Fiducial | We help your business grow and be profitable.

by Stephen Parezo

Nancy Fabricius

July 27, 2005—As a psychology major in college, Nancy Fabricius was interested in saving the world but she knew jobs were few and far between in that field. So she shifted gears to pursue a career in accounting where she felt she would always be employed. That was 25 years ago.

Over the years, Fabricius has worked with many small business clients in southern New Jersey, functioning as both their controller and technical expert. In addition, she recently agreed to participate on the Business Counseling technical committee for Fiducial.

“I’m at their fingertips whether it’s for taxes or discussing financial statements or marketing,” said Fabricius from her Fiducial franchise office in Marlton, NJ. “Since I’m a small business owner, I’ve been through it all.”

When clients sign up with Fabricius they feel safe and secure that she’s on the case.

“They feel they can trust me,” she said. “They want the ability to call me at any time. When you’re with a straight CPA firm you’re never dealing with someone that has your whole picture. Our job is to know and understand your company inside and out. You’re talking to them on the weekends and going to family barbecues—that’s how we establish trust.”

Small companies require a lot of hands-on attention and that’s what she delivers.

“There are a lot of new companies in business and things change over time as the life of the company changes so the issues you’re addressing keep changing,” she said. “The idea is to keep them up and running and run a solid company.”

Fabricius has taken many start-ups and was able to help them beat the odds but it’s still a struggle for these entrepreneurs to manage their cash flow, do their marketing and make sure there’s a return on their investments.

One of her current clients owns a gym and health club that was purchased two years ago. She worked on the client’s business plan until it became a solid plan of action that fits into their targets and addresses their fixed costs. Fabricius is also negotiating with the client’s landlord to restructure the lease agreement to fit more into the client’s capital structure so the cash flow can be improved.

Staying on top of it

For small business owners, the problems seem to come in waves.

“It’s a constant moving target so you have to stay on top of it,” she said. “When you put one issue to bed there’s always another to take care of such as looking at insurance costs and making recommendations.”

On more than a few occasions, Fabricius has had to go to bat for her small business clients when they were randomly selected for an audit by the Internal Revenue Service. One particular client she was recommended to had records that weren’t in very good order so all the records had to be put into shape.

“We pulled all the records together so they were presentable then got them up and running in a good bookkeeping system,” she said. “It worked out fine in the end but they had never realized the importance of keeping proper documentation. Getting everything organized is all a matter of good recordkeeping. A lot of small businesses don’t understand that so they fail on the recordkeeping side.”

Another common problem encountered by small businesses is growth spurts.

“They start out slow but before you know it they’re growing,” Fabricius said. “For tax purposes all of a sudden they have this income they didn’t anticipate so the newly formed business, formed six months ago has no history to go to and their business could turnaround quickly. You really have to do some tax planning and educate them on the whole situation. Now we’ve got to manage cash flow.”

Early on in her career Fabricius began analyzing companies, especially the interaction of management to staff and how systems worked. She soon realized how important the systems are for efficiency and how by controlling costs you can deliver a service or product at a reasonable cost to whomever you’re targeting.

Fabricius worked in a regional CPA firm as a senior accountant and also spent some time doing Information Technology consulting.

“I’ve always been interested in putting together a nice, tight system—that’s the way I run my own business,” she said. “I believe in having everything streamlined so my clients are paying for my consulting.”

After a quarter of a century, Fabricius still finds it fulfilling helping clients.

“I enjoy working with the clients,” she said. “Crunching the numbers is boring but assisting them through their problems and issues and helping to resolve them is rewarding. That’s why I focus on smaller clients and family-held organizations.”

Stephen Parezo is the Media Manager for Fiducial.

Whatever your small business needs, your Fiducial tax and financial professional can analyze your situation and recommend an appropriate action plan. To locate a Fiducial office nearest you on fiducial.com, see the Zip Code Locator located in the upper right hand corner of the page. Do you have a particular topic that we should be writing about that can help your business? Please send your suggestions to: stephen.parezo@fiducial.com.

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