Mario Hernandez, Miami Accountant
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.
Shortly after Mario Hernandez received his Masters in Accounting with a concentration in Accounting Information Systems at Florida International University in 2000, he set out to take the Certified Public Accountant exam. He passed all four parts on his first try.
You might be interested to know that only 15 percent of those taking the exam have ever done that.
Today, the founder and president of Miami Accountant, which opened in 2006, works with hundreds of small- and mid-sized businesses to help manage financial, managerial and tax accounting. Over the past 17 years, he has acquired invaluable experience by working in many different industries.
In addition, he became an expert in QuickBooks and Fishbowl, and is Advanced Certified in both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online, an achievement held by less than 1 percent of QuickBooks ProAdvisors.
Fluent in both English and Spanish, Mario continues to build strategic alliances with other local and national accounting and technology firms.
What does it mean to you to be recognized out of more than 200,000 ProAdvisors in the world?
A lot of hard work goes into learning the software and staying on top of the latest technology. I feel honored to be recognized as a "Top 100 ProAdvisor."
Your first thoughts on getting news of the honor?
I was very excited to hear I had been named a "2017 Top 100 ProAdvisor." It means a lot to be recognized among my peers.
How has your ProAdvisor practice changed or evolved over the last couple of years?
The biggest change my practice has had in the past couple of years has been the addition of a team member. This has allowed me to shift from 100 percent working in my business to being able to work on my business.
Why is continuing to enhance your skills and acumen critical to staying one step ahead of the curve?
This is extremely critical as yesterday’s technology may not be able to solve tomorrow’s challenges. When a client comes to you and expresses his pain points, it is important to have an understanding of the technologies available, so that you can have options available to solve for his pain points. If you do not enhance your skills, your practice and your clients will suffer.
What do you do?
We focus on Accounting Technology Consulting. We have been working to refine our offerings from doing everything for everybody to focusing on clients that have inventory management needs. We have been consulting on Fishbowl Inventory for over seven years and QuickBooks Inventory for over 17 years. We are currently expanding to online inventory solutions, too. We also provide advanced reporting, data migration and accounting services.
Give us a snapshot of today's accounting landscape.
I see clients’ core needs as being very similar to what they were 10 years ago. One difference is that while before they would come to you and were not aware of add-on software options, today they have already tried out some add-on software on their own before they come to you.
There has been a shift in terms of the smaller businesses that come to us. They used to come to use having purchased QB Pro Desktop and needing help. Now they're signing up for QB Online instead, but they still need help.
We have not experienced as much of a shift with the larger businesses. These businesses have historically and are still continuing today to utilize QB Enterprise to manage their businesses.
We specialize on the larger clients running QB Enterprise, so we are always on the lookout for new apps that come out that integrate with QB Desktop. New apps that integrate with desktop are harder to come across as app developers seem to be focusing more on producing apps for QB Online.
What was the best piece of advice you ever received?
Joe Woodard said during one of his webinars, something to the respect of, “To be successful, you have to stop doing what made you successful” Also, a similar saying that has stuck with me is, “You have to stop working in your business and start working on your business.”
Also, the advice of specializing has been something that has really been driven home during the past couple of years at "Scaling New Heights." I find that to be the best piece of advice that has really helped my business.
What is the story that best describes how you help your clients?
My main focus on helping my clients is making their work life easier. I like to observe their operations and train them on how they can operate more efficiently. Many times, they are not aware of the tools that are already in the software that can help them. I have helped my inventory clients on proper use of sales orders to manage their orders. I have helped my accounting clients on getting them working with online banking to reduce their bookkeeping time.
How do you create balance in your work and personal life?
This has always been a big challenge for me. I have two daughters, ages 4 and 6. I would find myself working through the night very often. The best thing I have done to help me in this challenge has been to realize I cannot do it all by myself. I have brought aboard an excellent team member who has created more quality resources in my business. This has led to me being able to spend more time with my family.
What's on your to-do list thru the rest of 2017?
My biggest goal is to get my website completed. After that is done, I would like to focus my practice on serving inventory clients and on learning additional software, which will give my clients more options.
Special thanks to our program sponsors, including Canon imageFORMULA Document Scanners, ADP, Finagraph, "Scaling New Heights" and Intuit's QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program.