BookSmarts Accounting CEO Jenny Groberg managed to survive a traumatic brain injury and build a firm that empowers women accountants.
As Women's History Month draws to a close, Groberg's story shows how female accountants are creating spaces for themselves to advance a profession that's still largely dominated by men.
She founded her Utah-based firm in 2008. "It was just out of necessity in order to support my husband's medical schooling," she told Accounting Today. "He wasn't able to work, so I had to get a job."
The couple had two babies at home, and that number eventually increased to five children. "I applied for a controller job with a restaurant in Park City and they turned me down, and I had experience as a CFO and as a controller, so I started just advising small businesses and offering consulting services," said Groberg. "Then the companies started to hire me and they just said, 'Hey, Jen, you can do this cheaper than we can,' so then they would outsource their accounting work to me. It got to the point where I was working a lot and wasn't able to quite do both — be a mom and support the company — so I started hiring."
Her staff grew to about 10 to 13 employees and that was about as much as she could oversee. Then an accident occurred at home.
"In 2018 I jumped up on my bathroom counter to grab something out of my cupboard, and there was water on the counter," said Groberg. "I slipped and fell back and hit my head and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I really wasn't able to do anything. I wasn't able to invoice. I wasn't able to be on my computer. I couldn't read. I had a lot of brain damage, and just the daily functions of life were pretty hard to manage."
Groberg had to make the decision to step back from her business and promoted one of the accountants on her staff to manage the firm. "She was at the point in her life when her kids were leaving the home and entering college," said Groberg. "She had that capacity and extra time that I didn't, so I offered her profit-sharing if she could run the company for me."
Since then, Groberg's firm has been growing and adding more women accountants who can work from home. Groberg herself has been recuperating thanks to a few years of intensive therapy.
"We've had incredible growth," she said. "I've done physical therapy, cognitive therapy, you name it. I've met with neuro chiropractors, vision therapists, eye doctors, and I'm getting better. It's that mentality that if I can come back from that, if I can come back from zero, I can do anything. We have a staff now of 25, and we're overseeing hundreds of clients across the U.S. My hope is that we can just hire more women and empower more people to be able to work in that flexible model."
Flexible from the start
BookSmarts has offered a flexible model from the beginning, even before the COVID pandemic forced many accounting firms to work remotely.
"It's a real benefit to our clients because it's very comprehensive accounting help, but much cheaper," Groberg explained. "Instead of hiring and training and the turnover and all that goes with that, they're able to outsource to us."
She is able to use her experience to help businesses that have been coping with the pandemic and inflation in recent years.
"What I found over the course of my career in helping other businesses is anytime I review their monthly or yearly financials, I compare three periods," she said. "I feel two periods of time just gives you two data points, but if you have three data points, then you can see trends and spot outliers. If I close a month, I'll run a P&L for three months in comparison. So if I'm closing February, then I'll compare December, January and February so I can see if things are in line. It helps me to be able to see any outliers. If payroll seems to be climbing or expenses or income, I can see if income's off or if there's a problem with their cost of goods and then hopefully the business can change and pivot and adjust and make better decisions."
She advises clients to be more aware of the numbers in their businesses and any discrepancies. "If something looks out of line, there needs to be more effort put into finding out why," she said.
She has been able to spot problems such as an employee who was embezzling money from a medical practice, charging personal expenses to the business' Amazon account, while also claiming overtime on the payroll and not clocking out after finishing work. At another client, an employee wasn't properly entering the data or reconciling expenses on the credit card statements, leaving out multiple expenses. At another client, she noticed double-counting of invoices and receivables, leading to seemingly doubled revenues that resulted in a mysteriously higher tax bill than the previous year. For an e-commerce company, she discovered it was booking only the income from the PayPal statements, but not the PayPal expenses.
"The key is that you're paying attention and you don't just take those numbers at face value, whatever the numbers are, whether it's deposits on your bank statement, but that you're constantly asking why and adjusting your business practices accordingly," said Groberg. "Especially with prices rising with interest, businesses have to adjust. If they can do that first and foremost by paying attention to their financials, they're going to have a lot better chance of surviving."
BookSmarts works with small businesses as well as large companies, effectively as an outsourced accounting firm. "We offer controller services and pretty much everything in between," said Groberg. "We service medical practices, e-commerce, beauty companies, franchises, you name it. But it's pretty much the same across the board. If there are problems, then we can spot them. Whether it's in a service industry or a product industry, it's the same mentality: Use the financials to make better business decisions."
The entire staff of 25 is made up of women who are all able to work remotely. The staff works in teams, backed by a CPA's oversight. "If they have maternity leave or a vacation, then they can have other people that are always available for that client," said Groberg. "The client is fully supported, but the staff has that flexibility."
She believes in offering flexibility for both the staff and the clients. "We can support businesses and do it less expensively than a CPA firm," said Groberg. "I have data entry on my team, bookkeepers, accountants and CFOs so they're able to have fractional controller services and accounting departments and only pay for exactly what they need. Then if the company grows, we can grow with that. We can add more people to their account. It's a huge blessing to the women because then they can help their family and their finances and they can also have that outlet of contributing and working."
Groberg founded the company without any mentors to guide her. "I didn't know anybody and that there were boss ladies," she said. "My advice would be, why not you? The sky's the limit. There's plenty of work for everybody. There's no reason why you can't grow and employ and support companies. The backbone of our society is businesses and financial work and supporting them. The better numbers they have, the better decisions that they can make. Go for it."
