Author’s Note: As we continue the search for the 2021 Top 100 ProAdvisors and ProAdvisor of the Year, we want to take this opportunity to highlight our 2020 award winners. Learn more about Insightful Accountant’s Top 100 ProAdvisors Award Program here.
This week, we’re spotlighting our 2020 Top 100 ProAdvisor Lynn Ailsworth, President of Ailsworth Accounting & Software Solutions from Suffolk, Virginia. Starting her journey as a receptionist at an accounting firm right out of high school, Ailsworth quickly worked her way up to becoming the firm’s bookkeeper.
“After over a decade with that first accounting firm, we merged with a larger firm and, when they didn’t need a bookkeeper, I was asked to work in their bookkeeping department for clients. That is where I learned how to use QuickBooks!” Ailsworth continued, “After a few years with that second firm, I was asked to join the software support specialist department. The title sounded scary, but I jumped at the chance of getting out of a cubicle and working with clients consisting of consulting, training, cleaning up books, etc. After a total of 24 years between these two accounting firms, I finally figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up and began my consulting business in January 2007!”
Being a Top 100 ProAdvisor means you stay busy. “I typically have several remote sessions lined up each day and occasionally I go on-site to a client’s office,” Ailsworth told us. “I try to leave time in between clients to answer emails and return phone calls, schedule appointments, place orders, put together email blasts, etc.”
Ailsworth’s practice had already been working 85% remotely at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, allowing them to have an easier transition to an almost fully remote workplace. Implementing an email marketing software has been one thing that has proved to be an irreplaceable tool before and during the pandemic for Ailsworth. She told us, “We have used an online email marketing software for over 12 years to generate email blasts; this has been the #1 way we stay connected to our clients and contacts. Adding remote access several years ago has been a game changer for our firm.”
On top of maintaining her remote firm, Ailsworth is also a QuickBooks Solution Provider. “As Resellers, we love saving clients money by offering discounts on software, payroll, merchant services, and checks -- while we earn credit for those sales!”
As an Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Ailsworth has to maintain her education and training to ensure she stays on top of her certifications. With being so busy, now working almost fully remote in a pandemic, finding a healthy work/life balance is more important now than ever before. “This balancing act has gotten easier over the years,” she tells us. “Being a business owner has allowed me to have a lot of freedom by dictating my own calendar/schedule.”
From working her way up from receptionist to bookkeeper at her first firm, to being the President of her own firm, it’s no wonder why Lynn Ailsworth is one of our 2020 Top 100 ProAdvisors. “Starting my business was probably one of the scariest things I have ever done in my life! At age 42, single, and with less than $50 in my savings account, I decided to go for it and have never looked back!” We’re so glad you did and that we have you in this community, Lynn!