The financial quarterback.
Steve Cleland is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Fraud Examiner, and a partner in the Tax practice at Aprio. He has spent his career inside other people's financials, and over 30 years on a field working out what a group of people is actually capable of. The two turned out to be the same job.
He helps owners quarterback their own business: reading what the numbers are actually telling them, structuring the business properly, and working through the tax code so that the decisions they make land where they want them to.
Read the field, then call the play
A quarterback does not get to pick the play he wishes he had. He reads what is actually in front of him and calls the one that works. Numbers are the same. The statements tell you what is really happening, and the job is to decide what to do about it before the situation decides for you.
Most owners do not have a numbers problem. They have a clarity problem: the information exists, nobody has turned it into a decision, and the year goes by.
Steve is the person who reads it and says what he sees.
The kinds of questions he gets asked
What is this actually telling me?
The reports exist. Nobody has said out loud what they mean or what should change because of them.
Which way should this go?
A decision with money on both sides of it, and a need for someone who is not emotionally invested in the answer.
Does this look right to you?
A Certified Fraud Examiner looks at a set of numbers differently from everyone else who has looked at them.
Want his read on something?
Describe the situation and what decision is waiting on it. He will tell you whether he is the right person for it.