Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Fuada Velic. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Fuada, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the early days of establishing your own firm. What can you share?

It’s never easy running the show, especially when you’re starting a new business. When I started AAAC, Inc., I dealt with my fair share of struggles. Sometimes I was unprepared. Or ignorant. Most of the time, I never saw hurdles coming my way until I had tripped right over them.

I knew from the get-go that I will face many chalinges and being enterpreneur will take a lot. I love the fact that my personality connects people and this made easier on my side when I started and was facing business chalinges.
I wanted to offer to community and to the world business service and destigvish my self with implementing new technology in to accounting industry. I wanted to bring multilanguages, multiculture and to incorporate this differences to the business world.

Having grown up in a highly competitive and entrepreneurial household in Bosnia, inspired by my father grandfather’s own entrepreneurial journeys. Yet despite success being in my blood, the path to success ‘is not always rosy’.
As a young entrepreneur, having one foot in education and one foot in the professional life is an absolute must”, I achieved this by taking back-to-back courses – in Accounting and Business followed by an MBA – which allowed me to expand my theoretical knowledge while also gaining valuable practical experience out in the field. I enjoyed it very much dificulties of bulding my own practice because on the end I can see that I am making difference and implementing my knowledge to the righ direction.

I love people, I love to connect with people and this is the key to where I am today. Seeing businesses growing, expending and people succeeding makes me motivated.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When I came to the proverbial crossroads in the accounting field, I chose public accounting for two main reasons: challenge and opportunity. In contrast to working for a singular company in a singular industry, I gravitated towards the opportunity to work with numerous clients across many different industries—from oil and gas to technology to manufacturing.

Public accounting also seemed to offer the challenges I enjoy on a daily basis, as no two days are the same and each client site is unique. It also provides endless opportunities for professional growth, preparing me to work anywhere, for anyone. This fits nicely with my long-term career goals to accumulate a wide variety of experiences and ultimately apply my leadership skills to roles with more responsibility. And since I am a “people” person, it gets me out of the office for weeks (sometimes months) at a time, actively interacting with CFOs, controllers and accounting department managers, as well as staff accountants.

Building these relationships makes the job go much smoother and is enjoyable for me! Of course, in industry, you form close ties with the people you work with day in and day out, making for a rich teamwork environment.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I was 17-years old when I was forced to leave my country of Bosnia and Herzegovina due to the war that broke out in the early 1990s. I was young and had a promising future in athletics. I didn’t want to leave. I had my professors telling my mom that I would do fine in Bosnia. They urged her to keep me in school and not take me away. My mother, though, didn’t see a future for us there.

She remained firm on her decision to move to the United States. Her transition to another country created many challenges. I put my passion on hold to recreate my life. After graduating from the University of North Florida with her Master’s degree in Accounting, I established my own accounting company where I assist individuals in creating their own business, provide accounting-related guidance, and create a platform for women and immigrants within the business field.

Believing in hard work my accounting practice grew with the opportunity to employ other individuals and build a platform for more business clients. My passion to help others and hard work made me to where I am today.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

It’s very important for me that I hear and listen to my client’s needs through the phases of business and relationships. During the “good ole days,” an accountant could hide in the back office, subsisting on a few basic greetings at the legendary water cooler. Yet, thriving in tomorrow’s business is going to take more than water cooler-level conversational skills. As automation streamlines transactional tasks, accountants won’t have the “millions of transactions to match” excuse to sidestep human interaction.

My goal is to become an exceptional accountant that will know how to manage numbers and people. That requires cultivating a broader range of relationship skills today, such as how to work in a team, how to motivate and engage employees, and how to deliver bad news — without making somebody cry.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.accountingatallcost.com
• Instagram: accountingatallcost,inc
• Facebook: accountingatallcost,inc
• Linkedin: accountingatallcost,inc