Editor's Note: This is the first installment of 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—checking in on their insights regarding 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.
After working in-house for years as a controller for a large manufacturing company, Marjorie Adams was ready for a change. So, in 2009, she identified a market gap for consultants with both accounting expertise and deep understanding of financial software and founded Fourlane.
Not soon after becoming Intuit’s No. 1 reseller in 2010, she led the Austin, Texas-based company through eight years of sustained growth, personally advising more than 2,000 companies. An early adopter of the remote work movement, Fourlane became one of the first 16 fully-remote firms.
Today, as Chief Executive Officer, Marjorie continues to serve as an industry thought leader around the topic of distributed workforces and remote collaboration. A continual Insightful Accountant Top 100 ProAdvisor winner (two straight years in the Top 10), she has racked up a number of industry accolades, including being voted the Top QuickBooks ProAdvisor Nationwide for six years in a row, a "40 Under 40" list member by CPA Practice Adviser and a top Austin-area CEO by the Austin Business Journal.
In addition, she is the chair of the Intuit User Feedback Committee and a member of the Forbes Finance Council.
We sat down with her to get her thoughts on what it takes to succeed in today's ever-evolving accounting landscape.
Give us a snapshot of your business.
Fourlane has been in business since 2008 (incorporated in 2009). We have grown to almost 90 employees in 18-plus states. We have always been working from home companies, so we were pros long before the pandemic hit. We will continue to work from home.
Fourlane started business doing conversion and implementation from outside software, like NetSuite, Great Plains, Navision, MAS90 and designing workflows to get the client into a more simple system of QuickBooks Enterprise. We continue to help customers get more out of their QuickBooks software and access data to make good business decisions. Then, if there is a small shortcoming, we do custom applications as well.
In the “ERP” space like NetSuite and Acumatica, customizations are part of most projects. QuickBooks is evolving toward the midmarket with firms like Fourlane, where we can do those tweaks needed.
How does the award fit into your overall business mission statement?
We have a Core Value at Fourlane–"Do It Better." It used to be continuously learning (or Always Be Learning), as I used to say. We switched it to “Do it Better” because we added the “Why.”
Why do we have to continue to learn and stay on top of our software knowledge and strategic abilities with customers? So we can “Do it Better” than any other firm out there.
How will you leverage the honor in your continued success?
Being part of the Top 100, and even a Top 10 winner, for the second time is a huge honor. We use the status on webinars, on our website, when we are building the value of our firm with prospective clients and even with new hires.
Now we have myself, and Alisha Raesz (a partner at our firm), on the list together this year and both in the Top 10. That is something unique in this space for sure.
What are some of your strategies/initiatives for 2022? Business? Personal?
In 2022, we are looking to expand our software portfolio outside of QuickBooks and Acumatica, not purely for the VAR aspect, but more for advisory. If we can help a customer stay in product instead of having to do a conversion, this will be most successful for them.
Personally, I had my last child in 2022, so figuring out how to move beyond the baby stage and into the having kids stage of mommy-hood is going to be a big transition.
What are some of the biggest issues/trends impacting the accounting space today?
Software is catching up on some aspects of our industry—chasing us as I like to say. Fourlane has never been huge on repeatable tasks, because we automate as much as possible for our customers. Now software is heading toward AI learning and trying for advisory.
We have to make ourselves that much more valuable beyond bookkeeping and data entry. Some issues are the simplicity that software is trying to push into a business. Simple works well for a small business—like cash basis works well in smaller businesses.
But to grow beyond that million dollar revenue mark you need to have more data and details to make good decisions. Software has to support that data for businesses without charging through the roof.
And, of course, the standard answer of staff. Fourlane has four unique attributes it talks about as to why people should do business with us and why employees should come on board here. We have been the No. 1 Intuit Reseller since 2010 and will continue to be the top firm supporting QuickBooks Enterprise.
In 2022, we are looking to expand our software portfolio outside of QuickBooks and Acumatica, not purely for the VAR aspect, but more for advisory. If we can help a customer stay in product instead of having to do a conversion, this will be most successful for them.
We have bridged the gap between QuickBooks and the next level up products by being able to implement Acumatica and other software people head toward when leaving QuickBooks. We know both accounting—how to read financials and data—and we are experts at pushing the limits of the software.
This helps us breed experts on our team. And finally, we are strategic in our change management practices with clients. We help them get from Point A to Point B, and sometimes take over when their team is falling behind.
What’s the biggest item on your to-do list right now?
We are finalizing our LMS system internally for growth pathways so our consultants can “test” into their role. We also are getting signed up and starting the certification process to mimic our current QB processes in the Acumatica, NetSuite, Xero, and maybe a few other software.
What are your expectations for 2022 and beyond?
Our goal is to get to 250 employees. We want to continue to serve our large QuickBooks Enterprise base while expanding into other software and apps.
What’s the best piece of advice you can offer your clients today?
Be transparent. It has been a rough few years and employees continue to be on edge. Transparency helps alleviate fears in your team. Let them know the direction and what are the markers and goals to get there. This will help get everyone on the boat steering in the same direction.
What was the best advice you ever received?
We are growing as an organization and that has bumps and barriers along the way. The quote that has touched me the most recently is, “Control what you can control.” Or, put a new way I have seen lately, “When you can’t control what’s happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to it. That’s where your power is.”
We talk a lot at Fourlane about always looking at how you handle a situation or struggle and what can we do to be 1% better next time.
Is there an anecdote you can share that really sums up the work you do for your clients (a recent success story)?
You don’t know you need us until you need us, then you really need us. It is hard to get clients to realize that they need to look at their data to make good decisions.
Once they realize that, they see the need to work with a firm like ours to get them the data without overcomplicating (nor overpricing) their systems.
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