The Upsides Of Working With Local Finance Professionals

Kimberly Higgins, Owner of Bookish LLC

Kimm Higgins prides herself on understanding what’s going on in the Phoenix area. She knows about the weather, she’s up to date on the tourist season and she keeps tabs on construction projects that could impact her clients.

As owner of the Glendale-based finance firm Bookish LLC, Higgins believes being immersed in local culture, events and news is part of her responsibility to the business owners she serves.

"Being aware of those factors allows me to analyze their potential effects on a business, something that someone from outside the market may not comprehend," explained Higgins. “When I'm talking to a local business owner, they know I’m applying everything I know about what is happening in our community to their numbers and their business. I think that makes a big difference”

Finance professionals — from bookkeepers to accountants — do more than crunch numbers. While transactional oversight is undeniably a part of the job, strategic planning is another, crucial service. When choosing to work with a regionally-located professional over an out-of-market firm or AI-based service, a business owner is seizing on valuable information that only someone with local insight can provide.

It’s one of the reasons Local First Arizona encourages local business owners to seek out local, trusted professionals to handle their finance, bookkeeping and accounting needs. 

Higgins has seen the consequences that can arise when a business outsources its financial oversight to a company that can really only handle the transactional side of accounting and bookkeeping. While sometimes it can work out, other times it can create a cascade of additional challenges that could really muddy up a company’s financial future.

“It doesn’t have a genuine human touch where someone is overseeing it all to make sure all the pieces are fitting together and it is clean and accurate,” Higgins said. “I think you need a human and I think you need someone who is completely dedicated to ensuring your numbers are correct from start to finish.”

Ana Gordillo, owner of the Phoenix-based Easy Numbers Consulting, believes that the personal side of business finance work extends beyond the numbers on a page. For a business, accounting can be sensitive, she said. Business owners are sharing information that they don’t readily make available to just anyone. 

Having a personal rapport with an individual can make a world of difference. And, it helps to have someone local, in the same time zone, when questions or crises arise.

“Each business is unique and needs different services,” Gordillo said. “They all have their own situations with the IRS or the state and it’s very sensitive, so it helps to have someone to talk to as a human.” 

Understanding Arizona’s tax landscape is another benefit of working with a local finance professional like Aldo Aprile, a Phoenix-area certified public accountant (CPA). He’s a big fan of the state’s unique charitable tax credits, also known as qualifying charitable organization donations. 

It is the fact that local finance professionals understand those types of opportunities specific to Arizona that add even more value to a personal, local relationship. 

“AI is being announced like it will fix every problem we all have. It’s a wonderful tool and it will help but it’s not the silver bullet everybody thinks, just like the internet wasn’t the silver bullet everyone thought,” Aprile said of AI-based firms. “Is it going to make life easier? Absolutely. Will it fix everything? No.”

First and foremost, Aprile said, it won’t add fuel to the local economy like working with another local business actually does. Local business owners themselves understand the value of their customers choosing to buy local, and the same theory applies when considering a financial professional. 

“Every dollar that gets spent locally feeds back into the economy and it will make everybody stronger financially,” Aprile said. 

Related Resources:

• Visit the Local First Arizona business directory to find a local CPA or accounting professional near you. 

• Local First Arizona’s Local Learning Lab offers a curated virtual collection of on-demand resources for local businesses, including articles and video workshops on accounting, finance, taxes and payroll.

• Check out the Local First Arizona calendar of events for information on upcoming workshops, seminars, webinars and networking events.