Why Contractors Need Better Accounting with Chris Murphy

Reece sits down with Chris Murphy of Breakaway CAAS to talk about why so many contractors struggle with bookkeeping, payroll, and job costing, and what better financial systems can unlock for a growing business. It matters because weak accounting processes do not just create messy books, they create bad decisions, wasted time, and unnecessary risk for builders.

They go over the warning signs of broken back office workflows, why day to day tracking matters more than only thinking about taxes, and how construction specific tools can reduce duplicate work and clean up reporting. Chris also shares a brutal real world payroll example and explains what builders should look for if they know their current process is holding them back.

https://www.breakawaycaas.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-j-murphy-cpa-498547123

Show Notes:
00:00 Show Intro
00:44 Meet Chris
02:59 Why Construction
05:55 The Opportunity
07:24 Wrong People
16:24 Taxes Vs Tracking
20:56 Discovery Questions
22:26 Worst Payroll Process
30:03 Best Software Stack
46:49 Signs You Need Help
47:56 Where To Find Chris

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Transcript

0:00

Do you have a month in close process, who's currently recording the transactions, who's reviewing those books? Are you reviewing those books? Are you tracking by job? Welcome to builders budgets and beers. I'm Reece Barnes and I started this podcast to have real conversations about money in the building industry, the wins, the mistakes, and everything in between. I believe builders deserve to feel confident about their finances, and that starts by hearing from others who've been through it too. This industry can be slow to change, but the right stories and the right tools can make profitability feel possible. Let's get into it. All right, Chris, mics are hot. We're rolling. Thanks for coming on the show, dude, my pleasure, man. Thanks for having me. Of course, of course. Okay, well, as always, let's, let's give the listeners a little background on our guest, Chris, tell the people who you are, what your background is, what you do. We'll just start there. Yeah, yeah. So, classically trained accountant, Bachelors in accounting, way back in 2012 does classically trained mean like Mozart? You're like a Beethoven guy? No, just the typical bachelor's, I guess the Yeah. So started off as a CPA generalist for about the first five, six years, audit, tax consulting in various industries. So the back half of my career to this point has been in outsourcing, or is like the industry likes to call it cas. What does CAS stand for? Client, Accounting and Advisory Services, okay, so beautiful, otherwise known as bookkeeping, accounting consulting. Just the profession wanted to rebrand, right? Yep, sure, so the it's interesting when I look back to the background, you know, dabbled in construction here and there, up until about a couple years ago, when I got tapped in at a top 10 firm to lead one of their one of their three national regions for construction outsourcing, and fell in love with the industry, you know, coupled with a lot of great tools that have come out on the market, you know, and so not too long ago, basically quit my corporate job in October, took some time off and went off on my own, bootstrapping my own client Accounting and Advisory services firm for exclusive to construction contractors. So I love it. I love it. Okay, so really stout background. Look at you just humbly slipping in little top 10 accounting firm experience. But you mentioned you fell in love with the industry. You didn't come from the industry. You just kind of dabbled in it. Why did you fall in love with construction accounting? It's like the most brutal form of accounting. What do you love about it? Yeah, yeah. The you know one thing I look back on trying to stay humble here, you know, you know, some industries, from an accounting perspective, are easier than others, and in my experience, construction can get complicated pretty quickly. And you know where I've gravitated my career is, I'm drawn to challenges, you know, and it's that's one aspect, and then the, you know, the blue collar nature of the clientele, you know, being A No, no, Bs and down to earth guy, you know myself, I think I can identify with the salt of the earth folk. Amen, yeah. So it's soats, as they're called in some parts of the country, S o, t, es, I like it. I like it. Okay, so you, you you fell in love with, like, the tangible, the grittiness, the direct nature of the industry, yeah. And honestly, you know, not being handy myself, you know how I can bring my unique skill set to help the industry. I think I can do a lot of good and bring a lot of value. And so that's kind of what's brought us here, man, totally, totally, no, I love it, okay? And that's, that's great. I mean, I similarly have that background. I was like, I wasn't, I wasn't a hammer swinger or a bags on, kind of guy. Wait, what are you sipping on here? What are you sipping on? Do not endorse it. Accelerate. Her Amazon. So 200 milligrams of caffeine. There you go. Just get a little zip in your step to start today. I didn't know if you're drinking a beer. I didn't know if you're drinking a beer. No, I've been as an avid listener of your podcast. I know we've kind of strayed from that theme in the name, which I know, which is all good, but I know it's just it was too much. It was too much to organize and line up. And it was like, as much as I love, you know, beers around the noon hour. Yeah, it just, I just, it just hasn't happened. It just hasn't happened that way. But okay, so anyway, so you love the industry. You You loved working with these types of people. You're bootstrapping your own company. Tell me a little bit about that, and what drove I mean, obviously, you love the industry and you love the space, but what was the opportunity that you saw? Like, what are you actually providing from a service standpoint? And where do you see gaps and opportunities for this industry to get better that you hopefully solve? Yeah, so I think it all started when, you know, I was gifted a vision, you know. And I think a lot of our, lot of the guests you've had, I never saw myself as an entrepreneur. Never thought I was going to go into business on my own, though, that is not an uncommon path for folks in accounting, right? Totally, um, and I had a vision. I couldn't shake it. You know about, you know how to help zero to 50 employee construction companies. You know, coupled with the great tools that are on the market, add on the you know, a lot of these folks can use, use some help, and I think I'm just the guy to do it, um, so, you know, a lot of folks who go off on their own, the the easy path is they stay solo, you know. But, you know, I've led teams, and I have every intention of building a team around me, um, and the market will dictate how far we take this totally. So, yeah, okay, cool. Well, and so you've obviously, when you've got the corporate background, you've got the entrepreneurial itch here, tell me. Tell me how you see construction accounting just being viewed generally in the industry and specifically in businesses. What are you seeing from these the fine Contractors of America? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the, I think what comes Top of Mind Reece is, honestly, I've seen in practice how having the wrong people in the accounting and bookkeeping seat, you know, can wreak some havoc in in the business. Um, I think you know, there's folks who understand that the bookkeeping, accounting is a trade similar to an electrician, to a plumber, who give it the respect it deserves, you know, and others who you know want to take that risk, and whether it's an office manager or somebody's wife to which is very typical, right? Totally, to wear that hat and to get good at it. Hey, I've seen some folks who can do it, you know. But the way I look at it again, I come from a little bit of a bias, right? Coming from the account, of course, finance world, you know? The the way I see it is, you know, way back when I was now working with a financial advisor, and they said that, which always stuck with me, that the riskiest thing you can do with your money is open a business. And Okay, makes sense coming from, like the fractional controller, CFO, coming from the accounting world, which is, is typically very we're not, we're not known as risk takers right now. So I think that's one reason why we, we tend to be trusted advisors to entrepreneurs who are the risk takers, right? So we balance them out. So there's, in my mind, there's enough risk in going off and starting an enterprise that, you know, why don't we hedge some of that risk in who we're hiring and be diligent in who we're putting in that seat, who's, who's the bookkeeper, the accountant, who's giving you your numbers. So the, the other thing, you know, I think we're coming up on Mother's Day, you know? Yeah, a. Was thinking about, you know, a nice little tackling it, but I think it's a little too salesy, you know. So, yeah, the floated out. Yeah, I'll float it out there. I'll test it out. Guys, you know, bootstrap in here. So the, you know, we've all heard the marriage vows to have and to hold, you know, of course, never have I heard vows that say and to do your bookkeeping your life, right? Yeah, yeah. So, hey, listen some, some folks really like it, you know. And more power to them, you know. But you know, when we when, part of the motivation to come here and start off on my own and and really focus on construction has been, you know, I've seen the the strain that, you know, this bookkeeping county world can have on folks. So like, top of mind comes from not, not A, not A client I work directly with, but one of my team members worked on was, you know, a mom with three young kids. You know, the who was spread really thin, the husband's business was growing like a weed, and the transaction volume got a lot, lot bigger, and she wanted no part of it, yeah, you know. And so, I mean, there's, there's a market for, for, you know what I and you know plenty of other competent folks do. So, yeah, totally well. And I think even to, like, bring it back, I mean, I think you know how you're articulating this should resonate quite well with contractors in the sense that you know you, you might feel a little biased just considering your corporate background, right? And like, obviously you're a believer in the outsourced service provider network, because of the expertise, right? And the commitment that you can bring by building a team that's like, actually focused and skilled and developed and trained in that field. It makes it like, the similarities between hiring a general contractor and hiring an outsourced accounting firm are so similar, right? When you think about this like, of course, we've got, you just call it like home builders, right? They have reason to believe and reason to be biased, that their product is the best, right? And the market at least they should believe so, right? Yeah. And then when you think about, okay, well, what does a GC do? Well, GC is not always out self performing work, right? Who do they bring to the table? They bring together electricians, plumbers, foundation excavation, people, concrete folks, right? Roofers, all kinds of different trades. And they're doing the same exact thing in their business. It's not just about looking on Google. Who's an electrician? This guy's an electrician. Come in and do the electrical roughing in my house, the general contractor is looking at it and saying, I want to find the best electrician, right? And the person who's buying the home is not going to have any idea how to vet the best electrician, right? That's a part of the value that the general contractor is bringing the table to deliver the best product. So like, in terms of the opportunity that you're seeing is you're looking at this same approach. Instead of building a house, you're building healthy books, right? And your job is to go out and evaluate the market and bring them into processes and technology and service delivery as a team with the best people that can be there, right? That similarity is there. Now, what are you mentioned? The story of, you know, the mom three kids growing in volume, wants nothing to do with the books anymore. Like, that's a pretty, like, obvious layup for a service provider. It's like, the pain is just like screaming at you. You just need to, like, help them out. Sure, but how often is that happening? Or, I guess are you seeing the construction industry view outsource service providers, consultants, cast providers, accounting people, stuff like that, through the same lens as they would with their trades or their specialty contractors that are helping them build. Or do you see some resistance there in the market? It's different. You know, different, different folks view us differently. You know, sure. I mean, I don't think there's any blanket. I think there are some folks who, you know, realize the value what we bring to the table, you know, going off on one extreme for you know, a typical example of folks who don't see our value, right? The contractor who isn't financially sophisticated and doesn't understand. I mean, they might value tax services, right? Sure, you know, from when they think of their account, it's like, okay, they do my taxes. That's it. Many of them don't realize, you know, how much. Clean up. You know that tax account is doing to their books before they file the taxes. You know, some tax counts are good, and they'll share that others you know, like gatekeep, you know. And the contract has no clue. You know what it takes to do it right, do the job, right? You know, and we're sorry real quick to you're good. We kind of put a pin in that. You know, some folks, you know, they're used to paying, like, under 1000 bucks a year to their account, to their tax account, and that's their budget, that's their limit, and they, you counter that with folks who, you know, who value our services. And you know, they're asking great questions about their finances. You know, you know, a litmus test for me is always, are they challenging me? Is the client challenging me? Like, Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, let's, let's dig in and let's figure that out, right? They, they're, they're using their, their financials, in making business decisions, very, very cliche stuff there. I think, I think your audience has heard that all before. But, um, yeah, one piece I want to dig on, especially with your background and, like, taxes. And I was, I was on a panel in Savannah for the Southern Living, the Southern Living group, and that was, this was like a part of the conversation that's essentially like me. And then we had a service provider, bookkeeper, outsource, CFO, on the panel. And then we had someone who just focuses purely on taxes. And I totally agree. Like, that's where, when you think about small business owners, their natural interest in accounting is, like, towards tax, correct me, where I'm wrong, but it's typically on the emphasis is on tax, because that's where they see the savings, right? They're like, how can you lessen my taxable burden, right? So I don't have to pay all of these taxes, right? And that's like, they're focused on the end goal, yeah, but to your point of, like, the amount of cleanup that has to happen and lead up into it, was exactly the conversation that we had on this panel, which is, like, the tax is like, call it the finish line, right? Or it's like, that's like the deadline. But to really get all of the benefits of, like, strategic tax execution, and just a general tax strategy, is all the outcome of repeatable, regular, consistent, day to day cost and income tracking and accounting. What are what are people like when you're saying like, there's this resistance or they're looking for tax, how do we get more of this message for the construction industry as a whole, to understand that it's really the emphasis needs to be placed on the day to day execution of tracking costs and income, as opposed to just looking at the end goal and the outcome of like, I want less taxes. Well, this is part of it. Here we are. We're talking about relieving our egos totally more. And, you know, helping to find Contractors of America with our unique expertise, right? And totally so getting the message out. You know, I think as folks is information becomes more widely available folks are tuning in, you know, younger generation up and coming, you know, tuned in to that. You know, new way of thinking. You know, I think that's going to be very helpful. And so I think all of us doing our part, I guess, getting that message out so totally Well, what are some of like, the tactical things that you see contractors missing on in their day to day from just tracking their costs and their income in the business? What are some things that like when you are going through, call it a discovery process with a new prospective client, and you mentioned like, are they pushing back? That's kind of a litmus test that you take. But even just like stuff that the audience can listen to and say, That's me, or that was me, or like, I'm glad that I don't do that right? What are some things that contractors struggle with just on the day to day, that you could potentially fill the gap on? Sure, I think the So, the I gotten a lot better at sales and over the last few years. And I don't like to call it sales, you know, it might coin a new phrase, you know, value communication, right? Yeah, yeah, consultative selling, yeah. In I what I learned going into a discovery meeting is, don't go in with any preconceived notions. You know, don't go in with an agenda. Just be in listening mode. You know, dig, find, find their pain, their unique and speak to that. And sometimes I can help in that pain. Other times it's a referral to somebody else. Else, yep, um, you know, you know, coming from a top 10 accounting firm, you know, sometimes it wasn't outsourcing that they were needed, right? Maybe, maybe there was a better opportunity in to help them in wealth advisory or tax planning. Maybe they had a robust internal team already, you know. So what? What does trying to think of sometimes the best business is no business, right? Yeah, sure, sure. Or know who you're selling to and what you're selling, right? Another way, yeah, so Did that answer your question? Kind of, I mean, I'm I'm more so I'm just looking for, like, the specifics, like, actually, I can maybe phrase this a little bit differently, like, what is, what is probably the most common recurring problem that you hear from prospects, and you're just like, you need me. What are those prospects feeling in their business, from a pain standpoint, that you're like, I'm your guy? Sure, sure. So some go to questions, you know, you know, do you have a month and close process? You know, who's, who's who's currently recording the transactions, who's in that transaction recording seat, who's reviewing those books? Are you reviewing those books? Yeah. Are you tracking by job. I mean, there's a lot of folks still aren't, you know, when you look at the wider construction industry, right? Because it's too burdensome, you know, so trying to take inventory as best you can, because there's the you only get so much of their attention in that discovery meeting, so totally trying to really cut through the crap and get to, you know, from an accounting, finance, payroll perspective, what are your who are your people? What are your processes and systems, high level, you know, I've seen enough of system setups and quote different the wide spectrum of qualified people and processes to, you know, to identify pretty quickly early on, you know, if we we might be able to help. So give me an example of that, like a process with unqualified people. There's got to be someone you just talked to that like, stands out. So a process with unqualified people, okay? So, you know, you know what I want to share with you, you know, because this will be a LinkedIn, this will, this will be a LinkedIn post. This seems juicy. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. This. This was a contractor. This was the worst payroll process I've ever seen. Okay in my career. Um, I believe, like, super high level, I counted, like, six points of duplicate entry or serious data manipulation in the process, okay, um, you know, part digital time, keeping shops on the On the paper time cards. Okay, you know, king, king, king, king, all that. King, the paper time cards into making the digital one complete, okay, then doing going down row by wall, like we're talking about, like 200 rows of time data, yeah, and manually massaging it, because you know where it needs to go to. It needs to go to the paychecks lady, yeah, you know to and she needs it in a certain format, yeah. And then they get that back. They only get the report so that that that payroll after it's run, it's not connected to their GL Okay, and then they're, you know, one of their top front office folks, you know, is keying in a journal entry to Job costed into their QuickBooks, desktop, okay, and, and one big reason why Reese that, that example, sits, stands out to me, is they didn't know. They just accepted how that that's that's how you do it. And, you know, they they had a fractional CFO, you know, really being like 3k a month. And you know, they that they just took that for granted, that that's how they did it, and that's why I like to call it not sales, but value communication. Conversation, right? Like that was years ago, Reese and I feel like I failed them, because we brought this up to them, yeah, they, they, they didn't bite on hey, you know you can have your digital time keeping everybody's in digital timekeeping, yeah, you know that can flow seamlessly into a construction specific Payroll Solution. Yeah, we can integrate that with your QuickBooks, you know, at the job cost code level, right? Yes, then that's part of one way my brain thinks Reese, honestly, is, I don't think there's enough of us out there that try to at these entry level solutions to think about seamless data flow between systems. There's a lot of low hanging fruit there that I think a lot of folks aren't taking advantage of, you know, stuff that's easy for me because I live in that realm. Have lived in that realm for years. Totally, you know, some people are aware of that pain. You know, some people aren't. Then we got to do our best to educate them on that. Totally, where we can help, right? So, totally. So okay, and that. So that okay. Let me just make you because you mentioned, like, duplicate entries, obviously, the paper with digital reconciliation, updating journal entry, right? Like that sounds painful and brutal, but when you there were six duplicate entries and it wasn't time, that's what I counted, yeah, and but then you just think about it like double paying payroll, not subs like these are, like, people that are in your shop or on your it's that you're looking at this like, that is enough to, like, stand out and break someone Yeah, right. I think the biggest you can take this approach, I'm like, yeah, it's super easy, is we run the same thing, and adaptive and general contractors, running the same thing when they have, like, super high quality subs, right? It's like, for them, they get it. This is why we use this electrician, because they're super, you know, I don't even know polished, like their electrical boxes are super tight in and neat and organized and everything looks good. I don't even know what makes a good electrician when it comes to these processes and systems, though, it's like, it can become so clear to you've got this process here in paper, this process in digital, we can consolidate those two. But I think the message is like, Why? Why is that important? Because I could be sitting here if I'm building a home, and the general contractor is like, Oh, we only use these electricians. They're going to be more expensive than everyone in the space. But everything space, but everything's gonna be super organized and put together nicely and like it's gonna be a really quality finished product. And I'm sitting here saying I don't really give a shit what my electrical box looks like like, as long as I can flip on a switch and there's electricity to it, that's what I'm interested in. Yeah, right. So then how do you convert those people to get them to understand that, like, this bloated process is important enough for you to not only hire me, but then to take action and start applying these things. How do you get that full circle moment to have with these people? Or when they don't get that full circle, what do they say? Yeah, so like some of the value prop, you know, top of mind is okay, is this person always, what are the chances that person who owns that process is going to own it till your business passes on? You know, yeah, till you close shop, or you it succeeds to the next generation, or you sell it. So, like, how transferable are those processes? You know, how plug and play are they? Because, like, in this day and age, you know, people come and go from total business and or need to come and go, yeah, yeah, go ahead and, like, for me personally, like, I will never plug me or team member into that process. Yeah, we're cleaning that up breeze before we step in there. Okay, yeah, because it's, it's logging in fruit, because that's one of the great things about working with smaller contractors. It's like, these aren't you speak a lot about it, you know, from the adaptive front, but I've seen it with other systems too. There's a lot of low risk with implementations, you know, because there's not a lot of data. These are entry level systems. They're canned solutions, and it just needs a good operator at the end of the day. These systems are tools, right? Yeah, and that kind of speaks to kind of the specialty, you know, who's the operator using these tools? Yeah, you know, same like your guys in the field and those tools, like, Shit, I couldn't use those tools in the field, shit, you don't know, yeah, yeah, what kind of work product you'd get, you know, right the right butts in the right seats, you know, using the right tools. You know, there's. Lot of and lot of similarities, right? Of course, of course. Okay, so on that front, I think what are like, obviously, we talked about, like, systems. What are the systems that you go for these days? Yeah, like, what are the top software systems that you go for? Great, we got hydrated. He got this is gonna be a big cancer. I'm ready for it. Um, my, one of my passions, Reese, like, like, you know, I was thinking about this. How do I describe some of my history? It was like, year three in my in my career, I fell in love with QuickBooks. It's fascinating. With QuickBooks, wanted to learn the system in and out. You know, it's kind of like the gateway drug of systems. Yeah, sure, yeah. So then you start learning about, you know, all the the great tools that can, you know, make the accounting and financial operations and payroll operations, you know, run that much more smoother. So I'll tell you as a as a systems guy who's always been passionate about the systems, right? I'm tough to sell to. You know? I will. I think one of my strengths, you know, man, amount many talents, but trying to stay humble here. So let's let's table that. Let's forget. We're leaving egos at the door here. Right, right? That's wrong. So the what, one of the reasons I I chose to specialize in construction, again or not again, but to really, you know, dial in on construction. It's because, like, when we look back, like 10 years ago, what was the gold standard for, like, an all in one solution. It was QuickBooks, desktop, yeah, yeah. Um, but, man, no. Automation. Bank feeds are crap, um, the payroll so payrolls to DIY, um, you know, shit. It requires a in your IT person to maintain the the server. And, yep, you know, you need to update the freaking thing, you know, manually and all that. You know, that was that, that was the gold standard. Then, then, you know, and obviously you guys have seen traction with adaptive that's, that's one of the tools, right? Yeah, sure that. Speak my, that piqued my interest, and many others. Now, clearly you guys, the market is, is giving you some good reception is, yeah, well deserved, yeah. But, you know, sometimes you know, and this is where, you know, see if we can put your money where your mouth is, you know, yeah, if we're not here to plug adaptive, let's, let's talk like just solutions. Sometimes adaptive isn't the right solution totally. If all we need is payment rails, right? Yeah, and all we need is some automated AP, you know, maybe it's a ramp, yeah? Maybe, maybe it's an industry agnostic solution that's a little bit cheaper, yeah? You know, clearly, you know, when I think of like, where the most value is for adaptive, you know, going off on a little bit of tangent here, yeah, you're completing draws from there. You know what? What piqued my interest is that that time solution, I mean, it's a stick, sticking point. You know, payrolls been one of the areas where that, when I think of two pain points in my line of work, right? It's the pm software is, is always the wild card. Sometimes there's pm software sometimes there's a lot. Sure, you know, the worst pm softwares are the ones that you know, the cost data has to originate in it, you know, but there's no AP automation in there. There's no technology, there's no, you know, some of it's getting there, but even then the OCR, it's like, the lot of it is, is when it's not an emphasis on the cost tracking, and it is just OCR, it's like, what's the legitimacy of it's getting, yeah, 30% of the job done for me, right? Yeah, even 30% of this have to correct the hell out of it. Yeah. So, I mean, bringing it back, reeling it back in, some of the best tools out there, you know, some I, you know, I'll, I try to pride myself on being a man of value and just sharing everything you know. I follow goodly. And he says, you know, put, put, tell the world what you know. You know, totally, totally. And so the you know, I'm an Intuit guy, you know, so QuickBooks Online, not QuickBooks Desktop, yeah, you know what's out. You know, I haven't made a final determination on it yet. I'm in the middle of getting my enterprise suite certification. Yeah, they've got my attention. Yeah. The the fact that they've gone construction, their first industry edition is for construction. Okay, you got my intention here? Yep, let's, let's fight. Like I said, I'm tough to sell to, so I'm gonna poke some holes in it. I'm not beholden to, like, referral agreements or anything like that. Like, I don't give a crap. You know, I'm good at my job because, like, I look at my self as a true fiduciary to the clients I work with, you know? So anyway, yeah, leaving ego at the door some of the best solutions, yeah, so adaptive. Go ahead. So QuickBooks Online, depending on what version, depending on what pm software, depending if we got adaptive in place, maybe we go down a level on the Qbo subscription, you know, the so one of my differentiators, some of the tools that I really geek out on I've I'm a visual guy, right? And so like, early on, I'd say 2019 you know, I put together. I was really proud of it at the time. You know, a full accounting, finance, HR, company, policy manual and and it was like 32 pages, right? All narratives, you know? What I learned over the years is I can take that and put it into flowcharts, you know, and more clearly communicate, you know, what a process is, and update it and so like on the front end in mapping processes, you know, I use a tool called Lucidchart. Okay, fairly affordable, you know, I'd say easy to get. It's got a lot of bells and whistles in it. And, of course, like all the solutions out there, you know, it's, it's got aI on top and all that on the back end. Again, staying with the visual theme, I like fathom, Fathom reporting. I've seen the power of that in in practice, you know, building out, you know, it's, it's fairly tedious to build out the dashboard, or to build out the meaningful financial reports, the monthly financial reports for stakeholders, but the roll forward capability, you know, once that version one is built out, I tell people, you know, that the real power of a lot of the values rolling that forward month after month after month seamlessly connects to QuickBooks and all that we can do. Consolidations can can throw in the job schedule, you know, as a supplementary report, so adaptive, you know, definitely, clearly from, you know, listening to your podcasts, you know, it's got a lot a lot of good traction. Folks find a lot of value in it. You know, it checks a lot of the boxes in, in the accounting stack, you know. But at the end of the day, it's not a glease yet, you know. So that's where, you know, it's different, different folks will will say, hey, it's all and I get it. I have it too, especially in this age of AI, all the the tools, the app, fatigue, totally, um, you know, so I try to keep in mind, top of mind, you know, keep things simple, right, as simple as possible. Because at the end of the day, you know, when you step back, you compare construction other industries, it can get complicated quick, right? So we simplify as much as we can, including the the overall tech stack, but I, my ethos is basically, there's some folks that do their part really freaking well, and instead of finding solution, that's like a jack of all trades, you know, maybe it's splitting, instead of the all in one solution, you know, we're going to 123, in key parts right now, payroll, right now, the, you know, as part of a small team, you know, we one of, one of my favorite projects that I was, I was a part of in my history was, you know, trying to find solutions for the construction industry, the best solutions for the construction industry that so, like, there's different ways you can slice the the industry. The sub sectors in construction and whatnot. But like one of the industry reports that that I follow IBIS World, they they classify, they had 37 sub industries under construction, right? And one of the challenges we had is, okay, what solutions would check all those boxes for all those industries? What, what construction specific solutions could fit, in theory, yeah, into all theirs. So the the payroll piece was the hardest, yeah, or you're a big miter guy, aren't you? I am, and I'll tell you, yeah, for a few reasons. The so we you talk a ton about cost codes, right? Totally, yeah. When, when we're looking at a business through the accounting realm, right? The QuickBooks product service item list should be your cost codes. It's not always okay. Those are different. The product service item list in QuickBooks is different than your chart of accounts. Totally. Yep, most payroll solutions, if they can, job cost okay, that transaction after you run payrolls coming into QuickBooks as a journal entry. Guess what? You can't code to a cost code in a journal entry. So what's one of the things that miter did? Well, miter realized they did the research. They they spent heavy. Okay, you had Connor on I made sure. Yeah, very fond of fun, yeah, so humble, too, almost too humble, right? Yeah, sure. Like, I was listening that pies. I'm like, Dude, you got to sell this better, because it's, it's a, it's, it's, it's a standout solution, and they don't pay me. You guys don't pay me. Yeah? You know, like, Hey, you you might be best. I mean, today you're the best, but you may not always be the best, but like, so like that transaction at the end of the day, right? Miter does a whole has all odd bells and whistles that comes in as, like, a check transaction that gets put to your cost codes. Yes, okay, they led. They spent a whole lot of money on R D to to figure out the integrations and as a systems guy, as an accountant, as an accountant, it's so often overlooked. You know, the data flowing like it's now, I come with a bias, but it's just so frustrating. Reese totally historically. So when a solution gets it, you know that, you know integrating with all types of solutions, but that not just anything, but good integrations, right? Meaning that that's what made them stand out. Now I gotta, I gotta call out hammer. They're a little bit behind where miter is little bit younger, but you know, you know, got to know their CEO as well, Breck, great guy, doing great things. You know, there's they give you the option to come in, have that data hit the call, or come in as a journal entry, right? Totally. Um, so really into the technical weeds here, but that's one thing, the the care in so one of the things that stood out to me with miter as well was the because it was, it's it was so easy to sell miter to to folks who needed it, you know, I got another payroll story at some point, if we got time. But the so much in sales, it's like, we want to start delivering. We want to over promise, like, we want them to sign and we want to get started, you know, like, and so we're rushing. Our hair is on fire, you know, I think miter, I sold one last year. And they're like, hey, it's gonna be three months before we can fit you into to onboard and go live, set a go live date. And so like that. They didn't want to over promise, which was good. They wanted it done, right? Yeah, and the support, you know, knowing that, especially in with the Payroll solution, you know, all solutions should have good human support, okay, yes, we want to stay on the cutting edge of technology. But especially with payroll, it's not a question of if. It's question of when you're going to have a technical problem. Totally, right? So totally, um, those are things that I look for you know so well. And I think that's even translatable, even just back to the conversation. Of like, like, what, what Software Solutions does the industry need to look at? How do they evaluate it? Do they have good systems in place? Like, do they even recognize their current workflows as being problematic? Is like, that's a lot of the value that I see service providers like you solving for is recognizing the products that are building solutions around the workflow that is happening in that vertical, the cost code conversation with miters payroll right coming in as a check transaction that you can categorize to a job in a cost code, and then that's going to show up in all of our reporting as well, like those are the pieces that are important to communicate to the industry, just like having a nice, tidy electrical box, right? Because, because that's, those are the pieces that are valuable. And even if we are, if we're talking to a process, a prospect in the early cycle, and they have all of their cost codes ran into their chart of accounts, and they're, they're doing that because they want job cost reporting on their PNLs, and they want to see how they're actually doing, but they're missing the point of having clean cost codes in your chart or in your products and services that feed into the appropriate chart of accounts, and then having a robust solution to show you more of the sub ledger actions, the day to day estimates versus actuals, the percents that we're going to be paying, the over under billings, right? How does payroll come into this equation? Are we capturing all of it? That's what they need help with. And so I think, just generally, like, what would be your piece of advice for somebody who might be listening to this podcast and saying, Damn, Chris knows a lot here, but like, I need some help and someone to, like, dig through this with me. What would be some of the indicators or things that you would advise the industry to think about and then take action on to start moving down this better path? You take inventory of your pain. You know, in maybe it's not accounting, you know, maybe it's something else, but other part of your business, but let's say it is, you know, shit. I offer free consultations. You know, my door is always open. Happy to have a conversation, hey, if it leads somewhere, great. If it doesn't, you know, just as great, you know, yeah, maybe, maybe you best case, you've taken something away from the conversation. Right at the end of the day, I try to lead with value. You know, the money will follow. Okay, yeah, you know. So you know, especially, you know, seeing the caliber of some of your guests come on and just how candid they are, right, yeah, and just how much of an open book they are, you know, it's a testament to, I mean, it keeps drawing me closer to the industry. Because, like, I want to be like that. I aspire to be like that, totally, you know, so have a conversation. Hopefully, this, you know, this podcast kind of res, maybe it resonated something in you. And, you know, let's, let's talk. Totally so beautiful. Well, Chris, I appreciate you sharing your wealth of knowledge here and in spending spending some time talking to the fine Contractors of America. Where is the best place for contractors to find you if they do want to just open up a conversation about what they can be doing better? Sure. So two places you can reach out through my website, Breakaway Cass spelled, C, A, A, s.com, so BreakawayCASS.com You can find me on LinkedIn, Chris J, Murphy, c, p, A, which, by the way, I'm recovering. CPA, so the Not, not in anyway, but those are, those are the two best ways to find me so beautiful, beautiful, awesome. Well again, dude, I appreciate you jumping on and we'll catch up soon. I'm sure. Thanks for having me. Mr. Reese, you bet we'll see you. Chris, see you, man.