S ucce ss S torie s - Right NetworksS ucce ss S torie s F og g e d In B ookke e p ing He ar w hat...
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Success Stories Fogged In Bookkeeping Hear what our customers are saying about us! Meghan Blair-Valero’s passion for creativity drove her early career aspirations towards becoming an art teacher. When she took-up office work for a non-profit organization to help with student loans, her Treasurer urged her to consider business school. She was then drawn towards bookkeeping work, where the Nantucket, MA resident and Cape Cod native would watch her tiny trickle of clients become a flood. Blair-Valero found that a local adult education class, paired with affordable Intuit accounting software was a great way to get started in the bookkeeping industry and wouldn’t require a huge capital expense like other accounting solutions she had come across. Coursework on drawing, painting, and printmaking soon gave way to classes on accounting as she took on more clients from the small mudroom space in her home. By 2005, Blair-Valero’s then two-year old company, Fogged In Bookkeeping had four employees, an office space in Nantucket, and close to 30 clients. But despite their early success, their workflow wasn’t efficient. Bookkeeping was done by passing around data files on USB flash drives and keeping track of who was working on which files was a logistical disaster. Employees had to “check out” client files by writing their names in a spreadsheet and no changes could be made until the files were “checked in” – meaning someone crossed their name off the list. Employees often made changes to financials that were not up to date, and if someone got sick and couldn’t come to work, the scramble to find where a file was located was an exercise in endurance and driven by luck. She knew she needed an internal server and IT infrastructure to support client information sharing but the $10,000 price tag and the prospect of hiring a managed service provider for ongoing maintenance was too steep for the young company. Once again, Blair-Valero got creative. In 2007, she came across a client that was hosting their financial data in the Right Networks cloud and knew immediately that it was the answer to her own company challenges. Not only could her employees dump the “check out” system, they could collaborate seamlessly on customer financials that were always current. She enjoyed the benefits of Right Networks for two years when, in 2009, one of her employees planned to move to Florida and retire. This sparked another inspirational moment. “Good help is hard to find – so I told her she could move but I needed her to keep working,” Blair-Valero laughed. And with that, her virtual workforce was born. Nantucket, an island 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, has a high cost of living that required Blair-Valero pay extraordinarily high wages. To complicate matters more, the candidate pool for talent on the small New England island is extremely limited. “Once we used Right Networks to help open ourselves to remote employees all over the country, we got more agile and started servicing more clients, with a lot less overhead,” she said. Blair-Valero downsized her office space – a huge cost saver due to Nantucket’s high rents – and now services 1.5x more clients with nearly half of the staff she had eight years ago. She attributes the ability to scale, and scale back, her business without the need invest in her own IT infrastructure as one of the key reasons she was able to maintain her practice. Blair-Valero is also pursuing her MBA at Harvard University, and relies on the flexibility provided by Right Networks to continue working while she splits her time between Boston and Nantucket. To learn more about how Right Networks can connect you to your clients, contact Sales at 888-210-0237 While still a student herself, Blair-Valero hasn’t lost the drive to be a teacher. Her “Bookkeeping 1” training program, delivered partially online, provides training and preparation for aspiring bookkeepers to tackle the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Certification as well as a Bookkeeper Certification Exam, offered through the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers. Meghan Blair-Valero
Transcript of S ucce ss S torie s - Right NetworksS ucce ss S torie s F og g e d In B ookke e p ing He ar w hat...
Success Stories
Fogged In Bookkeeping
Hear what our customers are saying about us!
Meghan Blair-Valero’s passion for creativity drove her early career aspirations towards becoming an art teacher. When she took-up office work for a non-profit organization to help with student loans, her Treasurer urged her to consider business school. She was then drawn towards bookkeeping work, where the Nantucket, MA resident and Cape Cod native would watch her tiny trickle of clients become a flood.
Blair-Valero found that a local adult education class, paired with affordable Intuit accounting software was a great way to get started in the bookkeeping industry and wouldn’t require a huge capital expense like other accounting solutions she had come across. Coursework on drawing, painting, and printmaking soon gave way to classes on accounting as she took on more clients from the small mudroom space in her home.
By 2005, Blair-Valero’s then two-year old company, Fogged In Bookkeeping had four employees, an office space in Nantucket, and close to 30 clients. But despite their early success, their workflow wasn’t efficient. Bookkeeping was done by passing around data files on USB flash drives and keeping track of who was working on which files was a logistical disaster. Employees had to “check out” client files by writing their names in a spreadsheet and no changes could be made until the files were “checked in” – meaning someone crossed their name off the list. Employees often made changes to financials that were not up to date, and if someone got sick and couldn’t come to work, the scramble to find where a file was located was an exercise in endurance and driven by luck. She knew she needed an internal server and IT infrastructure to support client information sharing but the $10,000 price tag and the prospect of hiring a managed service provider for ongoing maintenance was too steep for the young company.
Once again, Blair-Valero got creative. In 2007, she came across a client that was hosting their financial data in the RightNetworks cloud and knew immediately that it was the answer to her own company challenges. Not only could her employees dump the “check out” system, they could collaborate seamlessly on customer financials that were always current.
She enjoyed the benefits of Right Networks for two years when, in 2009, one of her employees planned to move to Florida and retire. This sparked another inspirational moment. “Good help is hard to find – so I told her she could move but I needed her to keep working,” Blair-Valero laughed. And with that, her virtual workforce was born. Nantucket, an island 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, has a high cost of living that required Blair-Valero pay extraordinarily high wages. To complicate matters more, the candidate pool for talent on the small New England island is extremely limited. “Once we used Right Networks to help open ourselves to remote employees all over the country, we got more agile and started servicing more clients, with a lot less overhead,” she said. Blair-Valero downsized her office space – a huge cost saver due to Nantucket’s high rents – and now services 1.5x more clients with nearly half of the staff she had eight years ago. She attributes the ability to scale, and scale back, her business without the need invest in her own IT infrastructure as one of the key reasons she was able to maintain her practice. Blair-Valero is also pursuing her MBA at Harvard University, and relies on the flexibility provided by Right Networks to continue working while she splits her time between Boston and Nantucket.
To learn more about how Right Networks can connect you to your clients, contact Sales at 888-210-0237
While still a student herself, Blair-Valero hasn’t lost the drive to be a teacher. Her “Bookkeeping 1” training program, delivered partially online, provides training and preparation for aspiring bookkeepers to tackle the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Certification as well as a Bookkeeper Certification Exam, offered through the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers.
Meghan Blair-Valero
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