In this episode of the Modern CPA Success Show, host Tom Wadelton chats with Nellie Akalp, CEO and Founder of CorpNet. They discuss the challenges accountants face in offering comprehensive services and how CorpNet’s partner program can help, such as business filing, tax registration, and compliance needs.
Intro (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Modern CPA Success Show, the podcast dedicated to helping accounting firms stay ahead of the curve. Our mission is to provide you with the latest and greatest insights on cutting edge tools, innovative marketing strategies, virtual CFO services, and alternative billing methods. Join us as we change the way people think about accounting.
Tom (00:00:22) - We have a really good episode for you today, so we often find ourselves, wanting to offer services to clients where either we are not the expert doing that service, or it may be something we don't want to do, but it's still a need. So now Nellie Akalp, is here from CorpNet.com and they offer a series of services related to compliance, company start-ups, some legal services, things like that. And you'll hear more specific about specifically about that. But I hope that's really intriguing to you to say. Could you have a client come in and say, I can offer more things than what my staff can do, and you're going to hear more about that in this episode. Hope you really enjoy it.
Tom (00:00:58) - All right. Welcome to this episode of the Modern CPA Success Show. I'm Tom Wadelton, I'm with Summit Virtual CFO by Anders. I'm going to host today's program. I am really excited that we have Nellie Akalp with us today. Nellie is CEO and founder of Corporate Comm. Nellie would love to hear a little bit more career story and how you decide to start this company.
Nellie (00:01:18) - Tom, thank you so much for having me on today. It's a pleasure to be on here. So I may, entrepreneur. And currently I head the team over at corporate, a little bit about myself. I went to law school. I am a non-practicing lawyer. I don't practice law but my entrepreneurial journey really started by going to law school with my husband. We went to two different law schools, and my husband had this vision of simplifying the business filings and compliance process for the average consumer entrepreneur who really didn't have the, ends meet to, you know pay for these services and to, you know, pay a lawyer to basically bring a business into existence.
Nellie (00:02:17) - So, he's always been one of those people who has had a vision as to how can I, you know, provide more and solve problems within the community and give back. So, in his law school years, he was getting a D in his corporation's class, and his teacher came up with the idea of, right now the internet is hot, it was 1997. It was at the birth of the internet era. And so we put up a one-page website and our first business was launched. Not this one. it was a previous company that departed, and since then has been acquired and is run by a privately actually, it's run by a different company now. But, we started that company out of our two-bedroom apartment, grew it to where it was doing a substantial amount of sales. And in 2005, that company was acquired by a publicly traded company. At that time, we had three kids. We wanted to focus on our then growing, growing kids and decided to step out, you know, under our non-compete.
Nellie (00:03:33) - Our non-compete ran out after three years, and in 2009, we both realized we were too young to passionate and, frankly, too young to take on an early retirement. So, we came out with CorpNet, our current company, which has been in existence for now 15 years. And here at CorpNet, our mission is to educate, inspire and support professionals, accountants, financial advisors, CFOs, anyone who's representing a client who has a need for any type of entity filings, entity setup, entity expansion, payroll tax registration services. And we offer these services in all 50 states. our mission again is led by, you know, offering these comprehensive, cost-effective services where we can simplify the business filings process when it comes to the accountant or the financial advisor offering these services to their clients, and actually being a one stop shop for their clients. So, it's a win win at the end of the day, because the client's happy, and the accountant or the professional offering these services to their clients becomes their client's hero.
Tom (00:05:06) - That's a great story. And you really struck a chord with me when you talked about the expense. I mean, looking at the expense of it. You mentioned your husband during law school, and I think of new companies I've worked with. It's so complicated and expensive. And here you're starting out, and everywhere you turn, there's something to file, there's something to keep up with. And you've got someone who, unless they start an accounting or legal practice, this isn't their primary business. They want to go serve customers in some way or sell products, and they're being overwhelmed by all these things. And so, I'm sure the need is huge.
Nellie (00:05:38) - Yeah. And it is a very overwhelming process. I happen to love it because I live in crisis and chaos all my life. I like it, some people thrive on it. You know, I have four children. I'm always one of those people who's on the go. So, for me, this is a passion of mine. And for most people, you know, when they are trying to navigate the ins and outs of how to start a business, how to set up a corporation or an LLC, how to set up payroll, in a state.
Nellie (00:06:14) - These, you know, concepts are pretty overwhelming and scary. And we bring it all, you know, together and we simplify it for the end user, whether that be an accountant, bookkeeper, tax advisor, or a CFO representing a client.
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Tom (00:07:16) - I'm curious, since our audience is mainly accountants. What do you think accountants often get wrong? If someone comes in and says, can you help me start a business? And they decide to do it on their own, what do you what are you finding? I assume there are some cases where you've had to clean things up.
Tom (00:07:30) - What do you think accountants often overlook? Make mistakes. Something like that.
Nellie (00:07:33) - That's such a great question. I think the first thing they get wrong is by not having the services to assist their clients with the service and, in essence, losing that client to a competitor. Oftentimes I'll see clients, you know, if I'm at a networking event or if I'm at a trade show, what I'll see is, well, we don't offer these services because it's considered unethical or it's considered the practice of law, which is not. again, I went to law school, I am a lawyer and, providing entity filings, guidance and options to your clients is not considered the practice of law. On the other hand, commenting on liability issues as to whether your client can, you know, be liable for XYZ can be considered legal advice. But when you're advising your clients on entity filings and tax consequences and the tax implications of whether they should choose an S Corp or a C Corp, or opt for an LLC, that's the accountants play field.
Nellie (00:08:54) - And that's exactly what the accountant is there to do. As such, it would behoove them not to offer these services to their clients because number one, they're truly not being a complete advisory service to their clients. Number two, they run the risk of losing not client to a competitor of theirs, who is going to offer their clients all of these services and more.
Tom (00:09:23) - Yeah, that makes sense. I can tell you personal story that my guess is many prospects could look like this. But my brother-in-law took an early retirement package of the company and they turned and said, hey, we would hire you back as a contractor could, you know, maybe start your own company. So, he contacted me knowing I was a CPA, but his question was, could I help him with what his QuickBooks setup was going to be? And we were saying, I can help you with that, but have you thought through things like registration and starting the company and how you're going to pay yourself and things, all these things he had not even considered doing? I happen to have friends who have small practices that I could refer him, but I could see him going down the wrong hole and trusting me as an advisor.
Tom (00:10:02) - And I could have just answered his question, said, sure, your QuickBooks looks great, I'm done with you. And then he gets himself in trouble that he's not even set his company. And I would tell you that not having done this a lot, I probably got the first 20% of things that he thought he should be considering that I'm not even aware of everything else that I should have been advising him to do.
Nellie (00:10:22) - Yes. Yeah. So for us, it truly, it came to a point where, you know, when we started corporate back in 2009, you know, at first, we were like, you know what? We've done this before. We're going to do it again. And, you know, we're going to come out on top. And unfortunately, it was really hard to gain entry into the market because we were out of the market for three years, giving ways to a lot of competitors coming in and offering similar type services to ours.
Nellie (00:11:00) - And so entry back into the market in 2009, which was also at the height of the recession, was...
Tom (00:11:07) - That's what I was thinking of. Yes.
Nellie (00:11:09) - Yeah.
Nellie (00:11:09) - So what we realized was after losing a bunch of money and, you know. Investing in ways of how to market our services. We realized that what we had done back then, the model that we had followed in the past, wasn't going to be the model that we can follow today, and what's going to make us successful. So, what we realized after doing a lot of research was that most of our clientele this time around were accountants. And so, we quickly, you know, did a little bit of focus groups and realized that our accountants were using our services for their clients as such. That's when the corporate partner program came to life and why it's been such a big hit ever since. because we realized that accountants really need to depend on and partner with a service provider that can provide all these services for them to their clients.
Nellie (00:12:23) - And we also realized that our accountant audience was half of them were referring these clients to us, whereby half of them were actually using the services, themselves for their clients and acting as the go between. So, we created this program that really, really catered to accountants, and we designed the program that was very flexible for our accountant audience, whereby they can use our services as they please. They can either become a reseller partner, white label reseller and use our services whereby the client never would find out who corporate is. And all along they would think like the accountant and their advisor was offering these services. And this way, you know, they counted as their hero. The accountant is looked upon as if they're offering these services under their own logo, their brand name. And we're just simply the silent fulfillment partner in the back end, and we're charging them a wholesale price. On the other hand, we had this other group of accountants who we realized they really didn't want to deal with being the middleman, and they just wanted their clients to have a trusted business filings and compliance partner that they could refer their clients to and have their clients receive top notch services, and then have their clients come back to them without getting poached.
Nellie (00:14:10) - As such, our partner program was born whereby we created this program whereby we had this white label reseller program and also this referral program. And then, as you know, years went by, we perfected the program because then we started getting accountants. We're like, well, wait a minute, I don't want a referral fee from you guys corporate. I just want to be able to provide this service to our clients. And I want my client to get the discount that I would otherwise receive as a commission. And we thought, okay, wonderful. You know, we'll go ahead and also, you know, create you know, pass on the discount program whereby, you know, the accountant is setting themselves up with corporate as a referral partner, but instead of receiving that commission as a referral fee, they're passing that referral fee to their client as a discount so their client can benefit, and obtain the service on a discounted basis.
Tom (00:15:16) - Okay. So, between the two programs, the white label and then just referring so that people do know corporate, I'm curious what the mix is of your business is, is it about half and half or what is your mix between how you provide the service to accountants?
Nellie (00:15:30) - I would say. The smart accountant who's wanting to not only provide a one stop shop service and become a complete full-service accounting advisory firm, will definitely opt for the white label reseller program. And I'll tell you why. Because they also want to make money out of this. And it's a great way to test your revenues because, as a white label reseller, CorpNet is charging the accountant wholesale prices that are fixed, and then the accountant gets to take the services that we've charged them and mark it up to whatever they want and charge their client whatever they want, and they make a substantial amount of profit. So, I would say the majority of our clients tend to go with the white label reseller option. However, we also have those accountants who simply don't have the time or want to be the middleman, and they just want their clients to have a trusted partner that. The accountant can rely on. So, I would say it's, it's, it's somewhere about maybe a 60/40 mix, you know.
Nellie (00:16:50) - Okay. But if you had my, you know, if you wanted my advice, I would always say go reseller because the accountant could make a ton of money.
Tom (00:17:02) - Yeah. And like you said, you're looking like you provide all the services. So, I'm curious, what are the core services that most of them are asking you to do that they aren't providing for themselves. You got people listening like, what would I have them actually do?
Nellie (00:17:14) - So the CorpNet Partner program is a program that we offer through CorpNet.com, which is the website. And again, our website. We are a one-stop business filings, payroll tax registration and compliance service where we offer comprehensive, cost-effective services. When it comes to anyone wanting to start a business, whether it's starting a sole proprietorship or a partnership, setting up a corporation or an LLC, or if they have an existing corporation or LLC and they want to expand it into other states, we offer foreign qualification services. let's say somebody has an existing corporation, and now they're hiring employees and want to pay their employees through payroll.
Nellie (00:18:07) - We also offer the payroll tax account set up for the state unemployment insurance and the state income tax withholding accounts, and we can set up those accounts for the end user for their, for the client, for their employees in all 50 states. We also offer compliance services. Let's say a corporation needs to file their initial report or their annual report or statement of information in any of the states we offer those services, we offer the Solution services, amendment services. for corporations that need to have annual meetings and draft their annual meeting minutes on a yearly basis. We provide all of those services and more. However, in answer to your question, our core services truly, you know, hinge on the business filings, startup process, the business compliance, and the payroll tax registration and compliance, filings in all 50 states.
Tom (00:19:13) - Okay. And we just that specifically the payroll registration for our clients, we found the number of states you operate in increased dramatically during Covid.
Nellie (00:19:22) - Absolutely.
Tom (00:19:22) - Our clients all of a sudden said, oh, people are working from home.
Tom (00:19:25) - I found people in multiple states. And then that turned into, oh, I've only had to operate in this one state. And I just started hiring people in these other states. What do I do? And...
Nellie (00:19:35) - Yeah. It's funny you bring that up because, as a matter of fact, we used to be like a 12 to 15% company. in 2020 and on the on the heels of Covid, our company went from being a 12 to 15% company to now being a 200-person company. And this was mainly because of our payroll tax registration services offer. because not only it has solved so many pain points for accountants and CFOs and financial advisors across the 50 states, but also payroll service providers are now using us as their, you know, backend fulfillment partner when it comes to payroll tax accounts set ups in all 50 states.
Tom (00:20:28) - I'm not surprised. I've been very surprised. I've worked with clients who have switched payroll providers in the setup, the lack of knowledge in the payroll company where they're asking questions and saying, we usually ask the accountants for things that
seem like basic payroll, like, how do you register within the state and what are the unemployment rules, and some of those things.
Tom (00:20:47) - And the number of times I've said, you're the payroll company, I would have thought you would be the expert on this. And they're much more, at least in these calls, like, no, we just check boxes. You're supposed to someone else is supposed to know this.
Nellie (00:20:58) - Yeah. And, you know, there has to be compassion and empathy for these payroll service providers because, you know, our world went into a disarray on the heels of Covid. So, everybody was scrambling around trying to figure out, you know, how do we do this in all 50 states? And luckily, because of our tenure in this industry and our passion for what we do, we decided, you know what? We've been doing this for our clients on the side for all these years. Why not automate the process, simplify it, and put it, you know, into an application where the whole world can benefit from it. And. It's been a whirlwind of. Positive reviews and responses and just a huge success for us.
Nellie (00:21:53) - But more importantly, what a great feeling that we get to solve this pain point for our accountant clientele and also our payroll service partners out there.
Tom (00:22:07) - Yeah, I'm not surprised. Yeah. I'm curious for your company, the difference between when you started a company back, you said 97 when you were in law school. Yes. And starting it again 13 years later. Is that right. 12 years later or something. What did you find the big differences between those two times of starting and beginning to operate a company?
Nellie (00:22:26) - I actually work today.
Tom (00:22:30) - 97 was easy, huh? You just said I'm a company, and it worked.
Nellie (00:22:34) - Yeah.
Nellie (00:22:36) - Truly, like, am I if I'm being completely transparent?
Nellie (00:22:40) - Yeah.
Nellie (00:22:41) - I didn't have to work back then. I mean, the internet, you know, you put up a one page website and you had people knocking down your door, leaving credit cards on your answering machine where, you know, this time around, I really you know, it's also, you know, the here's the beauty of it is that I got to learn a lot and from then until now, and to me that's the beauty part of it, you know, that I realized how much I didn't work back then and, you know, created something that was so successful.
Nellie (00:23:22) - but. Again. You know, the vision was there, the passion was there. And, you know, we created something back then that became such a huge, huge tool where we were coined as the pioneers of the industry, you know, but the difference between me back then and me today, it's a whirlwind of difference, because today it's all about for me, you know? And also, the marketplace. You know, it's so hard to gain entry and to gain market share. So, you have to be on your toes. You gotta, you know, get in at the right time and you have to be able to pivot and be able to listen to what your clients need and be able to solve their pain points. And I think we've done a good job at that.
Tom (00:24:17) - Yeah.
Tom (00:24:18) - It sounds like it. That's great. The way you look back at how it was, my guess is you might be remembering things a little bit better than they were.
Tom (00:24:25) - Things are always hard when we're in it and then we can step away.
Nellie (00:24:28) - Yes, yes.
Tom (00:24:29) - So if you work with someone coming and saying, you know, I want to start a company. How can you help me? I'm curious. Do you have sort of a set? This is kind of my go to advice when someone's coming in. I assume you work with some who have really not set up anything in there asking for help. Is that a typical new client?
Nellie (00:24:44) - I mean, here's the thing is, you got clients who've never, you know, started a business for themselves that have been the 9 to 5, employees who work for someone else. And now they've realized, like, I want to go into business for myself. So, yeah, there is an educational aspect to the services we provide, because we do get those types of clients that come in and go, okay, I've never started a business. Where do I start? And, you know, we have a plethora of guides and checklists, we have webinars, we have podcasts.
Nellie (00:25:19) - And, you know, we guide them through that process. We have business experts always on standby on live chat that can truly guide an entrepreneur through the business startup process and help them navigate how to start a business. Now, as far as legal advice goes, as you know, we cannot provide legal, tax or financial advice because we're simply a document filing service. However, we do get a big mix of people who haven't started a business and need that guidance, and we can help them by, you know, putting them, in the hands of the proper, people that can guide them, or if they're more of that DIY type of person who wants to do it themselves. We have a plethora of guides and checklists and educational material that they can educate themselves and get started on their own. We also have the same type of material for an accounting firm who wants to go into business for themselves and also, maybe individuate and go, you know, and work for themselves rather than working for a big firm.
Nellie (00:26:41) - And oftentimes what they'll do is they'll come to us, and they'll be like, hey, I started my own firm. How do I drum up business, you know, and one of the great ways for them to get their business on the map to success and growth is by partnering with us and becoming a one stop shop and becoming a complete advisory service. Because here, the new accountant who's going into business for themselves is now getting their clients in earlier, you know, and they're getting their clients in earlier in the business startup process where they can engage there with their clients earlier and, have a full, full, picture of, you know, what their client is doing and help their clients with entity filings, options, you know, advising them on, you know, if they have employees, what, you know, they need to do to remain in compliance. And all along they can also be making some money. And possibly if they've given that client great services, they'll probably get their client to refer more people to that accountant.
Nellie (00:27:58) - So at the end of the day, it becomes a win win for everyone.
Tom (00:28:02) - That makes a lot of sense. You know, I think of, we'll often have small people, sorry, small firms come to us who want to offer Virtual CFO services. And it's not uncommon. All that's maybe a one, two, three-person shop. And they'll start talking about a lot of the services they don't offer, like, well, I don't do taxes or I don't do accounting and bookkeeping. And what you're describing makes so much sense because we're always saying, well, you really should partner so that you're not telling people, I can't do this. You could be acting like a much bigger firm if on the tax side, you partner with someone, say, of course I can do taxes, I work with someone or a white label it in. In your case, you're saying the same kind of thing. If people need filings, compliance, all these things, the ability to either say I can connect you or yes, we offer that and suddenly you look like a much larger, full service firm.
Nellie (00:28:47) - Absolutely. Prospects.
Nellie (00:28:49) - And it goes back to your question as to what is the number one? Being an accountant makes you know, what's the number one thing that accountants are, you're seeing as the biggest mistake accountants make? And it's exactly that because client walks in and hey, you know, the accountant will tell them, well, for tax filing purposes, you know, you need to elect S-Corp status or it's better for you to become a C Corp or an LLC. And then the next question from the client is, okay, how do I get this done? And the accountant is like, well, you know, I'm sure there's a bunch of, you know, online providers that can help you, and that's where they get in trouble because they could be saying, well, we offer these services and we can get it done for you. And oftentimes the misnomer here is the accountant is thinking, well, I can't offer these services because it's considered the practice of law, which is not, you know, filing documents at the state office is not considered the practice of law.
Nellie (00:29:49) - If it was, then the states would not have those, you know, documents where, you know, they're allowing the end user to fill them. So, by whether the accountant is doing it or having someone like us filling out those firms, we're acting as a scribe. And that is not considered the practice of law. In fact, the accountant is in the perfect position to be offering these services. Why? Because they're the ones who are deciding what is the best entity for their clients, and what's going to have the best tax implication for their clients. As such, it's just, you know, a really, really wonderful marriage for the accountant to marry up with a service like ours because they're truly becoming their client zero at the end of the day.
Tom (00:30:40) - Yeah, that that makes total sense. So in the typical start, is it someone bringing a client to you and saying, can you help in this case, or do you have many people who are pretty proactive coming and saying, tell me more about your service and I'll understand it all before I have a client that I, I know I want to introduce to it.
Nellie (00:30:58) - That's a great question, Tom. So we have a pretty wide mix of people. We have clients who've been using one of our competitors and simply aren't happy with the services they're receiving from our competition. whether it's timing or whether it's the depth and the, you know, the breadth of services they're receiving from, the competition and they'll decide to switch over to us or, they feel that their, the competition is really not giving them that concierge type personalized service and they'll switch over to us. We also have others that, you know, have been doing this on their own, and they're at a point where they're like, I can't do this anymore on my own because I'm not able to really give effective services to my clients because my time is, you know, spent, you know, researching different state websites as to how the filing process is. And they'll come to us and they'll, you know, see that we've really, really simplified it for them and opened up an abundance of time for that accountant to actually go get more clients.
Nellie (00:32:15) - And then you have those accountants who are, just starting out. we also have these accountants who really just don't have the education or the awareness that such a service like ours exists. And, that's where I do my webinars and educating them that, hey, you know, these are things that you can offer to your clients. And then there's an aha moment.
Tom (00:32:44) - Yeah.
Tom (00:32:45) - And I'm having some of those work, having worked with a few clients that will have multiple companies registered in different states. And often we're being asked to keep that maintained. And they might have registered agents. But as you know, the timing is different when the filings are due, like you do bi annual filings and these and that. And often we're sort of on that edge of this is what you often have a lawyer do, an internal person. This isn't usually accounting work.
Nellie (00:33:10) - That's actually we have something great for that, too. And I'm so happy you bring that up, because that was another pain point that we saw.
Nellie (00:33:19) - Our clients, our professional clients struggle with is they had this abundance of clients with either a single entity or a multiple entity. And these clients needed registered agent services. They needed a tool and a system to be able to track when their registered agent renewal is coming up, when their annual report filing is coming up, when their franchise tax filings are due, where when you know and as you. You know, the report filings and the due dates. And the filing requirements vary from state to state. And, some states, it's yearly at a specific date. Some states it's on the anniversary of the corporate filing date. So, state requirements when it comes to compliance requirements vary from state to state. So, our compliance partner, which we call it our CCC, our corporate compliance portal, does this trick and basically takes away this pain point and simplifies this process for the accountant, what the accountant can do. And again, it's a free service so, two options as part of becoming a CorpNet partner.
Nellie (00:34:44) - It's a given. We already provide this service to the accountant where we monitor, all of their clients as business entities, whether it's a single business entity or multiple business entities, and we can monitor it for them. We can act as the agent for service of process for all of their clients, business entities. And what happens is by having us act as the agent for service of process, we get to accept service of process on all documents, whether they're, you know, things that need to be, given attention to or they're junk. We're the ones who are, you know, weeding through all of that and uploading it in real time to their portal where the accountant can review it and then forward it to their client. In addition to that, we're the ones who are monitoring the business entities for filing dates, due dates, compliance filings, if and when there is an annual meeting that is required to happen, if they have a corporation or an S corporation or a professional corporation, and when they have that annual meeting, you know, have they drafted their annual meeting minutes.
Nellie (00:36:02) - So all of this is, tracked for them and they're given alerts and, they're given plenty of alert in advance so that they're not missing the boat for their clients, because oftentimes what we see is when they're not using a service like this, they're missing deadlines for their clients, as it happened for me personally. So of course, my accountant missed one of our deadlines. And imagine we're a document filing service and we're commercial agent provider for our clients. So we missed an annual report filing, and then we went into bad standing. And then the state basically, retracted our commercial agent service filing. So, it was truly a headache for us to get all of this back and, you know, rectified. But we did. But that was one of the reasons why I'm like, wait a minute. You know, there has to be a better process that accountants can follow. And hence that's why we came up with the corporate compliance portal. And it works magic. Because again.
Nellie (00:37:15) - The accountant doesn't have to keep track of anything. They simply upload a file into our portal with. It can be a 400 companies. It could be a thousand companies, it could be three companies. And we monitor it for them, for their clients. And if their reseller partner, we send the alerts to them and then they can send the alert to their clients. Alternatively, if their referral partner will just handle it directly with their clients. And it's a win win, because in this case, if the accountant is using us as a reseller partner, then what happens is they get to build up residual income for their firm because they can create a subscription type of a service where they're sending it to their client and saying, hey, X, Y, and Z is due for this company and you know, you have an option, you can renew it for one time, or you can, you know, click a button and we'll do this for you on an annual basis. And this way the client's happy knowing that their entities are being complied with and they're being tracked and the accountant is making some money, you know, as a residual income on a yearly basis.
Tom (00:38:32) - Just this compliance piece that you're talking about sounds so valuable because I can just speak from personal experience, not understanding. It is frustrating to work through, and we've got pretty good measures, but all of our task tracking and things that we do, it's not specific to compliance. So you hope that it's been set up correctly. And especially the ones that are like every two years are the ones that the chance of some turnover in the team during that time is really high. So thinking someone's going to remember and how to do it, that alone. I'm going to follow up on this with you for that, because I think that service alone.
Nellie (00:39:04) - Yeah, absolutely sounds great.
Nellie (00:39:05) - Send me an email and I will put you in contact with one of our dedicated account managers. And then you'll receive a spreadsheet, will have you loaded up, and then we'll do a full compliance check on it. And then we'll load it up into our portal for you. And then the portal starts monitoring it for you, and then it'll send you alerts when things are due.
Nellie (00:39:27) - It's it's actually a great service. I wish more and more accountants would use it, you know, because it you know, at first it may seem a little tedious because I'm sure, you know, as an accountant, we're still using spreadsheets and. Oh, God, I gotta go grab everything and put it into a spreadsheet. But trust me, once it's done, it's such a big, big task off the accountants way.
Tom (00:39:53) - Yeah, and when it's done wrong. So, I'll tell you a story about one client who chose to move from California, where you are, to Washington, DC. And so the simple task was, let's go ahead and end our association with California and go ahead and start back up. We'll move our company headquarters to DC. They had gotten themselves behind in California. So, to end it in California they had been declared inactive. Now they had to go through the process of reactivating themselves, paying all these past times to get done. Once that was done then they were allowed to declare themselves done and then move.
Tom (00:40:25) - It was a nightmare, and this was like a 2 or 3 month process that we had lawyers involved. It got expensive and personally and you'll hear the rules and I sort of get them conceptually. But when you talk to someone at the government about, here's what you have to do, you're just shaking your head like, this is so difficult. And it both makes me wish I understood it. But even more importantly, I wish we had just kept up on it because then it would have been an easy process to have done.
Nellie (00:40:48) - Yeah. And you'd be surprised how many people we see in these situations and then some. I mean, we have clients left and right where they'll come to us, the end user, the client will come to us and be like, hey, my accountant messed up. Now I'm standing, I need to reinstate the company and we'll look up the company at the state website and we'll see, like, oh my God, they have to pay like $1500 to $2500 to, you know, reinstate the company and get back to current.
Nellie (00:41:24) - And sometimes they can't even do that because the state will have administratively dissolved that company. So not only the company has dissolved, but the clients lost their corporate veil. So that client, I can assure you we'll never go back to that accountant. So, sure, this is a great way for, you know, accountants all around the world to really look at them. Because at the end of the day, what is it that we have? We have our reputation and our reputation is all we have. And wouldn't you want to have a good reputation where your clients not only are loyal to you, but recommend you and refer you out, you know? So these are all of the things through lots of years of, you know, do's and don'ts and trials. And tribulations that, you know, my team and I have come up with to provide seamless solutions for our accounting professionals.
Tom (00:42:25) - And I love your point about do you potentially lose or at least lose reputation with that client? Because I can make it argument.
Tom (00:42:32) - I would probably win in a lot of cases. When they say my accountant screwed up, it probably wasn't really the accountants job. Sometimes it can be gray as to whether maintaining licenses and things like that, but it still is our role to recognize it needs to be done and tell the client, hey, not that different than things like board minutes, where we're often saying you need to maintain. It's fairly common that someone will say, I'm going to take a trip to New York with my wife. Can I count that as a board meeting? And what we'll often say is, well, if yes, if she's an owner of the company and you document it and you actually have a board meeting, then yes, that could be a board meeting. It's a typical answer.
Nellie (00:43:05) - And that is.
Nellie (00:43:06) - Absolutely right on your part. But what if you took it one step further and go, hey, yes you can. As long as you do x, y, z and guess what? Have you done it? Or did you take that trip? Have you done it? If not, we can help you through a service we offer.
Tom (00:43:25) - Yeah, I agree completely. You've helped close the loop because we don't write the board minutes for them, right? We're starting into that legal territory. But then, you know, 90% of the time we're thinking they're not going to document it. So add a point. If they get audited, they're going to come back. And all we can say is we told you to. But I completely agree with you the ability to say, and here we're going to make this easy for you. It's going to be this really quick meeting that, you know, we can describe it. Now, you do have a document, you've got a record and everything really looks clean for what you did. Yeah. In that case.
Nellie (00:43:54) - Yes, exactly.
Tom (00:43:58) - Makes a lot of sense for what you're doing.
Nellie (00:44:00) - I see your mind.
Tom (00:44:03) - I love it. We're definitely going to follow up on this, I can see.
Nellie (00:44:07) - That's awesome.
Tom (00:44:08) - You probably also have people who say, I'm good at this. I just don't want to do this anymore.
Tom (00:44:13) - I know plenty aren't, but you probably have a lot who are like, I if I can give this away. Wonderful.
Nellie (00:44:18) - I mean.
Nellie (00:44:18) - You know what? There's always those people who are the know it alls. And, you know, I can do this on my own, and I've done it. But believe it or not, even those people come to us at the end of the day, because what will happen is they'll find out that although they can do it, it's taking away time for them to get more clients into the door. So even those people who are very, very educated and well-versed as to navigating business filings and compliance and know how to do it, at the end of the day, they often find that it behooves them not to partner with a service like ours, because in in that instant, it's preventing them from getting more clients into the door.
Tom (00:45:09) - Yep. Yeah, that makes sense, especially if you are small, because that takes time and the ability to get that out of your mind and say it's being done well, yes, is worth a huge amount.
Nellie (00:45:19) - Yes.
Tom (00:45:20) - So for someone who you pique their interest, how do they get started. You're going to send them to the website. But what are the what's the easiest way to say okay. Yes. This looks like a service I could provide to my clients and I want to initiate.
Nellie (00:45:32) - So for those of you who are interested in CorpNet, check out the website www.CorpNet.com right on the homepage of the website if you're interested and you want to get going today and you want to sign up, there's a big partner with us button that you can click on. And here's the expectation. You click on the button and you fill out literally a one page form that takes probably less than a minute to fill out. You submit the application, we accept it, we call you up, we schedule an onboarding process. One of our account executives on our acquisition team within our partner program will contact you. They will onboard you, they'll set up your account profile for you. And then they will also walk you through your client portal as to how to place an order for your clients.
Nellie (00:46:29) - If you want to be a corporate reseller or how to refer clients. And oftentimes we'll even guide you through marketing our services to your clients. Because again, there's those accountants who are saying, like, you know, I don't have a lot of clients that are needing this service, but I want to get those clients into the door. And so we can even guide with offering you a marketing material, custom graphics, custom marketing material that you can use on your website to get more clients into in the door that need our services, and you can offer them to us.
Tom (00:47:11) - This is a really nice onboarding piece that you talk about. One of the things when we talk about CFO services, that being a really critical step when you start service with a company, to lay that foundation for a successful relationship is just so important. And we've seen so many service firms not not do it well. That is just sort of as clunky beginning. And I think you just get off on the wrong foot and what you've described sounds like a really good process.
Nellie (00:47:34) - I think it's important, Tom, because you know. As it stands, the accountant is like, okay, I've signed up for this program. Now what? You know, so we have to do our job to not only get them into the door, but also make sure they're set up for success. So the beauty with our program is that once you become a corporate partner, you get assigned a dedicated account manager. So, imagine a concierge person that is at your service 24/7, by text, by phone, by email, and they are at your beck and call. And that's how our service works, is you are assigned an account manager, an account coordinator, a compliance coordinator. So you're assigned a team only dedicated to you and your clients. And they are going to see that from the minute you sign on as a partner. Not only you understand what you're signing for, but you have all the tools and everything you need to make sure this program is a success for you. The problem is, once the accountant signs up, it's on the accountant to, you know, want to allocate the time to go through this onboarding process.
Nellie (00:48:56) - But, you know, for those accountants that actually allocate the time to us and have us take them through the complete onboarding process, and explaining the entire program to them, the program is a success.
Tom (00:49:12) - Yes. Yeah. I'm not surprised. It makes me think of working with our internal team members and helping them learn how to delegate activities. And this that should get off your plate. It's going to take some investment to do it. Well, yeah. Once it's done. Everyone is thrilled to say I used to spend a ton of time all the time doing this, and now I monitor it and it's done well. But not surprising if you don't send it off well, it's not going to the service won't be done well. So that investment makes sense. We would tell clients the same thing. Usually when our onboarding does go poorly, the most common reason is the clients don't engage in the process. Yeah, they've hired us and they're not showing up and things. And it's a very obvious thing that doesn't go well.
Nellie (00:49:50) - Yeah. But simply stated, if you're interested in if you want to sign up, just come on to www.CorpNet.com and click on the partner with us button right on the center of the homepage. Or there's a partner link up top on the top of the navigation that says partner with us. You can see all about. You can learn more about the program. You can learn about all of the different program options. And then also, for those of you know, for those accountants who are looking to perhaps, you know and are interested in an API type capability, we offer those services as well. But the best way to get started is to sign up and submit the application, and then we'll contact you immediately and then if you're ready to place orders for your clients, like today, you can even call us at 1-888-449-2638. And we'll make sure that you get signed on. I'm very, very involved with the corporate partner program, and I will always give you my personal email for the company.
Nellie (00:51:01) - It's nakalp@CorpNet.com. You can also send it to news@CorpNet.com. That's News@CorpNet.com or N as in Nancy A Akalp at Corp Netcom. And I will make sure that you are connected to the right individual here at corporate to get you signed on as a partner. And for those of you that are going to be, joining at the upcoming QuickBooks event at QuickBooks CorpNet on November, CorpNet is one of the, platinum sponsors for QuickBooks at the Cube Connect events. So, if you're going to happen to be there, please come stop by the corporate booth and say hi to us. We'd love to meet you and say hi personally to you.
Tom (00:51:55) - That's great. All those ways get started. It's probably a great place for us to conclude there. Thank you so much for giving accountants a service they can provide that their clients are going to like can help us grow our business. It's an area that for many, either they don't like doing it or they're not good at doing. It is just a perfect area for you to explore.
Nellie (00:52:18) - Absolutely. It's my absolute pleasure and hopefully you and I can connect again and bring a plethora of educational material to your audience with more webinars and educational webinars, and we'll talk more. But it's been an absolute pleasure being here today, and I hope that from our conversation, you're Accounting audience can benefit from it and let us help them help their clients.
Tom (00:52:44) - Thank you very much.
Outro (00:52:47) - Enjoy this podcast? Visit our website summitCPA.net to get more tips and strategies for achieving modern CPA firm success. We are here to be a resource in this ever-changing industry.