Gita Faust
Editor's Note: This is another installment in our ongoing series highlighting this year's Insightful Accountant's "Top 100 ProAdvisors." Over the remainder of the year, we will introduce you to our winners, getting their insights on a wide range of topics, including what it is like to be a leader in their profession, how to stay on top and what the future holds.
Gita Faust knows real estate. For the past 30-plus years, she has served as a trusted advisor, and financial and management consultant, and mentor.
Through her firm, Fast Trac Consulting (FTC), she and her team help a wide range of small and large construction, and real estate and property management companies better understand their business practices and maximize their profits.
Founded in 2001, FTC provides fast and quality accounting, bookkeeping and CFO services to real estate professionals and property managers who utilize QuickBooks and add-ons to ensure their business can be financially viable for the future. That includes application developments and custom programming.
In partnership with Intuit (as a Intuit Premier Reseller), FTC is authorized to market, resell, implement and support QuickBooks Enterprise and Point of Sale business management solutions. In addition, Gita is an Advanced Certified Online QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and a member of the Intuit Trainer/Writer Network.
What does it mean to you to be recognized out of more than 200,000 ProAdvisors in the world?
Excited and numb that we have helped advisors and end users with our expertise.
Your first thoughts on getting news of the honor?
Four years in a row. Thank you. Wow! How can we help our community find a niche and grow their business?
How has your ProAdvisor practice changed or evolved over the last couple of years?
Our clients play a big factor in our success. With high demand in the real estate segmentation, we are guiding the DIY end users in a cost efficient way, and accountants, CPA, and advisors expand their services in the niche industry to be an expert. The latest one is our Real Estate Broker reference guide, which offers our plug and play QuickBooks template file with industry standard chart of accounts.
Why is continuing to enhance your skills and acumen critical to staying one step ahead of the curve?
In person, I'm still connecting one on one with our clients and learning new strategies for dealing and wheeling in the real estate industry. Knowledge is priceless. Makes me think one step ahead on how to implement the nuances to clients financials. I spend hours and hours of researching, testing and taking courses (even when it goes over my head). And make changes to better our deliverables.
What do you do?
I take on a challenge any day and enjoy mentoring professionals. We as a team are fractional controllers and developers who offer custom programming, QuickBooks set-up, review, and analysis, consulting and training on a higher plato.
Give us a snapshot of today's accounting landscape.
The buzzword is “automation.” While we are so engrossed in creating a process, procedure, and workflow, why not take some time to know the business back office operations? Create a niche and standarize them from assessment to deliverables. We all are at a crossroad on how to express interests, needs and pains, or even what questions to ask or where to look for answers. Ask for help, taking that step will get you closer to your goal. Invest in yourself.
What's on your to-do list?
2017 list is long, but one stands out from my to-do list is to create a certification course for advisors for the real estate and property management industry segmentation.
This year, we have accomplished two from our to-do list. We developed two new softwares approved by Intuit. The first is for property management “OMoney” calculates management fees, posts and write owner ‘s checks into QuickBooks and creates owner’s reports in summary and detail to PDF.
The HammerZen app imports Home Depot receipts into QuickBooks Desktop and Online versions. Perfect for contractors, real estate investors and anyone who purchases at a Home Depot. You may ask why partial? We still need to get the word out and help everyone automate and save time and money.