Mark Goldfarb is the managing director of SS&G Financial Services Inc. in Akron. He has extensive experience serving both business and individual clients with advice on financial and operational needs. He has experience in many areas, including tax, estate and succession planning, particularly in the field of family-owned businesses.
Q. What can an accounting firm do to help its business clients come out of the recession in sound financial condition?
First, the most important thing is on the right side of the balance sheet — their banking and their capital structure. All clients have had their challenges with banking during the last few years and a lot of businesses have found that they didn’t have sufficient capital.
We have been very active in trying to work with clients to determine what their credit facilities were, if they needed to expand their credit facilities, if they needed to perhaps look at SBA financing or some other credit enhancement programs.
Q. Are businesses using more nontraditional services these days?
It’s a mix. On one hand, yes, some businesses are very proactive to do everything they can to stay ahead of the curve, and they’re using more nontraditional services. On the other hand, because the economy is what it is, a lot of businesses are saying, ‘Let’s only spend X amount of money on professional services, and if it’s not absolutely crucial, let’s not do it.’ You have a group of businesses that may withdraw a little bit, because they’re trying to keep their expenses in line.
Q. What can businesses do to create a strong relationship with their accountant?
Communication is key. To use the analogy of being an internist or a general practitioner: Anytime anybody goes to a doctor, if you tell the doctor specifically what’s wrong and where it hurts and what’s been going on, it’s going to make it a lot easier for him to give a good diagnosis. The same thing applies to us. We talk to our clients a lot. We talk to them on the phone. We talk to them through e-mail. We try to meet them for breakfast or lunch. We try and get together for meetings, but they need to prepare us. They need to give us good information.
