also ask whether your current approval processes are sustainable during close. If your close depends on last-minute “catch-ups” or manual approvals, it’s a sign it’s time to take another look.
When procedures aren’t documented, the knowledge lives in people’s heads. That becomes a problem when deadlines hit and someone is out sick, leaves or gets pulled away.
This is a great time to ask yourself:
If not, consider creating a simple year-end checklist. Even a basic one can save hours and reduce confusion when timelines are short.
Sometimes the issue isn’t the software, it’s how it’s being used. Training can improve compliance and accuracy, especially around:
If year-end is approaching and you know certain tasks are being handled inconsistently, consider targeted training now before things get busy.
One of the best reasons to prepare now is setting your team up for a smoother early-year close. If you plan for upgrades or workflow changes with proper testing and training, you can step into January with improvements that support faster AR/AP processing, cleaner documentation, and fewer manual steps.
As we approach year-end, ask yourself the questions that matter:
Planning your year-end accounting review? Cray Kaiser can help you assess your current software usage, internal controls, AR/AP workflow automation opportunities, and whether new app integrations could make a difference. Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss your current situation and help you map out practical next steps before January 1.
Accounting & Advisory Services (CAAS) Manager
If you have employees age 50 or older who make “catch-up” 401(k) contributions, 2026 brings an important change. High earners can no longer make those contributions on a pre-tax basis. They must be designated as after-tax Roth contributions instead.
The tricky part isn’t just knowing the rule, it’s that neither QuickBooks Online (QBO) Payroll nor QuickBooks Desktop (QBD) Payroll fully automates this transition. As the employer or bookkeeper managing payroll, you’ll need to make some manual adjustments to stay compliant. Here’s what you need to know and how to handle it on both platforms.
2026 Contribution Limits at a Glance
| Contribution Type | 2026 Limit |
| General elective deferral (all employees) | $24,500 |
| Standard catch-up (age 50+) | +$8,000 (total) $32,500) |
| Enhanced “Super” catch-up (ages 60-63) | +$11,250 (total $35,750) |
Under SECURE 2.0, catch-up contributions for higher earning employees are now restricted:
For employees below the $150,000 threshold, nothing changes. They can still choose pre-tax or Roth catch-up contributions as before.
Both QBO and QBD Payroll are built around a single 401(k) deduction item that can either be pre-tax or Roth, not both and not a switch midyear. Neither platform will automatically:
That means for any employee subject to the mandatory Roth rule, you’ll need to set up a second, separate deduction item specifically for their catch-up contributions and manage the two items so they don’t exceed their individual limits.
QBD manages limits at the global Payroll Item List level rather than purely in individual profiles, so setup is slightly different:
1. Create the two payroll items globally, if you haven’t already:
2. Assign both items to the employee’s profile:
3. Unlike QBO, QBD lets you run both items concurrently on the same paycheck without a workaround. Each item stops automatically once it hits its own annual limit.
If you’ve already run January 2026 payroll and mistakenly withheld a high earner’s catch-up contribution as pre-tax, you’ll need to correct it manually in both systems since QuickBooks cannot reclassify a finalized paycheck automatically.
In QBO: Run an adjustment/bonus-only check for the employee, entering a negative amount against the pre-tax 401(k) item and an equal positive amount against the Roth catch-up item, so the check nets to $0. This corrects your tax tracking and adds the amount back into taxable wages for W-2 reporting.
In QBD: Use Employees > Enter Payroll Adjustments, select the employee, and make the same offsetting negative/positive entry between the pre-tax and Roth items.
Important: this fixes your internal payroll records only. You still need to contact your third-party 401(k) recordkeeper (e.g., Fidelity, Empower, Guideline) directly and ask them to formally recharacterize the funds inside the employee’s actual investment account because QuickBooks has no connection to that.
Navigating SECURE 2.0’s new Roth catch-up rule alongside your existing payroll setup can get complicated, especially when corrections and multiple deduction items are involved. If you have questions about how this applies to your business, contact the CAAS team at CK. Reach out to our team today to make sure your 2026 payroll stays accurate and compliant.
This post is intended as general guidance on payroll administration, not tax or legal advice. Contribution limits, thresholds, and QuickBooks workflows can change. Confirm current details with your 401(k) plan administrator, tax advisor, or QuickBooks support before making changes to payroll.
CPA | Manager
Have you ever heard the term “WIP” and wondered what it means? WIP stands for “work in progress” and for construction businesses, it’s a report that shows how a job is doing financially and whether the project is on track. The question is: how much of that work is your accounting software doing and how much is falling on your team’s shoulders? Let’s see why that matters.
What does your monthly WIP reporting look like today?
Let’s take a step back and consider how your monthly close process actually works. As an outside advisor, I often hear clients say things like, “We want our consultants to consult,” or “Is there anything we could be doing better?”
That’s prompted me to approach these conversations a bit differently.
Instead of jumping straight to recommendations, it begins with asking better questions.
For example: does your accounting system generate and keep your WIP up to date on its own? Or does your accounting team still rely on exporting data into Excel—manually updating schedules, recalculating balances, and recording entries after the fact?
If Excel is still where most of this work happens, what does that tell you about the role your system is playing? It might mean your software isn’t being used to its full potential and that your team is doing the work your system could be doing instead.
Which leads to an important question:
Why does updating WIP each month take so much time? Is it simply “the way it’s always been done,” or is something more going on?
Is the system simply unable to handle WIP tracking and calculations?
Or is it capable, but it’s just not set up that way? Somewhere between those answers lies an opportunity. Because every hour spent fixing and double-checking spreadsheets raises a fundamental question:
Should people be doing the work that the software was designed to handle?
From my experience working with contractors, most accounting systems are good at two things: tracking job costs and handling progress billings. As projects change, however, updates to contract values and cost budgets don’t always happen in real time. Instead, they often get handled after data is exported and reworked in Excel.
What would the process look like if those changes were maintained within the system as part of its natural workflow?
Imagine this: instead of exporting data and fixing it in a spreadsheet, your team updates contract values and cost budgets right inside your core accounting system, as part of the natural flow of how information is captured, updated, and maintained over the life of a job.
From there, it’s worth asking:
What processes would need to change to make that possible?
What data would need to be entered differently, or more consistently, to make the system work the way it’s supposed to?
This naturally brings up the role of project managers. They are often the closest to the work and closest to the day-to-day changes like cost updates, job progress, and expectations. Does it make sense to involve them more directly in keeping the job data accurate and current?
What might that look like in practice?
And where is the balance between giving operations more ownership and keeping the right financial checks in place?
All of this comes back to one bigger question:
How is your monthly WIP process built today and how could it look different?
What would it look like to rely less on large, complex spreadsheets and allow the accounting system to carry more of the load?
And if accounting teams weren’t spending hours updating spreadsheets and fixing errors, what could they be doing instead? Probably things like:
And then there’s also the matter of risk.
Spreadsheets are flexible and familiar, which is exactly why so many teams rely on them.
But that flexibility comes with a downside. They depend on formulas, on version control, and on someone entering the right numbers. One small mistake can throw off an entire report.
So the real question is:
Are you actively managing that risk or just quietly accepting it?
At its core, this isn’t just about WIP reporting. It’s about how work gets done, where data lives, and how much your organization relies on people versus systems to keep things accurate and efficient.
The goal isn’t necessarily to eliminate Excel or overhaul everything overnight.
The goal is to start asking better questions:
Just like Steph Curry’s step-back creates an open look, sometimes you have to take a step back before you can take the shot that changes the game.
If this sounds familiar and you aren’t sure where to begin, you don’t have to figure it out alone. The trusted advisors at CK work with contractors to help them make sense of these types of questions and to find practical ways to get more out of the systems they already have. Reach out to us to discuss what your WIP process could look like.
Temporary labor keeps manufacturing lines running, but it can also quietly drain your bottom line if it’s not properly managed. In this video, CK managing principal Deanna Salo and principal Brian Kot draw on decades of experience auditing and advising manufacturing clients across the Chicago area to reveal what’s really happening on the shop floor. They share real client stories that show how temporary labor costs can spiral without the correct oversight. They also talk about the bigger picture: building a skilled workforce through apprenticeships, weighing the trade-offs of automation and AI and knowing when a supervisor or a scheduler could make a difference. If labor costs have you asking questions you can’t quite answer, this video is a great place to start.
Transcript:
Deanna: I’m Deanna Salo, and I’m the managing principal of Cray Kaiser, Limited CPAs. And today I’m here with one of our other principals, Brian Kot. And we’re going to be talking about our manufacturing clients. Cray Kaiser performs a number of services and has for our tenured period of time over 53 years with our manufacturing clients here in the Chicago area. And we want to talk about today some of the key indicators, the key challenges. some of the key observations we have when we’re performing our auditing, advisory, review, tax planning procedures with our clients. The next thing we’re going to talk about is temporary labor. Why don’t you kick us off.
Brian: A lot of challenges in temporary labor as we all know, it’s very hard to get skilled labor. So one thing I’m seeing in temporary labor is having a good production manager. A shop manager is key and very critical to the process because nobody’s paying attention to what’s going on with the hours. And I had one client do a study and they looked into, they were having four temporary people show up every single day and they didn’t know if they even needed a temporary person for that day or not. And they would be there for about two hours and then they would determine their need for the day and they would send some of them home. But they had to pay them for the two hours that they did nothing.
Deanna: Yeah, it’s really interesting. As we go out and audit our clients, we’ll walk the production floor and you just start talking to people, if they allow you to talk to the people. and see people standing around. We had one manufacturer that we were watching the shift change, right. The machines were getting cleaned. It’s actually food manufacturing so they were doing a shift change and they had over 20 people standing around for what was two hours while the shift was getting changed while the machinery was getting changed. And I said, “Who’s running the scheduling on the floor?”
And they said, “Oh, the supervisor’s off today.”
And I went upstairs to the client’s main office and talked to the owner at the time. And I said, listen, I said, you’ve been talking about your labor costs are just skyrocketing. You’re not quite sure why everything was so high. I just was on the floor for 15 minutes and saw 20 people standing there idly waiting for the shift change. You may want to take another look at that. So while temporary labor is so critical to our clients’ success, the seasonality of their businesses, needing more people, needing less people, finding the skilled trades. You know temporary labor is kind of I think part of the brick and mortar of any company right now they need them. They wildly need those people in there. But then how to manage those costs, how to supervise those costs, having a supervisor or a scheduler predictively look at the week’s worth of manufacturing and plan out when those shift changes are, when those people are needed to show up. Clearly, the people can’t just walk in and get on the line. But do we need a 15-minute transition or a half hour transition? Certainly not two hours or three hours and then go home. Right? We also had another client where they were wondering about their labor costs as well. And they had a kiosk for time entry, specifically for the temporary labor and that was connected to the temporary labor company. So the temporary labor workers would come in be logging their time you know key punching in and out and then their full-time employees that work for actually the company had a different keypad that they were keying in their time. And what we found out, we actually did an agreed-upon procedure we actually did a little bit of auditing with respect to the labor and found out that the labor times were not being approved. While their employees’ time records were getting approved by the floor manager, the temporary labor was not getting approved by the floor manager. So really just adding a procedure to verify that all the labor costs, the time entry is appropriate is a huge part of managing that inventory cost as well.
I mean, right now in today’s market, your labor costs and your rent, your occupancy costs are probably, outside of raw materials, are your single largest cost for any company. Your labor costs and your occupancy costs. Even as people are downsizing in their offices, office space is still pretty expensive, even commercial manufacturing real estate as well. So being able to manage, optimize, and supervise those functions. is another really important part of it, too.
Brian: You know, we’ve talked about skilled labor a couple of times. That term has come up. And we do also have some staffing agencies. And I know that they’re trying to start up actually skilled labor divisions and get people certified in certain areas. But I think you have an interesting story with one of your clients on how are they getting skilled labor inside their plant?
Deanna: Absolutely. So even trying to find temporary employees to come work for their company to then be used as a temporary source. Some of our clients actually created apprenticeships and almost their own little universities to create some skilled training. They’ve gone into high schools, they’ve gone into some of the community colleges, some of the trade colleges that are out there, and actually solicited to them. Hey, you want to get an internship, you want to get an apprenticeship? And it’s a paid apprenticeship, it’s a paid internship to get their certifications while going to school. And then after they’ve graduated, they’ve actually procured their new employees, whether it be for the temporary staffing company or even some of my manufacturers as well. So there’s lots of opportunities to try to build up the skilled workforce. And sometimes it’s just a matter of education. And I can say that from a temporary staffing and even an employee base, getting people excited about working on these lines, which are very sophisticated. They take a lot of skilled labor to do that, is a great career for some of those folks. We talk about the line, the manufacturing line. We’re all dealing with AI, artificial intelligence, and the automation that we see in some of our clients. Brian, speak to some of that automation and some of the AI considerations for some of our clients.
Brian: We have some injection molding clients, and we’re seeing them put in a lot of AI and automated equipment to do that. We see a lot of it in the steel industry as well, too, in welding machines and cutting machines. So that’s replacing some of the employee workforce that is needed.
Deanna: But the CapEx requirements are significant for those. So while you’re exchanging the labor force, you are having CapEx costs. We have some manufacturers that actually do some of the folding and packaging and even cellophane wrapping of the boxes and even as much as rolling it off the line and putting it on a forklift truck. That then an actual human, a forklift truck driver, puts it up on the stack. So you know the automation is not new in manufacturing but I think AI is a definite consideration in terms of even quality control, and food manufacturing, food processing, that’s been there forever. You know, the automation of finding a defect as it leaves the line. But even the packaging and the handling that goes to parts and goods that are coming off of a manufacturing line, automating those processes. You know, you’re exchanging labor with CapEx, but the CapEx needs repairs. The CapEx needs somebody to monitor those improvements. So, you know, each company really has to sit with their own financials and see what are some of the exchanged costs? How can I become more efficient and even provide a better product line with some of that automation? Or maybe I stay to the manual labor piece of it because what I’m making is so fairly procured that I really need that individual hand packing and sorting and moving of items off the line.
Brian: So I would ask anybody listening, think about your manufacturing plan. And if you have temporary labor or not. What if you were to cut out two hours a day for four employees for a week for the whole year? How much would that save you on the bottom line?
Deanna: And I think that’s a really important part to the temporary labor. Again, it’s here to stay. We all need that skilled labor force, no matter what industry you’re in, but really making sure that you’re optimizing. paying for that supervisory manager workflow scheduler to make sure that everybody’s being used at their highest and best use.
Brian: And if you have any questions, please contact us.
Deanna: And you can contact Deanna Salo or Brian Kot at Cray Kaiser at www.craykaiser.com. And we’re here to help. Thanks so much for listening.
Managing costs and pricing effectively is one of the biggest challenges facing manufacturers today. In this video, CK principals, Deanna Salo and Brian Kot draw on decades of experience working with manufacturing clients in the Chicago area to discuss the common pricing pitfalls from an incomplete bill of materials to outdated costing models. These can erode profitability. They also explore how frequently businesses should be reviewing and updating their costs in today’s market, how to align your sales force with profitability goals and how strategic focus on core competencies can drive long-term success. Whether you’re a seasoned manufacturer or growing your operations, this conversation offers practical insights to help improve your margins.
Transcript:
Deanna: I’m Deanna Salo, and I’m the managing principal of Cray Kaiser Limited CPAs. And today I’m here with one of our other principals, Brian Kot. And we’re going to be talking about our manufacturing clients. Cray Kaiser performs a number of services and has for our tenured period of time over 53 years with our manufacturing clients here in the Chicago area. And we want to talk about today some of the key indicators, the key challenges. Some of the key observations we have when we’re performing our auditing advisory review tax planning procedures with our clients. So inventory, right, huge item on a client’s financial statements, really the brick and mortar of their profitability. We really want to focus in on you know how clients are modeling their pricing to ensure they’re capturing all of their costs when they’re going out to bid in their pricing. You know the pricing models that we’ve seen some of our clients, I guess what are some of the shortfalls that they have in terms of their pricing models.
Brian: I think the shortfalls having the pricing models is they don’t include all the costs it truly takes to manufacture the product. And they might pick up labor and I know I pay a guy X dollars an hour but they forget about the other employment costs, the taxes that go along with that. And another big thing I see missed is also sometimes the rent costs and the building maintenance some of those other overhead costs that go into your facility to run your plant and your operations, those often get missed.
Deanna: Right. So really what I call making sure your bill of materials, your BOM is fully loaded. You’ve got to make sure that those costs are in your pricing model so that when you’re telling your sales force to go out there and sell your goods that you really know what your gross profit margin might be on those fully loaded costs. Again, the sales force, sometimes the sales force, their drivers are to go out and sell. Go out and sell. And their financial acumen might not be at the calibration that they really know what the gross profit margin is for a certain company. So really educating your sales force to really understanding the financial pieces, the labor costs, the rent costs, the burden costs with respect to how to model the pricing. We’ve also seen some clients shift their commissions, right, and payments to their sales force, not on, you know, sales volume, but also on gross profit margin, right? And making sure that they’re yielding the right profitability consistently. You know, they might have some volume discounts. They might have some other perks for some of their specific customers. But really making sure that they’re honing in on all of their related bill of material costs is a really important part of that, too. What’s some of the other things that they should be doing in terms of making sure that the costing is there?
Brian: One thing I see often is they set a price. They look at their costing once a year. Maybe they did it last year. In today’s economy, the prices are changing so often, you know, depending on what type of raw material that you’re buying. I mean, there could be weekly swings, monthly swings in there. So I do recommend at a minimum, at a minimum, you’re reviewing your costing at least twice a year and you are updating those numbers. And that’s actually very generous when I say twice a year.
Deanna: Yeah. We have a client that does use standard pricing, standard costing. And, you know, they were only updating their prices once a year. So we got them to look at it at least four times a year, and depending upon what the variance might be, to do it even more frequently than just the once a year, right? It was something that it’s an audit client, and we do look at their processes and procedures in terms of their standard costing. And while they were uploading and getting all the pricing there, they weren’t really doing the full roll-up other than once a year. They actually now do it twice a year. But we’ve even leaned in a little bit more on them to say maybe even a little bit more often because the raw material costs is steel imports from China and the tariffs and so forth that, you know, we’ll be going out there this year to audit them. So we’ll be really interested to hear, you know, how frequently they’ve even updated it for the current year. Another thing on inventory is, you know, even on the sales side, you know, some clients are really trying to diversify right through a whole bunch of different types of sales lanes. You know, they want to expand, broaden what they’re selling, how they’re selling to stay competitive in the marketplace. You’ve got a client example that kind of didn’t do that and just stuck true to what they do.
Brian: Yeah. I had a client they were looking to expand into different lanes and kind of take over their supply chain for themselves and they thought maybe we could start manufacturing these items that we’re buying and they decided not to. And the model was we wanted to use the finances and invest in what we do well and do it better. And with that, they have had tremendous success by not expanding out and properly utilizing their capital funds.
Deanna: Yeah. So using their capital funds, reinvesting in the things that they did well, and staying honed in on their costing and profitability, and they’ve been super successful. So there’s a little bit of ying and yang, growing for the sake of growth, which a lot of people could get into that whole wheelhouse of let’s grow to grow, but also stay profitable. And even beyond that is really being able to have the leverage that they had to get the costing at a place in their existing profitability that didn’t compromise their growth. They stayed super profitable.
Brian: And if you have any questions, please contact us.
Deanna: And you can contact Deanna Salo or Brian Kot at Cray Kaiser at www.craykaiser.com. And we’re here to help. Thanks so much for listening in.
Managing your finances effectively begins with the right partnerships and processes. In this audio blog, Karen Hoban, a Senior in CK’s CAAS department, share practical tips to help clients get the most out of their relationship with a CAAS team. From organizing financial records to streamlining communication, Karen offers strategies designed to save you time, reduce friction and help your CAAS team deliver the service you deserve.
Transcript:
My name is Karen Hoban. I’m a senior in Cray Kaiser’s CAAS department. I’ve been with Cray Kaiser about five and a half years. Our goal is to provide excellent service to all of our clients here at Cray Kaiser. And my hope for this blog is to touch on a few ideas I have that might help our current and future CAAS clients help us to help you.
In order for us to deliver to you valuable services, I have a few thoughts on some areas to consider. The first one is documents and financial records management. These would include strategies for maintaining organized financial records, including receipts, invoices, and statements that we require in order to do your accounting or prepare any kind of tax returns. One area that we recommend is to provide us view-only access to your bank and loan statements through the bank. This doesn’t allow for any transactional access, but we can access the bank in our time in order to obtain statements timely. This also frees you up from tedious tasks that you may like us to do instead.
Another thought is to consider upgrading or switching to a cloud-based software similar to QBO or Bill.com. Using a cloud-based software streamlines efforts and allows for document storage within the program. It also offers real-time sharing. We can log in at our convenience to notice any changes that have been made or make any changes to your file.
Another area to consider is to use our portal for document management. This is a secure way to send us files, retrieve files, and we can reduce emails and back and forth of document sharing. It offers access at convenient times for both of us to view what you’ve provided to us.
Another area I’d like to touch on is technology. Again, the usage of QBO, Bill.com, or any other apps for payroll or sales that can be integrated into your accounting software helps us to help you better. Use of AI-enabled software helps in your AR and AP functions, reducing, again, the need for your time for tedious tasks. These softwares also allow us to have real-time collaboration with you and your staff members and gives us extra access to data. Changes and updates can also be made remotely.
The third area that I have to talk about is communication. I find it valuable to have an upfront investment in time to discuss your business and operations. Creating checklists with staff to refer to for documents and information needed on a regular basis, whether it be monthly, quarterly, or at year end. It helps us to be on the same page in what we require and what you know you need to provide. In addition, regular check-ins, whether it be monthly, quarterly, or even at year end, help us to stay up to date with any changes or updates in personnel or management. It allows us to ask the right questions and stay informed of any new purchases or relevant changes in the business.
Lastly, ask questions. It helps us to provide better service if we’re aware of issues, problems, or any questions that you may have.
Hopefully a few of these ideas will resonate with you. A few small or big changes in the areas of document management, technology, and communication can result in a more efficient and successful relationship. Please feel free to reach out via email or phone. We’d be happy to have a conversation on how we can better serve you.
CPA, CVA | Manager
As a manufacturer, your inventory isn’t just sitting on shelves, it’s the lifeblood of your company. Every material you buy, every product you’re building and every finished good waiting to ship represents cash your business has already spent. How well you track and value that inventory has a direct impact on profitability and assists in your ability to make informed decisions.
The foundation of effective inventory tracking is knowing what you have, where it is and what it costs you, in real-time. That means recording inventory movements when they happen, from when raw materials arrive, to production, and ultimately, when they ship. Outdated or rough cost estimates lead to poor decisions about what products to focus on, where to invest, and how to price competitively.
It is also important to regularly review your bills of materials (BOMs), by using systems that capture inventory movements at the point of activity. Like anything, your inventory inputs are impacted by macro and microeconomic factors that can change your cost to produce and therefore, BOMs should be reviewed regularly to ensure that these changes are being reflected. Other factors include changing a supplier, swapping out a material or improving a process; these are all examples of changes that need to be reflected in your records right away, not months later. Stale data can turn into material variances or financial misstatements.
Knowing your accurate costing is equally as important as knowing your inventory because it directly influences pricing, margin analysis, and strategic decision-making. However, you choose to calculate what it costs to make something, including standard, actual, or activity-based costing, the method must reflect what’s actually happening on your shop floor. Inaccurate or outdated costs can lead to underpricing, shrinking margins, misinformed product decisions and misleading financial results. Clear policies about what you expected to spend versus what you already spent help you to catch inefficiencies early, before they become bigger problems.
Regular and timely review of costing assumptions matters more than most people realize. If you don’t know what it truly costs to make a product, you risk pricing too low and losing money on every sale. It is important that your costs reflect current material prices, labor rates, and overhead structures. Outdated estimates lead to poor decisions about which products to focus on, where to invest and how to price competitively.
When inventory tracking, BOM management, and costing are kept accurate and up-to-date, the payoff is significant. You’ll gain a clearer picture of what products are actually making you money, have better control over cash flow, and more confidence in management decisions especially during times of inflation, supply chain disruptions, or rapid growth. In short, strong inventory practices aren’t just an accounting exercise. They’re one of the most practical tools you have for running a healthier, more resilient business.
Understanding what your business is truly worth is a critical step in planning for the future. In this audio blog, Jason Hofferica, Assurance Manager at CK, breaks down the purpose of a business valuation, when you might need one and how the process works, from high-level industry insights to detailed financial analysis.
Transcript
My name is Jason Hofferica. I’m an Assurance Manager here at Cray Kaiser, and I’m a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Valuation Analyst.
A business valuation, in short, is a process of setting the value of a business for several reasons. You can be looking to acquire a business. You could be looking to exit a business, sell a business, maybe for estate tax planning, purposes, gifting. So there’s all sorts of different reasons to want to go ahead and get a valuation for your business or for one that you’re interested in.
They could always ask to obtain their, if there has been one, they can go ahead and request one. Or if they’re more comfortable, they can hire their own personal valuation analyst to go ahead and run the numbers as well to see if the asking price is reasonable.
A business valuation is necessary because things just happen in general. You can have a disability or a shareholder death, gifting purposes. Perhaps you want to start transferring some shares to your children or to other family members. So for these considerations, a valuation sometimes is or often is necessary to come up with these values for transfer.
So a business valuation, the process typically starts from a very high level. And in order to properly value a business, you first have to understand many aspects of not only the macro environment, but the micro environment, the market, the industry. And so typically we start from a high level. We then discuss with the client, get company history. We read industry publications to come up with different things that might impact that specific industry. And from there we start honing in on these different things that might be considerations when valuing.
We then typically look at the financial statements and five years is typical. We do do analysis of financial ratios. We compare it to those in the industry. We try to get as closely to the size and complexity of the business that we’re valuing as possible. We will then go through a process of what is called normalizing the financial statements. Often when you have these closely held companies, officers are paid a certain amount. Rent sometimes is paid to a related party. Is that market value? So all of these different financial information gets adjusted to come up with a true revenue stream of expectations.
Typically the ownership is who will go ahead and get a valuation done for either estate tax purposes, gift purposes, maybe they’re looking to go ahead and sell or from buyers. Buyers will want to know if they’re interested in a business whether or not something is appropriately valued and we will be contacted from that aspect as well.
But really, anybody with these mergers, acquisitions, valuation can be used in all aspects of these. I would say to get a valuation done when there is an event or an occurrence, that would warrant a valuation to be done of your stock.
We do go ahead and we kind of give a good assessment of what the industry and all of those variables for that company to come up with an estimate as far as hours and theme. The final report is actually quite lengthy because of the amount of research and analysis that gets put into it.
Like I mentioned before we start, very high level and kind of work our way down to not only the macroeconomics, but microeconomics regional. We’d go into the industries and it even does include all the different methods that were considered as well as why they were considered or why they weren’t considered. So that the person reading the valuation report should have a clear understanding of the why and as to why a business was valued, where it was valued.
Accounting & Advisory (CAAS) Supervisor
In today’s competitive business environment, staying on top of your company’s financial health is essential for sustaining growth, maintaining profitability, and making informed decisions. Business owners need clear and accurate insight into their financial position in order to make informed decisions, manage risks, identify opportunities for improvement and plan for the future. One of the most effective ways to gain this insight is through consistent financial reporting. Reviewing a few key financial reports each month can help you understand how your business is performing, where improvements can be made and whether you are on track to meet your financial goals.
Below are five financial reports every business owner should review monthly. These reports will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of your company’s financial health.
The Profit and Loss (P&L) statement, also called the income statement, is one of the most important financial reports for any business. This report summarizes your company’s revenue, costs, and expenses over a specific period of time, typically monthly, and shows whether your business generated a profit or a loss. Key metrics to review in this report include gross profit, operating expenses and net income (or loss).
Why this Report Matters:
2. Balance Sheet
A balance sheet provides a snapshot of your company’s financial position at a specific point in time. It outlines what your business owns (assets), what it owes (liabilities), and the value remaining for the owner or shareholders (equity). Key metrics to review in this report include current assets, current liabilities, and owner’s equity.
Why this Report is Matters:
3. Cash Flow Statement
Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business. The cash flow statement tracks how money moves in and out of your business over a given period. Key metrics in this report, include operating cash flow, cash inflows (customer payments or sales revenue) and cash outflows (expenses, payroll and operating costs) and the overall change in your cash position.
Why this Report Matters:
4. Revenue or Sales Performance Report
For many businesses, revenue comes from multiple products, services or business segments. A revenue or sales performance report helps track where income is coming from and how these sources are performing over time. Key metrics in this report may include revenue by product line or service category, sales trends and performance by department or salesperson.
Why this Report Matters:
5. Accounts Receivable Aging Report
The accounts receivable (AR) aging report shows how much money customers owe your business and how long invoices have been outstanding. This report typically groups receivables by time periods such as 30, 60 or 90+ days past due. Key metrics to review include total outstanding accounts receivable, aging categories and the percentage of overdue invoices.
Why this Report Matters:
Successful businesses don’t rely on guesswork; they rely on data. By reviewing these top five financial reports each month, Profit and Loss (P&L) Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement, Revenue or Sales Performance Report, and Accounts Receivable Aging Report, business owners can gain a clearer understanding of their financial position and overall performance.
Regular financial review of these reports not only helps minimize risk and maintain compliance but also provides valuable insights that can support better decision-making, improve profitability and long-term growth. When business owners stay proactive with financial analysis they are better equipped to navigate the challenges, seize opportunities, and builder a stronger, more sustainable business.
If you have questions about your financial reports, please contact the CAAS team at CK. Our trusted advisors work with business owners to improve financial reporting, strengthen accounting processes and provide insights that support smarter business decisions.
