Rainmaker: Adam Boatsman creates IT value for accounting customers
Alumnus Adam Boatsman is co-founder of Boatsman Gillmore PLLC, the second largest privately-owned accounting firm in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. Recently, the Charlotte Business Journal named him to their “40 Under40” list of individuals who are “making major strides in their careers and having a positive impact on their communities.” Boatsman has found his W. P. Carey Computer Information Systems degree to be invaluable: “To be able to use information strategically with a client is a huge competitive advantage for us.”
A Rainmaker is someone who makes something happen: at his company, in his career, in his community. The Rainmaker series showcases Department of Information Systems alumni who are catalysts of growth and change.
The accounting profession has been great for Adam Boatsman, who graduated in 1998 from the W. P. Carey School of Business. It led him to his wife, enabled him to co-own his own business and earned him honors this year in Charlotte, N.C. In March, the Charlotte Business Journal named Boatsman, 38, to its annual 40 Under 40 list of individuals who are “making major strides in their careers and having a positive impact on their communities.”
His career path has not been a straight line, however.
When Boatsman enrolled at ASU, his first choice was to be an engineer, but after two years at the Ira A. Fulton School he switched to W. P. Carey. Because his father, Jim Boatsman, was a popular accounting professor, the son made computer information systems his major, but also focuses on accounting.
Since graduation he has built a career in accounting, but the information systems expertise has been invaluable — which is no surprise to Adam. In the undergraduate and graduate programs offered by the department of information systems, students learn how to use technology to make decisions and drive business process improvement.
“There is a discipline called technology-based management consulting — advising people how to use technology to improve their business. That’s really what that the accounting and information systems degree focused on,” Boatsman said.
His firm invests in industry benchmarking data so it can show clients how their revenues, profits and other indicators stack up against the competition and other industries.
“People really hire us because they want our insight into what their financial data means so they can use it strategically and build more value, whether for shareholder value or their own personal value,” he said.
“To be able to use information strategically with a client is a huge competitive advantage for us. If we can help a client uncover patterns in their own financial data, it’s enormously beneficial. If we can also understand patterns in our own client base, looking at our own data, it’s beneficial,” Boatsman said.
What sets his company apart
Boatsman worked eight years for Ernst & Young, one of the “big four” firms in the accounting field, but didn’t become a Certified Public Accountant until about 2006, when he and his brother-in-law, Dale Gillmore, decided to open up their own certified public accounting firm in the Charlotte area. Now, with 35 employees, Boatsman Gillmore PLLC is the second largest privately-owned accounting firm in the Charlotte area.
Boatsman Gillmore aims to be an innovative accounting firm by offering a broad array of services beyond traditional accounting to help clients maximize revenues and become more efficient. The company also launched the Make an Impact Foundation that has donated $40,000 of the firm’s profits to local charities. Its target market is medium-sized private companies.
“We want to be known as the firm that transformed the accounting professional from being passive and reactive to one expected to make a difference in clients’ lives and businesses,” says the firm’s Web site.
More than a decade ago, accounting companies became more timid after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals, Boatsman said. That led to the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and debates about toughening accounting rules continue today.
“We (accountants) became afraid to give advice anymore. We felt that either that advice was going to become a conflict if we did an audit for somebody, or we were afraid that if our advice was wrong, we could get sued. So the profession became more of a compliance function than a profession that added value,” he said.
His firm hopes to change that and to help companies be more proactive.
“I think our mantra should be pretty simple: ‘Help me make more money and keep me out of trouble while I am doing it.’ It really is that simple. The pendulum has definitely swung to the ‘keep me out of trouble point’ and we’ve really forgotten about the how do we help people make more money part.”
The variety of services Boatsman Gillmore offers includes business valuations, estate planning, litigation support, risk management, exit planning and even “green accounting” — helping companies take advantage of incentives to become greener.
The firm can, for example, help a client determine whether its marketing and advertising expenses are paying off or whether it has enough insurance or contingency plans to cover major problems. If Boatsman Gillmore doesn’t have the in-house expertise, it will refer clients to partner firms.
Boatsman Gillmore experts try to get clients to establish their goals for growth as well as transition.
“The hard thing about working with private company people is they don’t want to think about how they are going to leave their businesses. Are they going to die or sell it, shut it down or transfer it?”
“One of the things we really work hard to do is to help people at least identify a path that they are going to follow, whether a sale to strategic buyer, sale to employees or transfer to a family member,” Boatsman said.
Another goal is to foster an internal environment that employees will enjoy. Accounting students often want to build their resumes by working for one of the top four and so Boatsman Gillmore seeks interns and experienced workers who prefer a smaller, family-like culture. Speaking of potential employees, its Web site says: “Everyone must be pretty cool too.”
Recession and economic uncertainties
Unfortunately, Boatsman Gillmore launched during a challenging time: After a year in business, the recession officially began, sending clients into shock.
“I always say we had one good year of planning and advising and then five years of being counselor in chief — just a shoulder for people to cry on,” he said. “I wasn’t trained to be an emotional counselor.”
These days there are no surprises left, but little good news either.
“Earnings are up because people have cut costs and are working people as hard as they can, and people are as efficient as they can be: we see the same thing everybody else is seeing,” Boatsman said. “We’re really not seeing sales growth in our client base. It used to be that every client was up over the previous year. Now maybe 20 percent are up over the prior year. And materially, the rest are flat. Until you see true sales, growth, we are not going to be out of this.”
Boatsman writes a blog about national economic events to help clients, as well as the public, understand the tax and financial implications of national policy. A recent post was headlined “Debt ceiling, Taxmageddon and Tax Reform.”
“Most of the questions we get asked are not accounting policy related, but things like ‘What does the health law mean to me?’ and ‘If the Bush tax cuts expire, what does that actually mean?’ We work really hard to stay relevant in those types of things,” Boatsman said.
Family man
Another reason Boatsman is grateful for his degree is that it got him a job at Ernst & Young, which took him to Detroit where he met is wife. They now have two sons and a daughter. The Boatsmans usually come to Arizona twice a year. Jim Boatsman, who was also director of the school of accountancy at the W. P. Carey School in 2003-2004, is now a professor emeritus. He alternates between homes in Phoenix and Flagstaff.
The younger Boatsman’s dream is to transfer more of his work to others in his company so that he can pull back and work on broad strategic plans … as a stay at home Dad.
“I add some strategic value helping with sales and marketing and direction. But in terms of the actual value I can add, there is probably only five percent that I can do,” he said. His goal, he explained, is to ramp up his team so that he can hand off the day to day so that he can focus on the next step: whether to expand geographically or expand the service lines.
With two offices in the Charlotte area, the firm has about half the market share it should, Boatsman said. “The goal is to get us where we should be and then start looking for regional expansion possibilities.”
The accounting profession has been great for Adam Boatsman, who graduated in 1998 from the W. P. Carey School of Business. It led him to his wife, enabled him to co-own his own business and earned him honors this year in Charlotte, N.C. In March, the Charlotte Business Journal named Boatsman, 38, to its annual 40 Under 40 list of individuals who are “making major strides in their careers and having a positive impact on their communities.”
His career path has not been a straight line, however.
When Boatsman enrolled at ASU, his first choice was to be an engineer, but after two years at the Ira A. Fulton School he switched to W. P. Carey. Because his father, Jim Boatsman, was a popular accounting professor, the son made computer information systems his major, but also focuses on accounting.
Since graduation he has built a career in accounting, but the information systems expertise has been invaluable — which is no surprise to Adam. In the undergraduate and graduate programs offered by the department of information systems, students learn how to use technology to make decisions and drive business process improvement.
“There is a discipline called technology-based management consulting — advising people how to use technology to improve their business. That’s really what that the accounting and information systems degree focused on,” Boatsman said.
His firm invests in industry benchmarking data so it can show clients how their revenues, profits and other indicators stack up against the competition and other industries.
“People really hire us because they want our insight into what their financial data means so they can use it strategically and build more value, whether for shareholder value or their own personal value,” he said.
“To be able to use information strategically with a client is a huge competitive advantage for us. If we can help a client uncover patterns in their own financial data, it’s enormously beneficial. If we can also understand patterns in our own client base, looking at our own data, it’s beneficial,” Boatsman said.
What sets his company apart
Boatsman worked eight years for Ernst & Young, one of the “big four” firms in the accounting field, but didn’t become a Certified Public Accountant until about 2006, when he and his brother-in-law, Dale Gillmore, decided to open up their own certified public accounting firm in the Charlotte area. Now, with 35 employees, Boatsman Gillmore PLLC is the second largest privately-owned accounting firm in the Charlotte area.
Boatsman Gillmore aims to be an innovative accounting firm by offering a broad array of services beyond traditional accounting to help clients maximize revenues and become more efficient. The company also launched the Make an Impact Foundation that has donated $40,000 of the firm’s profits to local charities. Its target market is medium-sized private companies.
“We want to be known as the firm that transformed the accounting professional from being passive and reactive to one expected to make a difference in clients’ lives and businesses,” says the firm’s Web site.
More than a decade ago, accounting companies became more timid after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals, Boatsman said. That led to the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and debates about toughening accounting rules continue today.
“We (accountants) became afraid to give advice anymore. We felt that either that advice was going to become a conflict if we did an audit for somebody, or we were afraid that if our advice was wrong, we could get sued. So the profession became more of a compliance function than a profession that added value,” he said.
His firm hopes to change that and to help companies be more proactive.
“I think our mantra should be pretty simple: ‘Help me make more money and keep me out of trouble while I am doing it.’ It really is that simple. The pendulum has definitely swung to the ‘keep me out of trouble point’ and we’ve really forgotten about the how do we help people make more money part.”
The variety of services Boatsman Gillmore offers includes business valuations, estate planning, litigation support, risk management, exit planning and even “green accounting” — helping companies take advantage of incentives to become greener.
The firm can, for example, help a client determine whether its marketing and advertising expenses are paying off or whether it has enough insurance or contingency plans to cover major problems. If Boatsman Gillmore doesn’t have the in-house expertise, it will refer clients to partner firms.
Boatsman Gillmore experts try to get clients to establish their goals for growth as well as transition.
“The hard thing about working with private company people is they don’t want to think about how they are going to leave their businesses. Are they going to die or sell it, shut it down or transfer it?”
“One of the things we really work hard to do is to help people at least identify a path that they are going to follow, whether a sale to strategic buyer, sale to employees or transfer to a family member,” Boatsman said.
Another goal is to foster an internal environment that employees will enjoy. Accounting students often want to build their resumes by working for one of the top four and so Boatsman Gillmore seeks interns and experienced workers who prefer a smaller, family-like culture. Speaking of potential employees, its Web site says: “Everyone must be pretty cool too.”
Recession and economic uncertainties
Unfortunately, Boatsman Gillmore launched during a challenging time: After a year in business, the recession officially began, sending clients into shock.
“I always say we had one good year of planning and advising and then five years of being counselor in chief — just a shoulder for people to cry on,” he said. “I wasn’t trained to be an emotional counselor.”
These days there are no surprises left, but little good news either.
“Earnings are up because people have cut costs and are working people as hard as they can, and people are as efficient as they can be: we see the same thing everybody else is seeing,” Boatsman said. “We’re really not seeing sales growth in our client base. It used to be that every client was up over the previous year. Now maybe 20 percent are up over the prior year. And materially, the rest are flat. Until you see true sales, growth, we are not going to be out of this.”
Boatsman writes a blog about national economic events to help clients, as well as the public, understand the tax and financial implications of national policy. A recent post was headlined “Debt ceiling, Taxmageddon and Tax Reform.”
“Most of the questions we get asked are not accounting policy related, but things like ‘What does the health law mean to me?’ and ‘If the Bush tax cuts expire, what does that actually mean?’ We work really hard to stay relevant in those types of things,” Boatsman said.
Family man
Another reason Boatsman is grateful for his degree is that it got him a job at Ernst & Young, which took him to Detroit where he met is wife. They now have two sons and a daughter. The Boatsmans usually come to Arizona twice a year. Jim Boatsman, who was also director of the school of accountancy at the W. P. Carey School in 2003-2004, is now a professor emeritus. He alternates between homes in Phoenix and Flagstaff.
The younger Boatsman’s dream is to transfer more of his work to others in his company so that he can pull back and work on broad strategic plans … as a stay at home Dad.
“I add some strategic value helping with sales and marketing and direction. But in terms of the actual value I can add, there is probably only five percent that I can do,” he said. His goal, he explained, is to ramp up his team so that he can hand off the day to day so that he can focus on the next step: whether to expand geographically or expand the service lines.
With two offices in the Charlotte area, the firm has about half the market share it should, Boatsman said. “The goal is to get us where we should be and then start looking for regional expansion possibilities.”
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