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

Katherine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Passion for small business and achievable growth has historically been a large part of my personality. Several years ago (one could say a few decades), I started my career in corporate accounting, and after leaving corporate America I went to work for a small business as a full-charge bookkeeper. The change in landscape was both refreshing and jarring – I realized quickly that small businesses do not always have the resources at their disposal that a large organization does, and I felt that when one considers the high rate of small business failure in this country this needed to change, and on a scalable level.

Our industry is peppered with very talented accountants, bookkeepers and other advisors, but unfortunately there aren’t enough of them statistically, so to say I was fixing a brand new problem might be an little exaggerated, but I like to say that I work hard to build an MVP team that can bring a depth of resources to our clients at scale. Additionally, we keep the “care” factor alive. This isn’t a side hustle or an accounting big box store. True to our message, we work hard to help our clients Scale Gracefully, and we don’t hard sell. We are here as much or as little as our clients need us.

Katherine, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Funny enough, I was originally a journalism student in college. I worked for some local papers and enjoyed writing about the residents in our community and what made them special. I believe one of my favorite stories was about a lady who had an incredible number of salt and pepper shakers, over 1000, and a gentleman who was semi-retired but had a Christmas tree farm. His favorite part of the year was meeting the families who would come pick out the trees. Decades later I still have his story framed at my home.

One semester my core classes were already full, so I thought to knock out some electives in accounting. I fell in love with the order and organization of it, and I already wanted to help people, and so I started a path to marry both parts of my personality. For many of us money and financial success is deeply tied to our businesses, so to be able to take accounting and simplify it for our clients and help build actionable steps to organize their data in a way that can be used is very fulfilling to me. While I loved the people I worked with in my corporate position and I learned a great deal, it wasn’t until I started working in small business that I realized I’d found my fit.

Corporate accounting taught me about routine and structure. My father was an aerospace engineer and taught me that most, if not all, problems, are solved through structure and process. If there is a common theme in my career, it is the application of structure and process, as well as continuous learning.

I focus a lot of this effort by training our team. We have around twenty employees, and I also work with our team to build our YouTube channel. We are small but mighty, and I love hearing from new team members and clients about how when you speak to Certum everyone is very happy to talk to you, and we all care.

Additionally, while we are a remote company, we maintain an office in Monroe, NC, outside of Charlotte, and work hard to provide a level of access that fits our client’s preferences, whether that be in person, remote, or both, just like for our employees.

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

I never expected to be an entrepreneur. The small business that I worked for would have been my employer today, but unfortunately life takes turns. As a professional I have worked through the Great Recession, and ownership changes.

Due to these events and God’s plans (you know what they say about plans), I was left in the middle of the Great Recession being asked to wind down a company and simultaneously find my next steps.

Faith is a large part of my life, and like many business owners, I had some contacts who would reach out for advice and help, and thankfully I was able to start freelancing from there. That freelance initiative would one day become Certum.

That being said, I will never forget looking out of my kitchen window and wondering where my next paycheck would come from, or timing bills so that nothing would bounce. That’s a fear that too many people face, and one that I hope to avert for many of our clients through the services we provide.

I am not a quitter, but I’ve come close a few times. I think grit and resilience are part of what makes us human, and I don’t talk about my challenges much. I feel like we all have them, and I’d rather lift each other up. My faith tells me that things will be ok, and thankfully we are in an industry where our work is valued and needed.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

Covid. I feel like this question can be answered by most of us in one word. We went from being booked close to capacity to having many of our projects and clients have to pull away right when they needed us most. Most businesses did not have a contingency plan in place for an event like this, but I am a believer that every experience makes us stronger.

While I bootstrapped this business, we were forced to face a difficult decision that many other businesses face – find resources and work or lay off staff. I knew that if we went through layoffs the picture would be bleak for many, since so many people were already facing this prospect, our team has been trained over several years and we are a close knit group. I knew Covid was scary, but temporary, so we cut extra costs and were blessed enough to be able to get through with few layoffs, if any. I think we may have had one out of eighteen or so employees at the time.

Once the initial shock wore off our nation fought back. Many of these projects came back less than 6-12 months later, and we ended up having our best year ever the following year.

Since then we have increased passive revenue, investments and reserves and plan as part of our yearly budgets to handle another Covid, although we all hope that was a once in a lifetime event. As an entrepreneur you feel the responsibility of providing a future and growth for your team, and we take events like this as learning opportunities for adapted future planning.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.certumsolutions.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/certumsol/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherinebunschoten/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/certumsolutions
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CertumSolutions