I recently met with a business owner recently and I asked my standard first meeting question, “So what information do you use to run your busineess?” After almost ten years of asking that question to business owners, I continue to be amazed at the responses I get.
“Well, I know my CPA gave me some reports. Let me see if I can find them…oh, here they are.” Hands me sealed envelope.
”Data, have we got data!” Then he hands me 30 pages of metrics and reports.
And then the infamous, “Here you go – hot off the press. Here are my tax returns – federal and state” (this is usually in September and the returns had just been filed for the prior year).
When I was growing up in the CPA world, and then as I started in the public company world, I noticed we spent a lot of...
