Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lorraine Telesford. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Lorraine, thanks for joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard
Starting a small business named On Track Bookkeeping Services in 1999 was for me, a direct path to servicing what I then saw as a gap in the Bookkeeping and Accounting for Small Business industry. At the time, I was working for a boutique CPA firm on Front Street in Toronto as a Staff Accountant and Lead Bookkeeper, and 50% of my role was to go onsite to fix the bookkeeping for the firms audit clients when there was problems in the books received from the client or when the clients had no staff or consultant acting in that capacity. I found my niche skill then; helping clients understand what bookkeeping and accounting really was, and working with owners to employ and use software accounting software optimally to create GAAP compliant financials that were internally relevant and externally compliant. Through working with owners and decision makers, I came to understand that many many owners were actually crippled by their accounting and financial reporting requirements, in that, because they had learned to only see their accounting as a CRA, audit or bank reporting tool, financial reporting became the beast in the room and often times a necessary evil of the business. As I worked with business after business, to help them get their accounting ‘On Track’ I realized that being a CPA was not where is was going to be at for me, I wanted to reposition and re-educate owners to the beauty and strength in their numbers and the perfect name for that endeavour was clear; On Track Bookkeeping Services!
While most would think that anyone in accounting needs to be either a CPA, CGA or CA, I bring together a well rounded group of certifications in order to deliver a strong mix of Accounting and Business Advisory services to my clients. In 1999 I registered with The Canadian Institute of Bookkeeping and achieved the Certified Bookkeeper and started On Track Bookkeeping Services.
From 2008 to 2011 I gained Teaching experience with George Brown College, teaching courses for the Small Business Certificate program, such as: QuickBooks I, QuickBooks II, Simply Accounting I, Budgeting for Small Business, Developing a Business Plan, Starting a Small Business, and Promoting Your Small Business. I am also a Published Content Contributor with AME Learning published: Key Accounting Principles, Volume One, Third Edition, copyright 2011 ISBN: 978-1-926751-10-8
Over the last two decades I have become a software partner and Advanced Certified user of accounting and related integrated systems such as; QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online, Sage Accounting, Wave Accounting, Xero Accounting, Tsheets, Hubdoc, Work, Wagepoint, Plooto, Futrli, and has successfully implemented integrations with a host of other industry specific software such as: LivePlan, WooCommerce, Amazon Warehouse, Square, Stripe, Moneris, Kajabi, Mirano, Netsuite, BuilderTrend, PCLaw, TouchBistro and can adapt accounting systems to interface with business productivity and financial reporting software such as Miscrosoft Suite, Google Suite, Asana, Expensify, Fathom and a host of others.
When clients come to me, my services are backed by:
35 years of accounting, finance, business analysis, project management and business-related university and college level education
25 plus years of full charge accounting work experience
22 years of business ownership and small business teaching and coaching
20 years of project management
15 years of business analysis
150 plus satisfied customer experiences
5 years of experience as a part-time Professor teaching all courses for the Small Business Certificate at George Brown College
A higher than 90% success rate receiving project sign offs
A higher than 95% success rate achieving project goals and project deliverables within budget and on time
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
You know when you have a real love hate relationship with something, that was me and college. I was so eager to get out there and wear a suit and start adulting…lol. I had many older friends in the early 80s who had university degrees that did not match their jobs. Being very athletic in college, my friends were in their senior years when I was a junior and I saw this trend more and more; getting a degree to have a degree but then getting a job to make money and be independent as opposed to pursuing a career. So, I had some time to decide on a different path; I wanted a career…and I wanted to make money as soon as possible so I could buy everything my parents wouldn’t fund! One look in the want ads, changed the trajectory of my education, though I had dreamed about being a lawyer, there was over 15 pages of want ads targeted at Accounting type jobs. I was amazed! I was one of the only students I knew who passed Algebra, Calculus, and FInite Math and, of course, everyone thinks if I am good at math, I must be good at accounting and so, I changed my college major from Legals to Accounting and graduated in late 80s with 2 diplomas in Accounting. I actually had clients before I graduated or ever registered a business. My friends as I mentioned, were older, and some were already establishing their careers in exciting fields; entertainment and lifestyle management, modelling, acting and business ownership. They came to me to help them set up systems for keeping track of their revenue and expenses, I did their tax returns and I also consulted with them on all things business setup related such as how to open a business account at a bank and how to brand a business and obtain clients, etc. By throwing myself into the field even before graduating, hands on experience with my friends’ endeavours, helped me to see a more robust set of skills that I would need to acquire to really help my friends excel in their careers. I also love higher education and learning so I wanted to pursue multiple degrees but I needed to be able to afford them without taking on debt so I worked for a few different companies from 1985 to 1992, as an employee, in various accounting functions while pursuing 8 more diplomas and certificates during the same time span. While working at Deloitte, I was exposed to the balance sheets and the trial balances of businesses in a wide range of industries and of various employee sizes from small 2 or 3 person businesses to mid-size companies with up to 1500 employees, sometimes more. This was another turning point, I wanted to learn more and more from the mid size firms to see how I could translate those generally accepted accounting principles to the small businesses who did not necessarily have the financial budgets to justify having an accounting department. Between 1993 and 1999 I honed in and worked for strictly for accounting firms and decided that I would master accounting software, as many as possible, as well as CRA reporting and financial statement delivery on a monthly basis. By 1999 I was ready and clear about my mandate so I registered as a sole proprietor operating as On Track Bookkeeping Services and approached a senior accountant ally at the firm I was working for at the time, and was connected to my first official client as a soloist. I had never met a challenge I did not run towards, and this endeavour was no different. My first client was in Cambridge while I lived in East York and did not own a car. Well, I quickly learned that being employed by self can comes with a lot of days where your other skills becoming the prevailing skill and that everyday you learn multiple new things. Every business is unique, none follow the same model or have the same staff, thus each have their own unique ways of invoicing, handling and accounting for payables, some pay a lease for their space while some rent, sometimes utilities are included in the rent, other times it is not…wait…I need to understand contracts! Well, that was another bonus, I literally realized that every different diploma and every different job I had earned to that point, just made full service accounting and business consulting with a touch of project management, my niche and claim to fame. By the end of 1999 I had a dozen clients in a variety of industries, but mainly in Construction, Not-for-Profit Associations, a few Churches and some Entertainment NightCLubs and Concert Promoters. The first time that I was referred to as “well she’s my Accountant but she’s more like a Business Consultant, I run all kind of things by her first” I knew that I had accomplished my goal and was on my way to establishing a General Accountant as more of an Operational and Strategic Visionary who has access to a set of data that provides a clear, accurate and un-emotionally charged business decision making vehicle.
Financials tell a tale that can or cannot be in line with the goals and mission statement of your business. A Non-for-Profit can say that it serves it community by donating 90% of its revenue to community programming, but at year end, do the financials back that up? Do the receipts prove that to be true or untrue…it is really that simple. Where the challenge lies for most businesses is having a person or persons administering their accounting and understanding their business model and their industry as well as the GAAP and CRA requirements that go with. I bring this to my clients as well as a secondary bonus, I hold their hand, literally and make sure that I transition my knowledge, appropriately, to them by meeting them right where they are at in terms of their own Accounting and business savvy.
Some owners want to know everything and pay me as such, while others pay a premium to need to know nothing other than that the CRA is happy and so are the auditors. I am 1000% proud of the development of my people skills, business skills and my desire from mid 80s to current to continuously educate myself on possibilities which offer me the ability to adapt; the number one characteristic of a human being. I have been told many times that I win contracts over hundreds of other candidates because of the way my personality genuinely comes through as both knowledgeable and flexible. There is never one way to accomplish a goal in business. Each business has an owner with a specific personality and unique vision and I have always been there to first support that and then see how that can be supported by the right accounting system, workflow and financial reporting mediums.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
After starting On Track Bookkeeping Services, clients came pretty fluidly. I was always employed. Imagine, I started my business in 1999 and did not have a website nor business cards until 2007! Word of mouth is a beautiful thing and all that requires is providing good service, one customer at a time. I remained a sole proprietor from 1999 to 2018 and most of those years were filled with a very steady stream of clients, schooling and I would say, a healthy work/life balance. There was a distinct period of challenge during that time that could have changed the trajectory of both my professional and personal life. One of the sad points of my career, in my mind, is that my Father passed away before knowing that his daughter was her own boss. I mean, I was a Daddy’s girl from birth until that sad day in 1995 when Cancer took my Father to his final resting place. A number of family passings happened around that time and then life levelled off and I adapted to life without Dad. THis involved moving out on my own, I moved out with my Brother and went up to Willowdale, and my Mother and Sister moved to Scarborough. Everything happens for a reason they say, I was always close with both of my parents. They were my world. I was just a bit tighter with my Dad because I like to do things boys typically did, more than I liked doing things girls typically did, but don’t call me TomBoy…what a term!
During the years from 1995 to 2010, however, no better bond existed than between my Mother and I. She became my everything and she was proud of the life that being self-employed was allowing me to live. In those years, I was on a number of Boards, I spent 3 years as a college professor and my Mother would be my “data” for all the movies, dinners, trips and such that my work and volunteering led me to go to. But, as always, all good things must come to an end and two back to back events, nearly made me give it all up. In 2008 my Brother passed away and my Mother did the same in 2010. I never knew myself to be sad for any stretch of time, but for most of the second half of 2010, I just could not find my happy place at all. Maybe looking back, was it all for them? Had I developed the best me, professionally and personally, strictly to make my parents proud? I just knew, the hustle and bustle of running your own business and that everyday routine, suddenly seemed so meaningless. I took a break from teaching and all clients but one or two and I just spent days and days n=and months really pondering the meaning of life.
I had a “favourite” client at that time, and he called me into his office one day and explained that he was leaving his position as President and moving his family back to Ottawa. He also let me know that my work was suffering and he could tell that I was unhappy and in agony. He mentioned that the “beautiful light” had dimmed from my eyes and he suggested I try to do something about it. There is a beauty in knowing that your clients have genuinely become your friend. I decided to first resume a bit of a social life and that weekend I went out to a nightclub and met my second Angel. WE left the club at 3am and went and played outdoor basketball until the sun came up! I began to feel life again. By the following week, I signed up for three or four college courses in Construction Project Management and decided to pursue that certification and by the end of the month, I gained two more clients; Lorraine was back. They say it takes a village to raise a child and I believe it also takes a sense of community and purpose and safety to raise an adult. I have had a group of girlfriends whom I have known since kindergarten and they have always been there for me as have a group of friends from high school, a group from college and another group from my early club days. As much as business can have you moving very robotically, I definitely have built up a resilience that is molded by the strength of my relationships with friends, colleagues, family and a select group of wonderful clients.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
There is a phrase I love: If it don’t make money, it don’t make sense! I felt then, prior to 1999, and I know now, that there are a million different ways to approach starting a business or owning a company. I have now done both. On Track Bookkeeping Services (OTBS) was registered as a sole proprietorship in 1999 and I incorporated the business On Track Accounting Solutions (OTAS) in 2018. OTBS was actually what is now called, a side hustle at first. When it became a concept in my mind, I was a Staff Accountant/Lead Bookkeeper at a small, boutique CPA firm and I was a full-time student as well, taking four classes per semester, four evenings a week and sometimes a fifth on Saturdays. The more bookkeeping the firm would send me out to clients sites to do, the more I realized that small business bookkeeping and accounting was what I needed to focus on rather than becoming a CPA. So the prevailing question for me became, how do I walk away from a salary and start working and wondering what my monthly earning would be? I knew a number of people who had started their own businesses or pursued their artistic passions and they would describe themselves as “starving artists”, “missionaries”, “grass-roots hustlers” and such; these names just translated as non-lucrative to me because I had told myself, “if it don’t make money…
Well, I decided to try and do both, and so I went to a senior CPA, and asked for a “closed door meeting” and I told him what I was starting to envision. There was no doubt that I was a good bookkeeper and had a great understanding for GAAP and accounting, plus, through working at the firm, I was also a really good junior auditor and I could do both Notice to Reader and Review Engagements right up to the production of the full lead sheet and including adjusting entries. The senior CPA knew of a business in need of a good bookkeeper and he gave me a name and a number. By the end of that week, I had my first client at a rate of $25 an hour and they needed about 20 hours a week of my time. It was 1999 and that was a good hourly rate then. Now my week consisted of full time day work, four evenings of school work and twenty hours of Friday to Sunday work. My second, ‘side hustle’ client, cam within a month as a referral from the first and within 3 months, I had two more and had finished my semester of schooling and earned another certificate. WHen I did the math, my side hustle was earning me slightly more than my salary and that was it! I officially resigned my full time and my side hustle became my Main Hustle!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.otas.ca
- Instagram: @ontrackasinc
- Facebook: @ontrackasinc
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorrainesotas/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/42334311/admin/
- Twitter: @ontrackasinc
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/2-eKV8uRZ68
Image Credits
Kara Randall, Kara Designs Sheldon Isaacs, Sheldon Isaacs Images