5 Reasons ERP Implementations Fail and How To Get Yours Right, with Sharon Barboza

You see a lot of finance function. You've seen it now on both sides. I'm curious to see. What pattern do you see most often in the finance function?

Like what typically goes wrong? Sharon Barboza is a manager in digital services at Citroen -Couperman Advisors LLC, where she serves as a senior resource for their enterprise application delivery practice. Before this, she spent decades on every side of finance as a licensed CPA running her own small business practice, as a controller inside technology, healthcare, and real estate companies, and as a senior NetSuite consultant, redesigning how finance operations actually work.

at growing businesses. Sales or the processing department, they will come up with different new SKUs for products and they don't bring counting in to the last minute. And accounting's like, well, wait a minute, we've got this particular thing we've got to do. And so now we have to go back and redo everything.

And I had one project that it caused the project to delay a year. We had to go back and redesign everything. The other thing that us accountants do suffer from is Today's episode is brought to you by FISPAN. By embedding banking services directly into ERP and accounting software, FISPAN streamlines financial workflows, reduces costs, minimizes manual errors, and enhances efficiency for businesses of all sizes.

So make sure to visit FISPAN .com to learn more. That's F -I -S -P -A -N .com.

Welcome back to the Diary of a CFO podcast. I'm your host, Wassia Kamon, a sitting CFO with a background in accounting and FP &A. And I started this show because believe the way companies build and lead their finance function determines whether they scale or fall apart. Each week, I sit down with CFOs, CEOs, and strategic business partners to talk about what that actually looks like in the inside.

Building the right teams, getting systems and controls in place, partnering with the business, and doing it all hopefully without burning out. I'm super excited for my guest today, Sharon Barbosa. She is a manager in digital services at Citroen Cooperman Advisor LLC, where she is a senior resource for their enterprise applications delivery practice. Before this seat, she spent decades on every side of finance, as a licensed CPA running her own small business practice, as a controller inside technology, healthcare, and real estate companies, and as a senior next week consultant, redesigning how finance operations actually work at growing businesses.

If there is one person who has seen more small and mid -sized businesses trip over their accounts payable, banking, and payments than almost anyone, it is Sharon. I'm so glad to have her on the show. Thank you so much, Sharon. It's so great to be here, Wessia.

Thank you so much. Of course, always like to start with understanding what drew you in the first place to the world of finance and accounting. So that is... A long story, I'll try to keep it brief.

So my mother was an accountant. So I always swore I would never do accounting because to me it seemed like it was the most boring job in the whole world. But when I was in college, I was a marketing major and took my first marketing class and my first accounting class at the same time. Um, I loved my accounting class, hated my marketing class.

And so I decided that, you know, marketing definitely was not for me. Um, I had a professor that drew me aside and said, Hey, you understand this accounting is like a special language. And if you get it, you understand it. Like it's, it's a great industry to be in.

Um, it's, uh, it's got a lot of growth potential. Um, and you seem to like it. So I told them, okay, well, I'll take another class. So I did.

And then I was hooked. So I switched my major. to accounting. It took me a while to get my degree.

I got married right out of high school and so I had my son my first year of college and so I had to take a break to do motherhood for a while. I was working as a operations manager for a real estate company so I was doing kind of the finance stuff, but I was also doing operations and really, really wanted to move to a pure accounting role. So I had a great mentor who was actually our CPA for the firm who offered to let me come work with her. I could bring my daughter to work because I was pregnant at the time for my first year.

And she said she would sponsor me and allow me to finish my degree and get my CPA license. So that's how I got into accounting, how I got my CPA license and kind of spent 10 years in public accounting and then decided that part wasn't for me. I loved accounting, but not necessarily tax and audits. So moved into industry after that.

Oh, wow. It really, really resonate with me because I also didn't know I'll do accounting, but then I was hooked at college. That's how I ended up doing it. And that's super nice that you also had a mentor who took you under your wing and work with you.

It makes such a difference. It does. It's everything to have a strong mentor, someone who believes in you. I've had that throughout my career in a few different places and it really helps you to grow and it helps you to reach your potential and achieve things that you didn't think you'd ever able to achieve.

So I'm forever grateful. grateful to her and to all the other mentors that are on my way. And I strive to do that for other people in my industry. Yeah.

And so what would you say would be the most surprising turn that your career has taken? Actually ending up in consulting, doing the Nutsweet Consulting. I never saw that for myself. Originally when I was starting out in my accounting career, I did envision that I was going to stay in public accounting.

Um, and you know, when that didn't work and I decided to go in a different direction, I figured I would end up like as a CFO or something one day. Um, the, the highest level that I got to was controller level, but I had this opportunity to go ahead and work on the consulting side and I thought I would give it a try because it sounded fun. I was scared about it because I thought it sounded really technical and I'm not a big technical person. Um, but, uh, I've loved it.

it. I absolutely enjoy it. It's been great because I get to work with so many different clients over so many different industries. Part of my creative side comes out because I feel like I come up with creative solutions and I get to help them build their business up to a better level, help them to get there.

their processes streamlined to make them more efficient and provide a path forward for them to be successful. And it gives me a lot of joy to see that, like to see them, you know, I follow former clients, you know, online and like to see, oh, they acquired a new company or they did this or that. And I feel like, well, maybe I had a little bit of part of that making their processes a little bit easier. I love working with my clients.

I love. working and coming up with the solutions for them. And so it's surprising to me because I never saw myself as a consultant. I always thought I would always be just an accounting person and just move up through those ranks.

So curious to hear all those transition though, like your first transition into public accounting and then you transition into industry and then you transition into consulting. Curious to hear when you look back, like what are those top things that really help you through those transitions. Cause sometimes I feel like we, we think that life will be a straight line. Yes.

And it is not, it's usually full of transitions. So what would you say really helped you in those moments? So like I said before, mentorship definitely helped, um, staying on top of different changes in the industry and you know, research, I'm a learner by nature. So learning all about other things.

So that really helped reach. out and networking with other people to find out what they're working on and what their thoughts are for the future or getting a little bit of a feel of what their world is like. The other thing, believe it or not, that's helped me is some failures. Some of the things, some of my stumbles and falls and some of the things that seemed so bad at the time, like getting laid off from a position or not being able to get a position that I wanted ended up being like some of the greatest things.

When I look back, I'm like, this thing led specifically to this opportunity, which led to this. Ironically, I have a, you know, a situation where I got laid off from a job that I was really excited about. And then I got picked up very quickly by another company. And the reason that they hired me was because I had worked with a specific software intact with that company.

And so I went to work for that company and it ended up being probably the biggest learning and growth journey of my career, which allowed me my first time working with NetSuite, which I do NetSuite implementations a lot now. So that's actually led to where I am now. It gave me that background, that... knowledge to be able to be where I am now in my career.

So it's funny, like you said, it's not a straight path, but if you look back, you can see these little points where this point led to this point led to this point. But if I hadn't been laid off from that job, I never would have had the opportunity with the other company, which was such a great. growth path for me. Really, that gave me a lot of experience in different parts of accounting that I had not been exposed to before because we were such a small team supporting such a large company.

So I got to work in treasury. I got to work in international payroll. I got to work in setting up supply chain, really understanding international accounting and consolidations and multi -currency. and also helping to build that accounting department and structure because we were, again, kind of growing through that transition.

So that was just an amazing opportunity for me. And I would have had that had I not been laid off from that other position. So I always try to see when something happens. I try to say, well, you know what, maybe this is a good thing.

It seems like a bad thing right now, but maybe it's going to lead to something better in the future. So I try to keep that positive attitude with that. And it pays off, obviously. But I know that in those moments, it's so hard to.

keep that perspective in sight, right? So what would you say specifically, you know, in those moments, like when you're going through a layoff and you have to quickly bounce back, like what are some of the things that helped you in those moments? I think having, you know, having a strong network, having family, having, I have, you know, a strong family network as well. So that was helpful.

I think, you know, having a positive attitude and know that that's not always It's always easy to have when something happens. But I felt having that positive attitude and just, okay, so this is an opportunity now. What do I do? Maybe I need to learn something else.

Maybe I take this time to refocus on something. And I always try to kind of look back at myself. I take that time to reflect on myself. What kinds of things could I have done differently?

How can I use this as a way to improve? And so I think that that is one of the things that have helped me to kind of bounce back, you know, trying to stay relevant and in constantly learning. I mean, that's another thing too. Industry changes so quickly.

Accounting changes so quickly. I mean, when I first started, when I was in accounting in college, I mean, we were, they were just starting to talk about doing like computer programs for like IRS, you know. sending out IRS returns and such. And we would still do printout returns and clients would sign them and we'd mail them in.

And the green slips and the certified mail. Yes. Before, I mean, I did use Excel, but we did have the columnar. I had this huge columnar book that I used to do some stuff in.

you know, there's been a lot of change. I remember I had a professor in college that said that the future of accounting is computers. And so if you do anything in accounting, take any extra classes to go get your MBA, anything like that, like always concentrate on accounting, accounting systems, like computers, because that is the future of accounting. And he's right.

You know, that's where the future has gone. Absolutely. And also when you were mentioning those transition your careers, you mentioned a lot of systems like Sage Intact, your NetSuite. And now that you are at Citroen Copperman, you see a lot of finance function from the outside.

You've seen it now on both sides. I'm curious to see, since now you've seen like hundreds, probably thousands of them. What are the pattern do you see most often in the finance function? goes wrong or what are we doing the wrong way?

Because you know on the other side we're suffering because you've been there. You know it's interesting because I can relate because I dealt with these same issues. One of the things is a big issue I think is you don't have consistency across systems or you don't have collaboration across departments. So accounting is downstream.

of what upstream does. So what sales is doing, what legal is doing, what, you know, the things that they're working on affect accounting downstream. And sometimes I think accounting, the accounting function isn't considered in that until later. And the accounting function, like they have to deal with the downstream.

And so I think it's important to collaborate across companies. Things that I've seen throughout my career, especially in consulting, is that you've got sales. in the order department, order processing department, they will come up with different new SKUs for products. And they don't bring counting in until the last minute.

And accounting's like, well, wait a minute, we've got this particular thing we've got to do. And so now we have to go back and redo everything. And I had one project that literally, like it caused the project to delay a year because when we got to the point where we were going into the, you know, we were getting the information from the sales team that had redone all of their SKUs. It wasn't working for accounting.

It wasn't working for their revenue recognition requirements. They weren't able to do the billing the way it was set up. And so we had to go back and redesign everything. And so making sure that the stakeholders from all the major departments are in that conversation.

you know, if something you're doing is affecting a department downstream, then you need to be able to, they all need to be involved in the conversation. So collaboration, you know, not having siloed conversations, not having siloed departments, having collaboration. So that's one of the big things. The other thing that us accountants do suffer from is we love our Excel.

And so trying to get out of our Excel and get it and trusting another system. to be able to do the things that Excel, using Excel as a validation tool or a tool for us to use, but not doing all of our work in Excel. And I know that's really hard. We trust our Excel spreadsheets.

We're used to them. You can trace formulas. Yes, exactly. And I have clients that don't, they've worked there for so long, they use the same spreadsheet for so long, and they don't want to get off of it.

They're very resistant to that change. So change me. is another large thing to help your team see this as a good thing. I think two, people get scared.

Well, I'm the only one that can manage the spreadsheet. Now it's gonna be done by a computer system and I'm not gonna be as involved, so am I gonna still be useful? So helping to show them how this is going to be an efficiency for them where they can now concentrate on other things. I mean, I've had clients that spent...

all of their time in these manual spreadsheets to be able just to get through a month and close. It was just, it was just a never ending cycle for them, but you know, they were supposed to be helping on more strategic initiatives. They were supposed to be helping with new processes and they couldn't do that because they were stuck in this rut. So I think that's another big thing that I see trying to, you know, show people.

I mean, you know, a lot of times I'll get like, well, I could just do that in Excel. Yes, you could. But do you want efficiency in your day? Do you want to be able to spend your time doing other things?

Do you want to be able to have not less stress in your life? For example, I had a forecasting spreadsheet that I used to update. That was 78 tabs. And it was touched by so many different people in the company.

And it had all of these different formulas in it. Sometimes someone would go in and hard code something. And I needed it for our board packet. And so they would give me different scenarios to plug in and I managed through.

And it took me literally days to do it. And inevitably, it'd be five o 'clock on a Friday. Board meeting's Monday. Can you make this change?

It's one change. And I end up working the weekend. And so it's like that kind of. efficiency now, like some of the products we work with.

Like now, like I can plug that in into a computer. A computer does all the analysis, brings it all downstream. I don't have to worry about did someone hard code a formula? Is my input on this particular sheet not correct?

I don't have to go in. I can still have to validate, but I don't have to go in and, you know, I can trust the process more. So I think that that's another thing is like trying to build efficiencies in accounting. You know, accounting is a cost center.

And so a lot of times they just don't give, I like to say they don't get the love that some of the other departments get. Yeah, the love. Yeah, they don't get the love, you know. So I try to make sure that they are getting the love.

I try to advocate for the accounting. functions when I'm involved in projects, being like, hey, I've lived it. You know, if I'm on the call with like the CFO, the CEO, the CTO, the head of sales, I'm like, hey, yeah, this minor change on your side is going to have a huge impact on the accounting side, which is going to be good for everybody. And so I, you know, I do try to do that because I that is has been something that I have seen a lot throughout my career.

Thank you so much for sharing because you shared two main points, pain points. I will say that I have struggled also at different companies at different time in my life. The first part is accounting being brought too late. And the other part you said was how do you switch to a better system and you have that resistance to change because Am I going to be useful?

Because we're having the same conversation now, even with AI. So curious for you, if you can dive a little deeper, what's your number one tip? One, to help accounting being involved earlier in those conversations. And the other one, how can, within the accounting department, can we also encourage people to change or migrate to better solutions?

You know, I do think that leadership, you know, it flows downstream. So I think that, you know, leadership comes from the top. So I think, you know, definitely having the right leaders in place to recognize those types of things. I think advocating for yourself, if you're in an accounting department, I think going to your leadership and explaining, hey, guys, you may not understand what I'm spending time on.

I mean, I remember even our CFO who was a great CFO, but he would say, well, can you just make this one change? And I'm like, you don't understand what your one change impacts. And explaining it to him, and he'd be like, oh, yeah, I had no idea it did that. Because to him, it's just some one number.

But when I explained how the system has to process it, now what I have to do with it, then it would resonate. And so I think advocating for yourself, making sure that you are advocating to be in those conversations and going to leadership and explaining like how this is important for a downstream impact is very important. And then in change, I think as accountants, I think we need to be open to change. And I think we need to advocate.

for our departments and within our departments for that. So when we have people that are resistant to things, I think we need to show them the value. I think we need to be patient because that's another thing. I think, you know, we've got different people in different parts of their career.

You know, we've got different generations working together. You've got some generations that just grew up with everything at their fingertips. They get frustrated if they have to take more time to analyze something. They're used to a computer just spitting it out.

And then you've got the other side of the equation where you've got people that, yeah, they've used computers, but going with new systems and processes is scary to them and uncomfortable for them. So I think making sure that you within your department are having those discussions internally and that you are helping bridge the gap with those people, knowing the people in your department and what maybe their quirks are, what their issues are, where they might struggle, and then trying to help for that.

Because I think that my goal is to try to make my clients better, to make my company better. And I feel like if I'm helping my company grow, if I'm helping become more efficient, I'm also helping myself. It is something that resonates across everyone. And I think that being able to do that and being flexible.

It is hard, I know, but just being flexible, trying to find how you can adapt your current processes into the new process. Yeah, I like how you mentioned basically meeting people where they are. Yes. Especially when you think about the different generations.

I have two young kids at a time and they're both below the age of 15 and I'm like... I don't know how people will work with them when they hit the workforce. And now I started to feel like, oh, now I know why millennials and boomers are having all those things because we raised them. Oops.

But I can totally see what you said in terms of patience and meeting people where they are and making sure that your overall project, like you said, is successful. Because that's the goal at the end of the day. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

And I want them to be successful. I feel like every one of my projects is like... my kids, you know, I mean, I built it, I want it to be perfect. I want it to work for my clients.

I want them to be successful with it. So, you know, when I build it and put it out there in the world, you know, I want it to do what it was designed to do. So I do have an attachment to that. So what's the recent project that you're really proud of?

Oh, wow. Let's see. Actually, we had a project where we had a lot of different. systems and departments coming together.

Very complicated processes and everything was manual. And we were able to work within their constraints. We were able to communicate well. We were able to design a system that helped them and give them confidence.

They had come off of a bad attempted implementation. I can't call it an implementation because it was never completed. But they had a bad experience. So I think the first part was they were they were just not trusting anything.

We had to build that trust with them. And I think, you know, seeing where they are now back to where when we started is just a great accomplishment to see what we were able to achieve. And, you know, I was only one piece of that project. There were a lot of great people on that project.

And but I was just so proud of our team, the way we executed, the way we were able to come together. to solve the problems for the client the way that we were able to deal with a lot of different personalities, a lot of different struggles the client was going through. They were, they all of a sudden like... increased in volume like just like almost overnight.

And so they're in growing as we're doing this. And so and then, you know, being able to bring the different pieces together when they were somewhat siloed before. So I think doing that was great. I think having, you know, seeing now, you know, the end product of that and seeing that they're happy and that they're successful.

I think that to me is just great. I think that was probably the most recent one where I felt like we just, you know, kind of hit it out of the park. Oh, good. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause I like how you said they were growing while we were doing it. And that's often the part of change that we, that is hard in finance accounting because But like the world just pause and everything is static. Yes.

Your thing like you literally running like you operating on the engine as the car is driving. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's like we're iterating while like this is like, OK, well, this is process not going to work anymore.

Now we're going to do this. Oh, we're going to start using this now. OK. with this wasn't a scope.

Oh, now it is. You know, I mean, these are just things that, but, you know, being able to be flexible and roll with that, like, I think our team just really excelled at that. I just can't say enough about how great our team was. Like I said, I can't take credit.

I was a small part of that project, but I think our team was just like amazing. And I'm very proud of that. Good for you, because when I think about growing businesses, I think about treasury, finance and banking. I'm curious to hear any project you also had there, because again, you may have one bank account or you may be the only person dealing with X, and then all of the sudden the company grows and now you have accounts in other countries and then you have all these things that...

You didn't even see coming. You know, that's very true. I did have a client that had, oh gosh, I'm trying to remember how many accounts they had. They must have had like 10 big accounts.

And they were international, some of them were international accounts as well. And they did everything, like they did wires, they did bank transfers, they did, you know, check payments, everything. Oh, checks, oops. Yes, yes.

So yes, they did check payments as well. M -A -C -H, like everything. And originally we had put them on the electronic bank payments system in Nutsuite. And we were, you know, creating files, working with the banks.

There were lots of different banks included in this project. And we were just running into issues. Like some banks were great. They'd get us the technical specs we needed.

They would work with us well to get tested. Other ones was like just finding the right person was like very hard to do. And it was just it was it was a nightmare because this was a big deal. Let's take a quick break so I can tell you about Fispen.

Fispen brings your business banking and treasury management directly into your existing ERP or accounting software. It's like having your bank inside your ERP. So you don't need to switch and you can manage payables, receivables, cash and reconciliations all from one place. Which means you can pay invoices, you can view balances, you can automate accounts receivable from the cause it all the way to reconciliation with just a few clicks, all from the comfort of your ERP.

So if you're looking to streamline your financial operations and gain complete visibility and clarity, I do encourage you to visit Fispen .com so you can spend less time on manual repetitive tasks and more time on growth. Now let's get back to our interview. And during that time, I found out about Fispen.

I'm trying to remember exactly how I found out about it. I don't think I even realized It was a separate group. I think I read about it online with JP Morgan. And so I, one of the accounts was JP Morgan that this client had.

And so we started talking to them and we worked with the Viseband team to bring in the plugin for JP Morgan. And it was like so seamless. Like they, they went through, we didn't have to do anything except help the client test, which testing was very minimal. And they, They were able to bring in the functionality seamlessly into Nutsuite, and they were able to do ACHs right through the portal.

They were able to do bank transfers. They were able to record things more seamlessly through one portal. And they were able to do it within the system, which was really nice because clients don't love going to outside systems to do things. And so when the client saw how well it worked, he actually ended up...

changing all of his bank accounts over to JP Morgan so he could use that. I think in the beginning there we did have some international accounts where there were certain things we couldn't do but we could still get the bank feeds in. I think with banking, especially, banks are constantly changing. They're constantly changing their security.

NetSuite is also updating a lot. And so to be able to marry those things together, it was really nice to have an app that was being kept updated. It's whitelisted with the banks and things like that. So that was very helpful.

So I think that was probably my easiest transformation with banks. Yeah, working with banks is a kind of a mixed bag. It was nice to have that. Yeah, because we have so many bank accounts because ACE is a small business lender.

So we have like 20 plus accounts and it's a lot. So when you say just getting the bank feed in, is it like? That alone is like, thank you, Lord. It is, because it's a steady feed.

I mean, that's the one thing that we struggle with is, you know, every time the bank redos their security, you have to go through and, you know, reconfigure it or reauthorize it. I know I use Quicken for my personal stuff. And every time there's a security update, I have to go in and I have to go and I have to reconnect to my things and I have to re -authorize everything. And sometimes I don't realize it's not working until I notice that there's nothing in my account coming through.

And so, you know, this is great because, you know, the system is, you know, as NetSuite, it's also updated. You know, sometimes that breaks connections as well. And then the software is, you know, updated with NetSuite. So it's a nice and it's a steady connection.

So I think that that's a benefit because it even though bank fees is such a small piece, it is frustrating when you're trying to do, you know, and saying, where's my information? Now I have to go out and get a CSV file and I have to put it back in, you know. And so it's nice just to have that piece of it and not have to worry about it. And it's nice to be able to have the portal to do like the ECHs and that type of thing, because then you don't have to, you know, have not your files and, you know, find a secure way to send those to the bank and stuff like that.

So it's just nice. to be able to have that in one system, one platform. That's great. That's great to hear because I feel like all growing companies and growing finance teams are going through those pains because I feel like the business usually grows faster than the finance accounting function does.

I feel like there is always a lag between where the business is going and where accounting and finance systems and processes or workflows are. I always feel like We are playing catch -up. So it's time to do those system implementation. It is just so hard.

So curious to hear if you could give one piece of advice to someone about starting that kind of system implementation in a growing company. What would it be? I think one of the good things to do is, first of all, look at where your business is now and look at where you want your business to be. where do you want to grow to?

Because I think one of the pitfalls we run into is we're trying to solve for the current business. We're not looking at the future. And so we need to have a roadmap. Where do you want to be?

Maybe this particular solution or this particular functionality isn't needed now, but will it be needed in the future? And let's make sure our design plans for that. Let's make sure that we have that now so we're not doing redesign down the The line. you know, for example, if you're a hardware company and you're like, well, we don't have to worry about like Revrec or anything like that, but we're going to start adding software and doing software bundling.

Well, maybe we need to start, you know, doing things in what we're building, even though we're not maybe adding revenue yet, but that revenue can be able to handle. We want to make sure we get that information and the system so we don't have to do redesign. So I think that that's super important. I think having that roadmap set out and you know.

to be able to be followed. And, you know, you can be flexible. You can change things as business changes and as, you know, circumstances or technology changes. But I think that's one thing that is probably really good.

You know, making sure that you have your requirements nailed down really well, making sure that all the stakeholders are involved. I had one client we were doing an implementation and we were literally like a week before go live and someone mentioned because we were in testing and they said, Oh, well, what about the and I'm like, what Bulgarian subsidiary? You know, and so we started talking and I found out, oh my gosh, like we have to bring in another partner to like do a localization.

It's not like an easy lift. They can't even use the system the way it is right now. Well, we didn't even know about it. We'd asked them several times, you know, no, no, everybody needs to be here, but like they didn't think about it until, you know.

And a lot of times that happens too when you're talking to, not talking to the people, the frontline workers. when you're talking to other people because they don't know what the frontline deals with sometimes. So making sure those frontline workers are part of the conversation because there's been countless, countless times where we get into testing and they're like, yeah, we don't do it like that. Or yeah, that's not going to work for us.

And that doesn't help our process flow. And so that's always things that can introduce risk into a project and cause delays into a project. cause unhappiness in a project and we don't want that. So I think making sure upfront, taking that time, I think that's where we struggle because everyone's in a hurry.

Everybody wants to just get this done. We want this done by this time. We want this. And I think making sure that you have a good solid foundation, it's like a building, right?

If your foundation's weak, your building's gonna eventually crumble. And I do feel like your accounting system, your ERP system is part of that foundation. And that foundation will crumble. If you have bad accounting processes, that can, what happened to Enron?

That can bring companies down. And so you need to make sure that you are... taking everything into account that you're having a good foundation to build that system. And I think that makes it better for everybody.

I agree. I especially like what you first said about take a step back and look at where you want the company to be. Yes. Because I've realized oftentimes we turn on the system and there are certain features we don't turn on because we are so focused on how the business operates now versus where it will be or even the chart of accounts, something as simple.

as a child of account, because we're in one location, we don't think about putting a dash zero zero just in case we have another location. And in retrospective, it creates so much trouble. But yeah, I love that advice because like I wish I had that too. So thank you so much for sharing.

Definitely taking a step back and thinking about where the company is going. Definitely have the right thinking partner like yourself, who have done it so many times, but also making sure people all subsidiary, like everyone is involved is definitely great advice. So thank you so much for sharing that. Oh, yes, you're welcome.

I have one last question for you here. What is your favorite thing to do outside of work? I love, well, there's several things I like to do. I love to read, so I do a lot of reading.

One of the things I like to do outside of work, besides spending time with my family and traveling, I like to volunteer in my community. I do a lot of volunteering in my community. I volunteer with animal rescues. I volunteer with city events.

We just had the World Cup here in Houston and I was able to help the city. of Sugarland. They were supporting Houston with some of the events. It was just an amazing experience.

You meet so many amazing people in your community. And I just love to do that. Like I volunteer with a lot of different groups. And I just, to me, that's just kind of my passion.

And if I didn't work full time, I'd probably be volunteering full time. Um, that's definitely, that's probably like, that's, that's the thing I like to do the best. That is awesome because thinking like the, the past few, few minutes that we talked, um, you're consulting, helping, and your favorite thing to do outside of work is also helping people. That is amazing.

That is amazing. I love it. I love doing that. I love helping other people.

I mean, I just do. I think it's just a wonderful experience. I think it gives me a lot of personal joy and personal growth. I learn so much from other people.

I love being a part of that. Good for you. Well, thank you so, so much for being on the show. I really appreciate your time, your great advice.

And where can we find your work with you? So I'm at Citroen Cooperman Advisors, LLC, where we have our main offices in New York. but you can find us online. We have offices all over the country.

Lots of deep experience, both on the accounting side and on the advisory side. We can pretty much do it all. So, you know, if you need help with anything in your business, I mean, we would be. Really great to be very grateful to have you and you can just find us online such as jrcoopermen .

com. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you.

That's it for today's episode. If you got something from this conversation, share with someone in your world who will benefit from it. Don't forget to rate the show wherever you listen and subscribe so you don't miss out on the next episode of the Diary of a CFO podcast. This is Wassia Kamon and I'll see you in the next one.