The structure, systems, and leadership required to run and scale your firm effectively.
As an accounting firm grows, informal processes, unclear roles, inconsistent workflows, underutilized technology, and heavy owner involvement become increasingly difficult to sustain.
The challenge is that the most visible problem is not always the real one. What appears to be a capacity issue may be a pricing or client-mix issue. A hiring problem may stem from unclear roles or weak management structure. A technology problem may be the result of an inconsistent process underneath it.
I focus on understanding how the firm operates as a whole, identifying the underlying issues, and helping leadership address them in the right order.
A comprehensive evaluation of the way the firm operates across leadership, organizational structure, staffing, workflow, technology, client mix, pricing, accountability, and other key areas. The goal is to distinguish symptoms from root causes and provide a clear, prioritized view of what should be addressed first.
Ongoing operational leadership for firms that need experienced support between strategy and execution. I work alongside owners and leadership teams to establish priorities, strengthen accountability, improve management rhythms, solve operational issues, and keep important initiatives moving forward. For firms already using EOS® or preparing to adopt it, I can also serve as a Fractional Integrator and help leadership implement and more consistently execute the system.
Not every firm needs ongoing support. I also work with firms on clearly defined operational initiatives, including practice management system implementation and optimization, workflow redesign, organizational structure and role clarity, recruiting, scorecards and meeting rhythms, pricing and client cleanup, and the operational work involved in buying a firm or preparing yours for sale.
Before recommending major changes, I want to understand how the firm is operating today.
The assessment begins with a comprehensive review of the business and is followed by targeted conversations, system reviews, and screenshares where additional context is needed. I evaluate the firm across the areas that most directly affect operational performance and owner dependence, including:
The result is a clear assessment of what's working, what's not working, where the most significant operational risks and constraints exist, and what should be addressed first and in what order.
The assessment is not intended to end with a report. When it makes sense, I can also help the firm implement the recommendations through ongoing consulting, fractional leadership, or separately scoped projects.
Schedule a ConversationI rarely focus on one narrow area of operations. Depending on what's happening in the firm, an engagement may involve one or several of the areas below.
Clarifying roles, reporting relationships, decision rights, management layers, and ownership so the right work sits with the right people and important responsibilities don't fall between roles.
Improving how work moves through the firm, including intake, handoffs, recurring deadlines, extensions, review structure, client follow-up, bottlenecks, and leadership visibility into what is late or stuck.
Selecting, configuring, or improving systems such as Canopy, Karbon, and Financial Cents so workflows, automation, reporting, ownership, and team adoption support the way the firm needs to operate.
Determining whether capacity issues are being driven by headcount, role design, delegation, review bottlenecks, offshore leverage, technology, client mix, or work sitting at the wrong level of the organization.
Identifying where underpricing, scope creep, bad-fit clients, service mix, or inefficient delivery are consuming capacity and limiting profitability, and helping leadership make the operational changes required to address it.
Building the meeting cadence, scorecards, one-on-ones, issue-solving practices, and accountability structure leadership needs to keep priorities moving and manage the business more consistently.
Serving as the firm's Fractional Integrator and working alongside the Visionary and Leadership Team to drive execution of EOS®. This includes Visionary/Integrator alignment, Leadership Team meetings, Rocks, Scorecards, Issues, accountability, and the ongoing discipline required to keep the system working as intended.
Reducing the number of decisions, client relationships, approvals, and responsibilities that depend on the owner by strengthening leadership, clarifying decision-making authority, improving delegation, and building operating systems that allow the firm to function effectively without the owner at the center of everything.
Preparing the firm for an internal leadership or ownership transition by strengthening management depth, clarifying responsibilities, reducing owner dependence, and building the operating structure needed for the business to continue successfully through a change in leadership.
Strengthening the operating model as the firm grows, adds team members, expands services, integrates acquisitions, or reaches a level of complexity where the structure that worked before is no longer enough.
Sometimes the issue is not that you don't know what needs to change, you just don't want to be the person responsible for changing all of it. You may be tired of carrying the operational burden, ready for a different role, or facing circumstances that have changed what you want from the business.
Or you may still really want to grow, but would rather tap into an established organization’s leadership, staffing, technology, recruiting, and infrastructure than continue building everything yourself.
Selling all or part of the firm can create that option.
Selling does not have to mean handing over the keys and walking away. Depending on what you want next, the right structure may look very different.
The right buyer may already have the resources and experience to solve the problems you're facing.
I partner with experienced brokers to identify prospective buyers and facilitate introductions, and help you evaluate prospective buyers, assess operational and cultural fit, compare the structure and implications of different opportunities, coordinate with the professionals involved in the transaction, and work with you as you navigate the transition from one ownership structure to the next.
I recruit primarily for experienced accounting and operational roles within accounting firms.
Because recruiting often intersects with organizational structure, capacity, delegation, and management, I start by understanding what the firm needs the role to own, where it belongs in the organization, and the level of experience and judgment required. From there, I can help define or refine the position, calibrate compensation and experience requirements, source and screen candidates, and manage the search through the hiring process.
My recruiting work is primarily focused on experienced accounting and operational roles. I can also support select tax searches, although tax recruiting is not a core area of specialization.
I have spent much of my career leading operations for accounting and professional services firms, both full-time and as a fractional COO and Integrator. In one role, I helped grow a firm from the early stage to consecutive years of triple-digit revenue growth.
Today, I work primarily with small and mid-sized accounting firms.
My approach combines strategic perspective with practical operating experience. I am comfortable working with ownership and leadership teams on the broader direction of the firm, but I'm equally comfortable getting into the details of a workflow, organizational structure, practice management system, recruiting process, or accountability issue when that's where the issue needs to be solved.
I believe operational improvement should be practical, sustainable, and appropriate for the capacity of the firm, and that philosophy is where the name Fast Enough Consulting comes from.
Whether you need a clear diagnosis of what's getting in the way, ongoing operational leadership, or help executing a specific initiative, we can start with a conversation about where the firm is today and where you want to go.