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Your Way to San Jose
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Hector Garcia, CPA
One of the many sessions you have to choose from at QuickBooks Connect is a panel that is moderated by Joe Woodard with Hector Garcia, Stacy Kildal and Cathy Iconis. The panel, named Ask the Experts: QBO Small Firm Practitioner Panel, will help you understand how you can use QuickBooks Online to build your business. We recently caught up with Hector so that we could give you some insight into the speakers and the qualifications he brings to this panel.
Just like with the “Ask the Experts: QBO Small Firm” QuickBooks Online (QBO) Q & A panel itself, talking to Hector Garcia, an Intuitive Accountant Top 100 ProAdvisor, about what attendees can expect from this panel opens up a new perspective and demonstrates just how these speakers can bounce off one another and intrigue the audience with new and additional information.
Hector, a CPA and QuickBooks Trainer/Consultant runs his own firm, Quick Bookkeeping & Accounting LLC, teaches accounting training, user training, QuickBooks desktop, and QuickBooks Online to his clients and works with two other ProAdvisors on his staff to help answer and resolve QuickBooks-related questions.
When asked to explain the panel in his own words, Hector’s responses demonstrated his interest in teaching others and focused on what different types of attendees would be able to learn.
He said that “for attendees already involved in QuickBooks Online:
- You can bring forth concerns, issues, and any questions that you have about what QBO can and can’t do. You can bring in the question to the panel and give us the opportunity to tell you how we have solved the problem in the past or how we would solve the problem if we were in your shoes”
Then “for the accountant that has not used QuickBooks online or who doesn’t know how to use it:
- You can be involved in conversations that are about how others are working well with it, about their success, and about when they failed or experienced a great challenge. You can then use this information to create your own personal plan to help with your business.”
He also mentioned that three of the major takeaways that attendees will get from this panel are:
- Being able to connect with other professionals (such as being able to share knowledge during the panel and potentially do business together)
- Being able to engage during the panel (being able to contribute to what’s being said and potentially getting incredibly useful information about how to use QuickBooks Online more effectively to grow your business)
- Being able to gain new knowledge (such as attaining knowledge and being able to use it)
To which he adds, “And all three you’ll be doing while having fun! You’re doing all this thinking with a smile on your face, which makes it not only enjoyable but also memorable.”
When asked how he got to where is today Hector said, “I used to be a real big nerd (laughs). I used to build computers and put them together. I worked for GeekSquad a couple of times unil 2004. Then I started looking into the world of finance and wanted to work for a bank writing business loans. And for four years I was fascinated by financial statements and that was when my interest in accounting kicked in. And after looking at about 2,000 financial statements in a three year period, that was when I said y’know I’m good at this—with an accounting background I could understand these pretty well. Then I decided to pursue a career in accounting. And after earning three master’s degrees—one in Accounting, one in Finance, and one in Taxation— I went on to start my own business in 2008.”
From there, Hector then explained what led him into becoming a consultant. “I became a QuickBooks consultant because my accounting and computer background merged together into accounting software like QuickBooks. Then the more and more I got into consulting and fixing people’s books, the more people were asking me ‘Hey, why don’t you come here and teach me? Why don’t you teach my staff?’ And then it got to a point that I said let’s try training. So I rented a hotel, I advertised, I got like six people in, and they came in and they were happy and they gave me a standing ovation. So I said, you know what this is going to be a big chunk of my life.”
Hector also offers attendees to the panel a truly connective way of learning. He says, “What is the point of learning something if it stays in your brain forever? It’s kind of like cooking a great meal that nobody will eat. There’s no point of having great knowledge if you can’t share it. What differentiates me is that I am the trainer accountant. I have no cards up my sleeve for job security, but instead share everything that I know with others. I actually believe that by exposing everything I know to as many people as possible that somehow that pays itself forward.”
What this means for attendees is that not only will they have their questions answered, but they will also be given the inside information that Hector has learned over the years in using QBO in his business. He says, “I’m exposed to a great international community and there are different accounting rules that span across the globe. That international exposure has given my firm a more dynamic and diverse way of thinking, and I want to share that way of thinking with others.”
Hector will be sharing the stage with Stacy Kildal and Cathy Iconis