Family Succession, Modernization & Finding Balance with Nick Boscia

Hello, and welcome to the Big Four Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by Nick Basha, the Balance CPA and a partner at Basha and Basha Professional Corporation. Thanks for joining me on the pod, Nick. Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. So we once again, this is becoming a common intro for my podcast these days, but we met at Bridging the Gap. There were a lot of cool people there. And I really sort of liked what you were doing. You were talking a lot about, you know, having balance in the CPA profession, which I think is a topic we're going to get into. But I guess to start us off, can you walk us through your kind of journey to where you are today as a CPA? Yeah, yeah, I'd be happy to. So my dad started our firm in 1975. So way before me, I'm 35, I was born in 1989, just to give a little reference point. I didn't always think I was going to go into the accounting field. But naturally, having a father who's talking about accounting and love this career, it was always something in the back of my mind that typically was good at math, and then really felt accounting. So when I went to college, I went to Penn State, got my master's. And then I started with PwC, because, you know, that was just the route that everyone took. You know, if you're a top performer, you want to go to the big four. And so I started with PwC. And before that, before I was able to get my internship with PwC, because when I was younger in college, I actually worked with my dad, just in the summers just to get some experience. But I wasn't really doing any accounting work, I was doing more like maintenance, things around the office and just learning the basics. But then I went to PwC, and, you know, I'm sure you heard this story a lot, but I worked a million hours. Right when I started, the team was working, you know, 80 plus hours in tax season, hour and a half commute each way. So it was a pretty rough working at PwC for that first year. And when I would drive home, I'd call my dad like every single night and work on crazy hours. So that was kind of the tipping point that got me and I was only at PwC for one year. And I actually, my brother, who's three years older than me, he right after college started working full time with my dad. And his main goal was really he's like the entrepreneur still today, into sales, outreach, you know, networking and things like that. So when it was him and my dad, he was bringing in a ton of business. And then they really needed to hire a bigger team because it was just the two of them doing everything. And before my brother was there, my dad was doing everything himself. So my dad was like, hey, come work with us. And I was at the point where I was like, you know, I need a better work life balance. So I, you know, left PwC after the first year and got my CPA license and then joined the family firm. And then from there, it was, you know, not always the simplest, the easiest journey. But my dad was an old school guy, you know, building this legacy firm took him, you know, 30, 40 years of his life before I even stepped in the door. And then I wanted to change things. So it was definitely a long journey to where we are today. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I've had a couple people on who've sort of taken over, like, you know, long standing legacy firms. And that does seem like a common thread where it's like, yeah, you get to start with like a solid client base, revenue base, sometimes a team in place, but then it's like, you actually really have to transition to all these other things. You'd have to modernize like the whole tech stack. So like, what did the, you know, in terms of tech stack, like, what did that look like when you kind of started at that firm? Yeah, yeah. So when I started with my dad and my brother, you know, growing up, we had a great lifestyle. So I'm coming to this firm thing and it's like, my dad had it all figured out. He knew what he was doing. He's the boss. And I'm just trying to, you know, learn under his wing because at PwC I was doing audit. So then I came to do tax and I didn't really know much about tax. So I learned how we did bookkeeping and how we did tax preparation that first year. And I learned it pretty quickly. And at the time, I thought it was normal that we were doing bookkeeping on, you know, the green ledger sheets that were, you know, those huge sheets, manually doing it from the bank statements and keying into QuickBooks desktop. That was our tech stack at the time. And that's just how I learned to do bookkeeping. And that's what I thought was the right way. And it wasn't really until I started going to, you know, accounting conferences and talking to other, you know, thought leaders in the industry, other firms, because typically in the accounting world, I don't think a lot of small business owners in the accounting industry are networking with other accountants and sharing ideas. And that's the one thing that I really enjoy about branching out and meeting other people, learning how to do things. So like, obviously, now we're, you know, importing bookkeeping with bank feeds, direct downloads and things like that, just to save us time. But at the time when I first started, I didn't know that was an option. And now knowing how many technological tools there are to make our lives better, it was like basically my mission to start implementing these tools to, you know, make our firm more streamlined because we kept growing and growing. My brother was, you know, networking, getting tons of clients, you know, telling everyone what we have to offer. So we worked really hard, did a great job for our clients, but we weren't super efficient in what we were doing, doing a lot of manual processes. And then the only other tool in our tech stack was we use the Intuit Lacerte for tax software. My dad is actually, when he got the product, it was, we're account number 371. So like, we're one of like the first users of Lacerte. So back when it was, you know, a totally different product than it is today, but as it evolved, it really evolved with the new features. So I was passionate to like learn the new features and use those tools. Yeah. It's funny, like as tech continues to get better and better, I increasingly think like some of the things like maybe the green sheets, that was after my time. But some of those things, I'm like, those might remain good for learning, but it's like do three returns that way ever, and then move on. Right? Like, because I do think that if you immediately jump into like the most tech enabled options, you might actually miss a little bit of like the foundational understanding. I don't think it's terrible that that's where you started, but it's obviously, it's so much work to kind of like bring that forward. Right? And even once you get past those like internal hurdles, so the time to implement, you know, convincing people internally that this is a good idea, then you have the clients. I imagine a lot of these old school clients, like, were they a little bit difficult to transition to a new and improved tech stack? Yeah. Yeah. I think when it came to like the internal way we did the processes, like the client didn't care if we were manually keying in their, their books or doing it automated. They did that on the back end. They weren't seeing that because our clients were on QuickBooks Desktop, so they didn't have visibility into their books, nor did they really want it. They were kind of set it and forget it type of clients, which we have still have a lot today. They just want, you know, keep me compliant, keep me out of jail, that whole, you know, that whole thing. But as we started implementing like tools that clients had to interact with, the first tool that we actually implemented that really changed our firm was SmartVault. So SmartVault integrates with our tax software, Cert, and it basically builds out the folders per client. So we get 300 new clients, it's automatically syncing with SmartVault, building out the folder structures. And that's where clients to this day still upload all their tax documents. And that starts our workflow to prepare their taxes at year end. And then we automatically upload our tax, their final tax return in there, so they've access to it 24 seven. So like, that's just, that was like one of the best tools we implemented. And it wasn't, it wasn't hard to implement internally, it was hard to implement externally to the clients because they needed their own login, and they put out their password and that whole thing when they were so used to getting paper tax returns mail to them. But then yeah, they lose the tax return, hey, they call us up in the summer, could you mail me another copy, like, things like that really slowed our firm, our firm down. And there was no value add to mailing out a paper tax return. So I see that even even now, like, I'll see a new client will come in, and I'll bring like the pretty finder labeled tax return. And I'm like, it looks pretty, but like, no one's using it. It's more advantageous to the client that they get access to their tax returns whenever they need it. So once it was hard to get the clients on board with the new systems, but once they use it, they're like, Oh, this is an awesome tool. And it actually helps our firm and and then so it's just like a win win. So getting those tools implemented were like game changers for our firm to grow. Were there any other ones that like internally, you would say were were huge winners? Yeah, so I also implemented something a simple tool is Calendly. So I know Calendly, because before Calendly, I used to, you know, clients would say, hey, I need to make an appointment, or they just call whenever they felt like it. And that was a legacy firm type of mindset that my dad would say, call me seven days a week, Saturday, Sundays, nights, weekends, didn't matter. And once our dad retired, getting clients to treat us like a professional service firm, which we were, they would have to book an appointment before they called and it was it was time consuming for me to look at my calendar, and to see when I'm available to book an appointment. So Calendly was just the easiest tool to implement. And now I send the link to my client, and then they book what's convenient for them, they look at their calendar, just one little thing off of our plate. And all some of these things seem small, but when we, when we took it over, we had, we're serving 700 clients. And now we're serving 1800 clients. So every little thing that we can do with technology that improves our workflow, it really adds up. So Calendly was a big one just for scheduling. And then this past year, we implemented Financial Sense about a year ago. And that's our workflow management tool. So our team, over the years, since my dad retired, has grown from, you know, just three of us, the family, my dad retired, and now, now we actually have a team of seven, including me and my brother. So before that, we didn't really have a workflow management tool. The workflow management tool I first started was, we printed out our client list, and we highlighted the names of when we completed the work. So it wasn't really the best tool. And then I, then I converted the paper list to an Excel list, which was like, oh, revolutionary. But now Financial Sense is that on steroids. So now we can track every client, every project, it auto recreate, we put notes in it, we put links to Loom in it. So now the team, if they're not sure exactly what to do, you watch a Loom video, and it shows you exactly the steps to complete that project. So just things like this, that I always knew would be important. It's like, the initial implementation is like the hold up for us. But then once you implement, you're like, oh my god, I can't imagine how like, you can't imagine going backwards. And on top, then the one other thing that I actually game changer for us was implementing Anchored for our engagement letters and our billing. So this past tax season, we, it was the first year and like, like, let's say we've been around for almost 50 years, the first year we ever told clients you have to pay in advance. So it was definitely a big shock. But it actually improved our workflow dramatically. So now we know who's serious, who no one's arguing their bill on April 15, before you file their tax returns. So everyone has visibility, you could have conversations with clients about the bill or anything in advance of tax season, we're crazy busy. It just automated getting engagement letters signed, getting payments up front. And then tax season, we're really busy, we were able to just focus on getting their taxes done. You know, having those client calls that are really important to do tax planning and things like that. Rather than spending our time billing. I think every accounting firm that I talked to, a lot of our wasted time is on administrative stuff. And that doesn't add value to the client. So like, that was always my big picture that I want to have more free time. But I also want to spend my time on things that are making a difference for the client not saying, Oh, I'm busy this week, I'm going to be doing collections all summer to all the people who didn't pay. Yeah. Yeah. What I really like about kind of that segment where you talk about the changes is, like some of them are genuinely like big ambitious projects, like moving from a paper firm to, you know, a full full digital firm with client portals and whatnot, is like, that's an ambitious project project. But a lot of the things you brought up, like, they're kind of low hanging fruit for a lot of people and might sort of cost you nothing, right? Like specifically moving to Calendly and having sort of like a guideline in place just for yourself out of like respect for yourself and for your own time, where you do not make yourself available seven days a week. I forget who had tweeted this, it was maybe Jason Stats, it definitely seems like his style. But they talked about like the like the path of least resistance for your clients, right? And they were talking about how, you know, if you have rules in place where it's like you need to book an appointment and then talk to me, but then this one time you give the client your cell phone number to text you, well, that becomes the path of least resistance. They're never going to respect your process again, they're just going to text you. And that's nothing against the client. Like I am that as well as like the user of any service. Like I am that person, I take whatever the path of least resistance is. And so I think that that's a really important distinction you make, that you are available by appointment based on your calendar. So I really like that. And so for the mentality behind that, like was your dad kind of like working sort of all the time? Yeah. Yeah. So growing up, my dad would be working seven days a week, working late, working weekends, working holidays. And I remember on Christmas, my dad would be there in the morning, we'd be opening gifts and you know, 12 o'clock, he's like, all right, I got to go to the office. And like growing up, like you think that's normal. And then as I got older, you realize that that's not normal. You know, his generation, like working a million hours was like a badge of honor. So he made it very clear that he works seven days a week. He works Saturdays and Sundays, like he said that proudly to his clients, but unfortunately, he didn't really have a balanced lifestyle. And that's kind of where the balance CPA comes in. Because I grew up with a father who, you know, did well financially, you know, really cared about his clients and, but that's where he focused 100% of his energy. So he had no, he didn't care if he didn't go on vacation, he didn't care if, you know, he wasn't hanging out with friends on a Saturday or Sunday, because he's like, Oh, I'm serving my clients, which is, which is very admirable, but it's not relatable to, I think, the newer generation to say, Hey, you want to give up all your free time and make all your clients really happy. And then the problem is letting clients run the show. Now you can't make everyone happy, because everyone has different personalities. So like, you really have to standardize your procedures, like something as simple as, as you said, Calum, clients used to call me all the time, nights, weekends, because that's what they were trained that that's, that's okay. I don't take my call 24 seven. And that's a great selling point. But it's not sustainable, especially not for me, because I don't think that's balancing if I'm with my fiance on a date on Saturday night, like, I don't think it's acceptable to take a client call about their taxes that, you know, might be late because they didn't file on time, like, their, their emergency shouldn't become my emergency when I'm out on a date. Yeah. And I will say, oftentimes, these emergencies are somewhat manufactured, where if you were less available, the thing would be less of an emergency, right? Because it's just top of mind for this client. And there's such an important client, and they just want to know right now. And so that becomes something that completely like skewers, whatever you're up to, versus again, I need to book an appointment, okay, I've accepted mentally that this might take a couple weeks for me to get the answer on. And then there's no more emergency. And you can work that into your workflow, I think there's less context switching. So the work that you are getting done, you're probably getting it done way faster. Because the more times you pick up and put something down like that, and it depends on the person, I see some people who actually are pretty okay at it. I can't, like if I need to put it put, you know, pick something up, put it down, like the quality goes down astronomically, first of all, and then it just like throws off my entire day. And I'm not going to be able to get as much done as I thought I would. And on that point, when I started implementing like the required appointments, some of the old clients still to this day will call me and if I don't answer the call the phone again and again. And then I'll be in an appointment and even if I'm not in an appointment, I feel like on principle, I call them back when I'm finished with the project I'm working on because my and I call them I'm like, sorry, I was actually working on another client, I was in a meeting with another client, letting them know that if they were in my office, or if they had an appointment, they would be my number of priority because they scheduled time. So I always think it's like my ethical duty to have these guardrails to make it fair for all the clients. It's not saying my way or the highway, I'm just saying, everyone, if you have an appointment, this time allocate to you and I'm giving you my undivided attention. And I kind of do my whole life like that, you know, like I said before, going on a date, I think my undivided attention should be on the date because that's what my time is there for to be present not to be half there. I think that's like really important nowadays because you know, everyone's attention is pretty divided. Yeah, no, I think that's so representative of like the new generation of talent to is like people want to be able to set up boundaries and have a life. And what you were describing from like your dad, who probably is like a very traditionally successful person. That is exactly what is no longer appealing to people, right? People are like, I'm not going to do that. And like I had a job like that for a year, and it like truly like destroyed my life for that year. It was awful. And I left it. It was super interesting. It was kind of cool what I was doing. And again, like I felt like I was being incredibly impactful, but it was just like taking such a toll on everything I do. My life, you know, levels of fitness like plummeted, like there was a lot of things like that. I'm probably still paying for it a little bit now, like three years later. And and like, I think people really need to take a hard look at that. Because in my experience, like if one year did that to me, like I think like a whole lifetime, I think is really hard to deal with. So again, a lot of people these days, right, they're like, I want to be on a path where I can, you know, see those diminishing returns, like maybe make $300,000 a year, I'll probably never make a million a year, but that's fine. Right? Like, like at a certain point, like my time becomes more valuable than like the marginal additional income. So yeah, There was like, when I was at TWC that year, there was like a one experience that completely changed the way I saw the big four is I was going to a partner's office and I my passion right now is traveling. I love traveling. I love doing things with friends, family. And I went into the partner's office and I was like, and I knew she was going on a vacation with her family. And it's like, Oh, you said your trip because that's just like something I enjoy talking about. Like I like when people get excited and talking about like things that they love to do, even if it's stuff that I don't like, but I relate with the travel. And she's like, Oh, I actually had to put push the trip off because like something happened with this client. And now I need to be here. And I remember thinking to myself, like, you're the top and you can go on your family vacation and you might be making, like you said, a million dollars a year, but like, is it worth it? Like, what could you have? What could you spend with that money? Like you're in the fanciest hotel, but you can't even spend the time with your family or working. So it's like, I've always thought about those things. And like that, that was just one point at TWC, but like with my dad, he's been all this time working. I just don't think, I think the balanced life is, is the most important part. Like you said, even with your health, your health is the most important thing of everything. Yeah. You can't take care of that. It's like, it's going to catch up. Yeah. And I think there's different mentalities for different people. And like, that's why, like, to me, I'm like, I'm happy that that path to do just like extraordinarily well financially, if you're willing to kind of make some sacrifices, like it's probably still a good thing that that exists, because some people just like, they need that, right? Like, you know, my father's side of the family, like Italian immigrant family, like for them, it was like, I will, you know, growing up for some of them, it was like, I will do anything to kind of make it because right. Like some people grow up with so little and it's like a mentality thing where, where you, you just have to kind of pursue it at all costs. And that's where I'm like, I really don't fault people for it necessarily. I just think that businesses and firms need to become aware that an increasing number of people are kind of looking at that and saying, that's not for me, right? So I really do think you're kind of like a voice to be listened to for, you know, especially for kind of some of these people who are more old school and maybe trying to understand like, where their staff are coming from, or, you know, staff manager, whatever kind of people of that rank are coming from when they say like, I'm leaving on this, like, on paper, tremendous opportunity, but like, to just go do something else, right? So yeah. Yeah. Um, so talk to me about the brand a little bit of the balance CPA, like, I'm curious to know what your plans are with that. I love the message that you preach. And you know, for people who might be audio only who don't see the clips, like, you're a very fit guy, like it's, it does not take much that you're like, Okay, no, like this, this person does truly live by this. And like, you do prioritize kind of health and wellness and stuff like that. So I'm curious to know what's what's coming for the brand. Yeah. So, uh, I want to build it out. And I just want to have like a, a bigger network where I can reach out to people and maybe, you know, make a difference to someone out there who needs to hear the message or the message is basically having a balanced lifestyle and balance the reason I love it because it's like I could, it could work with any person because everyone's level of balance is different. Like you said, if someone wants to make a million dollars a year, because they, they really want to have a big house and they want to have a nice car. That's that's awesome. As long as that makes you feel like if you have that, and you're like, I love this car, I love this house, or you want to go on extravagant vacations, that could be balanced for someone, but then someone else can be like, Hey, I really just want to be able to go to the gym seven days a week because I love taking care of my health, or I want to be going on hikes every day. It's, it's basically, it's not telling anyone what they should want, but it's, I think everyone should decide what's important to them to have a balanced life spending time with family is I think an important thing, friends, you know, working on your relationships, working on your health. So it's looking at your like whole life as a picture and it should be fulfilling as well. You know, it's not like someday I feel like when I make double what I'm making now I'm gonna be double as happy. It's enjoying the whole journey. So I think that's kind of the message I want to spread. And also like whether it be to like clients who are hearing the message or other accounts in the industry or other professionals in any industry, it's a balanced lifestyle could be relatable to anybody. And like my passion is really to travel. So I'm driven to, to work hard and implement technology. So it allows me to travel because you know, once you implement technology, it, it automates processes that you used to have to do manually and it would might maybe keep me from getting out of the office and working every day of the week to nine, the summers we have Fridays off and the whole team has the Fridays off in the summer. So like, to me, that's balanced, you know, you work hard in tax season and our tax seasons aren't crazy. We're working about like 55 hours in tax season. So like not killing the team, but then we have Fridays off in the summer. It's like, to me, that's balanced. So it's not taking every client on and, but I've been thinking about this. I think about this every single day, thinking about like what things I'm grateful for, where things that are kind of stressing me out and how I can work on those. So as a, like as a pretty tax forward firm, how are you making the kind of 55 hours a week busy season work? Like, are you, are you automatically extending kind of most of the work and have that communicated with clients or what does that look like? Yeah, it's funny, because we actually one of our, I would say selling points or things that new clients when they onboard with us, they really like is, we will complete all of our clients by the deadline, unless they need an extension. So typically, clients will let us know right off the bat, hey, I have a k one that I don't get till the summer. So I need to go on extension. So that's completely fine. We don't do a ton of extensions. We're pretty efficient in our process. We you know, everyone uploads their stuff to SmartVault, that starts a workflow project. And then they would actually pass through Anchor. And that's how we know they're serious, and we don't have to worry about doing collections in the summer. So just implementing those few standardized procedures has helped us tremendously because even today, we have 1800 clients, I think last tax season, like 100 clients came in and brought paper documents, which I typically don't love. But you know, people want to come in, they want to talk with us, you know, they've been automated for a long time. So like, I definitely understand there's different, you know, clients out there. But from an efficiency standpoint, if all 1800 clients came in with paper, we wouldn't be able to do. So like, that's always the thing I think about. So you know, standard, like, get becoming electronic and paperless has been huge. And you know, automating the billing and things like that. So it allows us to just handle a lot more clients. Interesting. Yeah. And how's working with family? Working with family is always interesting. Definitely the dynamic working with my dad, when I first started was a lot more difficult because, you know, rightfully so he's like, I've been, I grew this business from nothing to what it was. And he used his processes and you know, he was doing it before computers. So he was doing things by hand. So you have to respect that. But things change. It's almost like people used to take horse and buggy to get places and now they use car. So it's like no one's using a horse and buggy anymore. But it's like getting him to open up to that mindset was tough. And we really couldn't implement technology until he retired, because he's like, my system works, why am I going to pay for this software that I could do myself, but he didn't see that bigger picture. But he also grew up before technology was really a big, major thing like it is today. And then me and my brother, we actually work great together. People always are like, family relationships and partnerships, you typically don't work out so well, because you know, you have two totally different people. But my brother has been growing up, we never really fought. We got along pretty well, I'm pretty easygoing, he's pretty quiet. And like growing this firm, like, we just have two different sets of skills. So we complement each other, like, I'm more like the technician. And I think about the internal procedures of the firms, like, I'm like, researching the technology, implementing the technology, training the team, and like things like that I enjoy doing, like, I like managing the team, and doing like more complex returns and doing tax advisory services, where he's like, you know, I always joke, if he didn't have to sit in the office, he would be out and about going to network with people. And that's really his thing like that my brother's on all the time, like he would take the call on the Saturday, and go to that working thing on the Sunday. So we're on more like regimented, like, I want to be on a schedule. So we complement each other well, and, you know, that's been pretty awesome. Nice. I love to hear that. If you were to like, start over and had to like, found a new firm, is that how you think you would do it where there's you as kind of the technical and, I guess, operational person and then having another person who's kind of outbuilding relationship doing business development? Is that kind of a format you'd recommend? I do like it. It's, as you said, with a family business, like, you're just two people who just got placed together because the world wanted to be and you just work with each other's strengths and weaknesses. Or like, if I was out looking for a partner, you'd basically I would just look for someone who has skills that are opposite of mine as well. So like, even now growing the firm, I would like to almost have someone else who's technical so I could almost just oversee the firm and work on operations. So because that would, anything that could free up my time, like, gives me the ability to implement a new piece of technology because the upfront costs pays off down the road. So but I definitely think our partnership structure is helpful and it's nice to like, I'm actually leaving to go on vacation this upcoming Wednesday, I'm going to Amsterdam and Paris with some friends and my fiance. Nice. It's nice to know that my brother's here because, you know, it's someone you could trust. So it's like, that's a pretty nice feature versus like being a solo practitioner. It is hard for a lot of stuff. My dad never really went away because the firm just shut down if he wasn't there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So just with kind of your attitude towards a lot of, you know, how you operate in accounting, I do think that you might be a little bit of a role model for a lot of people. Like I think the balance CPA is, you know, it's a new thing that you're working on. But I think it's going to resonate with a lot of people. And on that note, like I'm curious to know who maybe two or three of the people who influenced you the most might be. Yeah, I feel like very fortunate because I've got put in opportunities where I got to meet some of like the thought leaders in the industry. So like, I'm very good friends with Sean Duncan that some out there might know he, you know, built this amazing advisory practice and he's just such a future thinker. He actually was the one who told me about Smart Vault way back so I didn't have to learn all the tools myself. He was like, use this product and he already vetted the tool. So that was awesome to just have someone who's willing to help me. I'm also really good friends with Dawn Brolin. So she's the designated motivator, but probably a lot of people know her, but she's all about like talking about her tech stack and, you know, having standardized procedures and just learning from these big names and, and we were just that bridging the gap together. So then I'm also, I also follow Randy Crabtree. So he's like a good friend that I met through the conferences. So I particularly like, you know, talking with others in the industry who were years ahead of me, because they already went through all the pitfalls were like my dad, you know, he was in this little silo here and he wasn't going on learning from others. So like it was, he thought that he knew it all. When I go to these events, like everyone I meet has someone to teach me, like there's so many smart people doing things completely differently than me. And we don't all have the same, you know, desires and motivations. We all get totally different firms. Like, I would say those three people definitely like really inspired me to, you know, build this awesome practice that we're building. And I'm still working on, I'm definitely not where I want to be, but I'm enjoying the whole journey. Awesome. Yeah, no, I really hope that more and more people in the industry start to get out there. Like there's, there's different silos. Like when I was in the big four, they just, you know, you're in this little big four silo and they're like, here, here's how we do it here. You know, this is the Deloitte way and things like that. And they have obviously access to incredible resources, but there is a lack of diversity of ideas because it's just, you know, here's what's getting pushed down the funnel. No need to look at anything else. You know, I think that's a little bit of a shame and I think it is even worse for small practices if you're not doing your thing and getting out. So, you know, I really admire everyone who came to Bridging the Gap. Like, you know, one of the last episodes I did was with like Wade Runge, like he's going to retire soon and he's like at this conference bringing new ideas into his firm, which I think is, is very admirable and I think that goes a really long way. So it's good to see you doing that so early. But yeah, thank you for coming on, Nick. It was awesome meeting you at the conference and, you know, I'm happy that we got to continue the conversation here a little bit. And I really look forward to seeing what's coming both for your firm and for the brand of The Balance CPA. Thanks again for having me, I really appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Thanks.