by Katy Robinson | Jan 11, 2021 | Accounting, Community, Entrepreneurs, Finance, Financial Services, Growth, Lavoie, Planning, Services, Small Business
Lavoie secured Kelley Michalski as Partner and Vice President of Operations. Lavoie is excited to welcome Kelley Michalski to our team as our new Partner and Vice President of Operations in Charlotte, NC. In this role, Michalski will be responsible for managing client operations, maintaining internal control structures, and providing strategic support to our clients and organizations. As Lavoie continues to grow exponentially year over year, Michalski’s leadership will be an invaluable asset in reaching our goals.
“I am truly looking forward to being a part of an established market leader in the finance field,” said Michalski. “I’m excited to become a contributor to the growth of Lavoie.”
Michalski brings with her over 20 years of experience leading strategic financial planning and implementation. Her wide breadth of practice includes everything from overseeing financial performance and organizational governance to managing risk and compliance. She has excelled in creating sustainable, data-driven financial strategies by developing a foundation of analytics to fuel tactical and long-term business decisions. Michalski’s leadership and expertise will be valuable additions to the Lavoie team.
“We are delighted to have Kelley become a Partner with the company. Through Kelley’s involvement with our team over the years, she has shown herself to be an exceptional leader in the industry,” said Sharai Lavoie, Lavoie’s CEO/Managing Member.
Prior to joining Lavoie, Michalski was the Chief Financial Officer for a subsidiary of a Fortune 15 organization and the owner of a small business located in Charlotte. A graduate of Iowa State University, Michalski brings with her an entrepreneurial mindset to support organizations of all sizes.
More information about Kelley Michalski is available at Lavoie’s Executive Team page.
About Lavoie: Founded in 2009, Lavoie has served as a reliable Charlotte CPA firm that specializes in strategic financial and operational planning for businesses of all sizes. By delivering state-of-the-art strategic support, Lavoie’s clients can focus on growing their business and soar to the next level of greatness. In addition to providing customized solutions for clients, Lavoie prioritizes social justice issues and is extremely involved in the local Charlotte community.
by Tara Fusco | Dec 7, 2020 | Accounting, CFO, CPA, Entrepreneurs, Finance, Financial Services, Growth, Services, SMBs
See why this award-winning Charlotte Sports & Entertainment Marketing Agency uses Lavoie CPA as their financial strategy partner
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Company: Bespoke Sports & Entertainment
Founded: 2014
Specialty: Sports and entertainment consulting and experiential marketing agency
Location: Charlotte, NC
With over 50 years of combined experience in Sports & Entertainment Marketing, Bespoke’s founders, have seen their fair share of agencies come and go. They have worked with some of the largest names and most complex brands in the sports and entertainment industry. So, when they started their venture, they knew they needed more than just an accountant to supervise their financial stability. They needed a financial strategist that could confidently run major investor meetings and take control of the company’s future; and a firm that could manage expenses while also augmenting human resource needs.
Download the case study to learn how Lavoie helped the company grow year over year and work with award-winning brands.
“It’s simple, Lavoie helped us create the infrastructure we needed. From setting up accounts payable and HR policies to recommending affordable technology, Sharai Lavoie and her team were there to give us the day to day insights we needed to keep cash flowing, flexibility to focus on sales, and proactive recommendations that enabled us to scale at the right pace.”
Mike Boykin
CEO & Cofounder
by Tara Fusco | Oct 29, 2020 | Accounting, Analytics, Blog, Budgeting, Business Intelligence, CFO, CPA, Entrepreneurs, Growth, Intacct, Planning, SaaS, SMBs, Software, Startups, Technology
How Healthy Is Your SaaS Business? These 6 Metrics Will Help You Figure That Out
As a Sage Intacct certified accounting and implementation firm, Lavoie CPA is excited to share the latest findings for SaaS businesses to become successful in 2021.
From startups to organizations ready to scale each one of these indicators is an invaluable piece of information to evaluate your company’s overall health — not to mention prep you for that looming board meeting in the near future.
In this infographic we will dive into why each of these metrics is the difference between getting your next round of funding, scaling year over year, or hitting the wall.
Get the infographic and learn why you should care, how to calculate, and an interesting fact about the following KPIs:
- CARR (Committed Annual Recurring Revenue)
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
- CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value)
- Churn
- Free Cash Flow
- CCS (Cash Conversion Score)

by Mark Colwell | Feb 4, 2020 | Accounting, Big Data, Blog, CFO, Cloud, CPA, Finance, Financial Services, Metrics, Outsourcing, SMBs, Software, Startups, Technology
The value in not providing traditional accounting services
When most people hear CPA they immediately think tax and audit. Lavoie CPA does NOT provide either service. So, what do we do? We provide world class accounting bundled with leading technology (Accounting as a Service) to help our clients succeed . But why don’t we provide tax or audit services?
- Our focus is helping grow your business. We provide financial intelligence you can rely on to make informed financial decisions.
- We don’t want to become tax experts. Staying on top of changes to tax laws and regulations is an exhaustive process. We rather partner with tax professionals and focus on what we do best – help grow your business!
- We can’t audit ourselves. Since we provide leading finance and accounting services, we can’t audit our own work. However, our clients are always audit ready!
Why do clients come
to Lavoie CPA since we don’t do tax or audit?
- We help grow sales.
- We turn finance into a strategic asset.
- We keep cost under control.
- We eliminate distractions and let our clients focus on what they do best.
Want to learn more?
by Mark Colwell | Jan 18, 2019 | Accounting, Analytics, CFO, Cloud, Competitive Advantage, Forecasting, KPI, Technology
The beginning of a new year always signals a time for trend spotting Which financial opportunities, challenges and changes should companies prepare for now? Below are six soon-to-be realities that you should consider for 2019. .
CFOs take on more
responsibility.
The role of the CFO has merged with that of the COO to
assume strategy and operations functions. This calls for greater collaboration
in business areas such as marketing, procurement, sales and design/R&D in
order for CFOs to build sound budget strategies and operational processes.
Customers’ changing
demands disrupt industries.
Think of it as forced evolution. Millennials and Gen Z crowd
are making their wishes known – pushing for greater transparency, asking for more
sustainable products, embracing technical conveniences. Business has no choice
but to respond – re-evolving business models, selling on social media, adopting
voice-commerce, etc.
Technology makes
finance smarter and faster.
Automation and new technologies are making finance software
programs do more with less. This leaves more time for focusing on the
organization’s strategic vision.
We’re grappling with uncertainty
again.
From foreign policy to data regulation, businesses are
operating under the strain of uncertainty. Expect another year of having to
navigate a turbulent, highly politicized environment.
Even the workforce is
evolving.
2019 will introduce a diverse generation of employees with
new expectations and wants. For accounting, the skills gap widens, re-training requirements
grow, and a higher level of contract employees emerges.
New data risks are
surfacing
Companies will need to have a deeper understanding of General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), because there will be a higher level of
concern about data security as more info is created, collected, and stored online
which allows for the possibility of hacking.
As these developments proceed, the role of
finance becomes more important and extensive. Many companies are turning to service providers to help them make the
transformation. This may entail consulting services, augmenting current staff
or even outsourcing the financial and accounting function.
by Mark Colwell | Aug 6, 2018 | Accounting, Finance, Uncategorized
As automation, control, and period-end tasks are embedded within day-to-day activities, accountants are freed from manual work.
Freeing finance from manual work not only saves time that can be allocated to continuous process improvement and preventative controls, it also gives accountants access to game-changing, real-time data so they can provide analysis and business intelligence at the point of need.
Technology is disrupting the way business is run, and accountants need to reskill and upskill to meet the demands of both internal and external stakeholders.
Benefits:
- It’s an organization win.
Strategic accounting doesn’t just benefit finance. Access to and quick analysis of real-time data helps the entire organization become more agile, responsive, and proactive.
- Increased employee engagement and reduced hiring costs.
Bored, tired, burned out staff is a flight risk. But working on something meaningful, like strategy creation, increases engagement, investment, and ultimately, retention.
- Functioning as a strategic force.
Today, finance organizations have access to the real-time information that is so crucial to functioning strategically.
This creates the opportunity for accounting and finance teams to function as a strategic force in the organization. CFOs, controllers, and other accounting leaders can now help the business act proactively instead of reactively by providing up-to-the-minute analysis and intelligence.
The Path to Success In the Modern Marketplace
Implementing necessary technologies can be expensive. Documenting current state and designing desired future state and is often time consuming. As a result, companies are turning to service providers to help with the process. This may entail a consulting project, augmenting current staff or even becoming the finance and accounting department.