How CPAs Catch Cost Overruns In Construction

We sit down with Mark Leverett, a CPA partner at BPM, to unpack how audits, FP&A, valuations, and advisory work connect across real estate, construction, and private equity. We also dig into fund administration, fractional CFO support, and what AI really changes for accounting teams and investors. 
• Mark’s path from UCLA and the dot-com bust into public accounting 
• What an independent audit and assurance report actually verifies under GAAP 
• How FP&A projections guide investors, bankers, and M&A decisions 
• The “audit antennas” mindset and how reasonableness testing uncovers issues 
• Real-world construction examples involving procurement and subcontractor overbilling 
• Agreed-upon procedures work for banks during active projects 
• How valuations work for entities, minority interests, and marketability discounts 
• How tax strategy and asset moves like tax-deferred exchanges shape planning 
• What Client Accounting Services means as fractional back office accounting 
• Fund administration basics, cap table rigor, and investor reporting workflows 
• Tech stacks for real estate accounting including Yardi, AppFolio, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Online, and Allvue 
• Fractional CFO support from month-end close through lender and board conversations 
• AI in accounting, efficiency gains, and why firms still hire and train entry-level talent 
Hit me up directly. I’m happy to discuss it. mark at bpm.com 

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Mark Leverett

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode. Today we have Mark Leverett with us. Mark, thank you so much for joining us, sir.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Happy to be here, Tony. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Yes, sir. Mark's out of San Francisco, California. So I was just telling him we're on opposite sides of the world, I feel like. Big, big time differences. But thanks so much for uh joining us today, Mark. So could you give everyone a little bit of a background about you, uh, what you're doing now, and how you got into it?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Sure, I can. Um, so I'm I'm an accountant, I'm a I'm a partner with BPM, which is a firm. Uh, really, we're nationwide, but we do have a focus on the West Coast. Uh, most of our offices are here, but also international. Um, I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area, but my clients are spread out uh across the country. I also lead the real estate practice for the firm. Um, so that encompasses uh developments, um, private equity funds that hold real estate and alternative assets, construction companies, um, as well as mom and pop operations, so uh property management and and the like. And um, I also lead our client accounting services group. So I'm happy to delve into any of those and excited to uh tell your your listeners what I do and why I'm passionate about accounting.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Awesome.

Getting Into Accounting By Accident

SPEAKER_00 1:25

And how did you get into accounting?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I got tricked, um actually, Tony. I was I was a student at UCLA and uh found myself in the dot-com uh bubble burst in uh 2000 and 2001. I had an education uh that that also included uh some of some of what was aspiring to be the new uh dot-com future. I went to London School of Economics and got a special business designation for e-commerce, but it was gone when I graduated. And so while I was looking around, uh I had a my a minor in accounting. So I thought, hey, I'll do that. Well, the accounting firms were not hiring. So instead, I went up to the mountains and tried to be a ski bum, and they tricked me to go into the accounting department. They said, look, look at this resume here. You shouldn't be uh lift ops or ski instructor, you should go to the accounting department. And uh I'm glad they did. I got to work with some really bright uh people, the the controller, the CFO, and gave me some good direction in life. A couple years later, I decided to leave the mountain and uh join my first uh firm in Los Angeles, California, uh doing audit. And the the history writes itself from there.

Audit Work And What Assurance Means

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I'm happy to go into any details.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

When you say you started doing audit, do you were you doing um was it federal audits or was it internal audits? What type of audits were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yes, I was focused on being a an independent third party auditor for private companies at first, and then we did have a public company audit uh department. So within a CPA firm, the audit department is the assurance department with an A. And the assurance department really works to be an independent third party to verify financial information. The highest level of assurance is an audit, and we sign a report that basically says that these financial statements are complete and accurate in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. And uh you the bankers and investors can rely on them. And that's what I did for the really the first 15 years of my career. I really focused on audit both private and public companies. Um and it's a really interesting part of the profession, and it's a great place to learn about financial statements and uh FPA, financial planning and analysis, and a lot of what I do today on the advisory side.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Awesome. So that's good that you brought that up. Financial planning and analysis. For people that don't understand what that is, could you describe that a little bit?

FP&A And Building Future Projections

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Sure. The the FPA function is really the um it's the managerial accounting, but it's what matters from an investor's perspective as well. So what kind of internal rates of return, what kind of growth uh is possible, what are the drivers that that change the business from where you're at to where the future state you hope to be is? Um drawing those future plan lines is important because it tells you if you're going the right path and and you can test your theories. And obviously, um, when you're doing your merger or acquisition transaction or going public, the investment bankers uh need to know what your plans are. So that's really the FPA process, analyzing what's happening today, actually, but drawing the future projections as well.

Audit Antennas And Finding Fraud

SPEAKER_00 5:11

And typically when you're doing that, are you working with the clients that you dealt with? Did they already have a controller in place and everything in place, or would you go in businesses that didn't have uh formal finance or accounting departments?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Typically, they will have some semblance of an accounting department in place. Um, for the companies that are sustaining a real gap audit, a generally accepted accounting principal's audit, they need to have uh working financial information that is uh in proximity of GAAP, meaning that they know what they're talking about and they may not have everything right, but the auditor is there to uh make sure that before the financial statements are done, they're completed. I will say that some of the private companies we go into, they have less sophisticated accounting uh and finance operations at points. Other times, you know, companies that are aspirational to go public or have raised significant capital, they'll have very robust internal offices and uh a strong CFO that makes sure that those financial statements are really robust and sound uh from from the perspective of their investors or the bankers that are looking at it. But there's a wide gap between. And I can tell you stories of you know, oops, mistakes that get into those financial statements that you find as an auditor. And it's you know, you try to not embarrass anybody. Um, but you're when your ant audit antenna go up, that's what the kind of uh that's our our terminology in in the CPA world. We've got these antennas, and you know what when we see something that's a little bit funky, we get curious and we ask more questions and we dive deeper. And you know, we can't say that everything's perfect because you can't audit every single transaction, but we do a pretty good job using statistical analysis, uh sampling procedures. And um when when our audit antennas go up, you know, we we kind of find things and we have interesting conversations. Sometimes we find fraud, yeah, it does exist out there, right? And um, and it's a really great place for anybody getting into the profession to start. There's really two places that people get into our profession. It's tax or audit. Those are the primary uh CPA roles.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

I see.

Real Examples From Construction Audits

SPEAKER_00 7:46

So could you give us a couple examples of some stuff that you've uncovered that was out of the ordinary and uh unexpected, and and kind of how did how did you approach it? And how did how did you what what was the result of it, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Well, uh I'll give an example. I I'm gonna try to code this so you can't figure out who it is, but uh, you know, you the major developer um doing uh 300 unit apartment building, uh, and you you start to decide you're gonna audit some of the um procurement around the building. So you think, oh, an easy one is toilets. Um so 300 units, all of the units are are studios, one bedrooms, there's a few two bedrooms. Well, why is there a thousand toilets purchased? So there's uh a couple extra there. That's you know, one that we found. Another one is um pouring concrete into a major sports facility. And uh we were we were doing a reasonableness analysis on how much concrete was purchased from from the uh uh from the uh contractor, the subcontractor pouring concrete. And it was pretty obvious it was over by 25 to 30 percent of what could possibly be in there from uh cubic yard perspective. So um change orders got reversed, uh, you know, averted any fraud allegations, these types of things pop up, usually using just reasonableness analysis, but also some uh specific testing. And I got many more if if you're interested.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Sure. Well, um, so when you're encountering something like this, and and these you're just in doing an audit, so you're not you're not working for them. Uh so that's very interesting that you're going in in that circumstance. Let's talk with this concrete, for example, where you were called in to perform this internal audit, and then it was the job still active because you're saying they were able to claw back a change order and uh basically capture savings of the 25 to 30 percent on the uh concrete GC, which is pretty amazing. So they to have that much, I guess when you're there to have all that knowledge, and they still hadn't released those funds, that much of those funds.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

There's a lot of different types of attestation reports where we're opining on financial information. Like I said, the highest level is an audit of overall financial statements. So that means that you're looking at the balance sheet, the income statement, statement of cash flow, owner's um equity roll forward, and full footnotes. So that's an audit. Um, there's also other types of examinations. In the example for the uh for the concrete subcontractor, we were doing agreed upon procedures for the uh bank around specific subcontractors. And so we were brought in specifically to make sure that during the the construction process, we were sampling and testing and and um and giving that level of assurance on uh certain information. We could have designed and we suggested that we would have somebody stationed on site and actually perform um observations on site. We also suggested just a reasonableness analysis of invoices. And uh they went with the latter and and we still found you know fraud. That also opened us up to going in and doing more work. So that's the way thing these types of things work is you know, if everything's working perfectly and we feel like no audit antennas are going up, we might be able to do a low level uh of work. And other times we might recommend uh obviously management or the bank or the investors ultimately make the decision of how much diligence we do. But we're here as an independent third party to be able to help out. And um, it costs money, but as you can hear from the examples, you can find quite a bit of uh potential savings from doing this type of work.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, absolutely. And obviously the the savings way outweigh the fee that's being charged. That's the appeal of it. So uh obviously, when you know, if you have the capacity on a on the job, it's relative to the job size, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

We're talking millions of dollars in the case of the concrete reversal, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Right. And and then your fee is uh it pales in comparison.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

I wish we could get a fraction.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Wish you could get a percentage of savings. But I we can't.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Uh by our our CPA license, when we're doing attestation, we're not allowed to have contingencies. We have to work for um essentially hourly rates, but we can have a agreed upon

Advisory Services And Firm Specialties

SPEAKER_01 12:57

project that is reasonable.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

And so when you're doing these different types and and and forgive me, are you still doing audit work? I know you said you've doing it for 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Is that something that you're still practicing, or are you I I'm I'm a I'm a senior partner within the firm. So I I like to say I represent all of the different departments that we have, and I'm I'm pretty knowledgeable in most, um, and I know how to get the answers on all. Um very connected with my partner group and and the directors that that run the sub practices. And we we have very specialized groups. We've got an appraisal group, we have a business valuation group, we've got a cybersecurity group that goes in physically breaks into offices to show the boards of those offices that they can do it. Um, you know, so we we've got all different walks of life. Audit, tax, um, and advisory has a bunch of different subcomponents. On the audit side, we talked about a few. On the tax side, it's equally interesting, but I probably know the least, or at least I get my hands slapped the most uh by those partners telling me to stay in my own lane. But um that there's a lot of savings to be had if you work with the right tax partner. And um, you know, we've got corporations uh in in real estate and construction, mostly pass-through entities, a lot of S-corps, um, and uh and structuring around um with the attorney's help, structuring around liability protection, structuring around um individual jobs or special purpose entities, it's really an interesting area. I have to understand it enough so that I can do the accounting work for my clients. Um, but I always team up with the right partner uh in each of these groups.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

So tell me a bit with the appraisal side, what what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Well, that's where it's a black box, and you you drop something in there and you you hope that it comes out the other end at the right price. No, I'm I'm just kidding. It's a it's a science, it's a very um methodical process. Uh, the partner who's in charge of that group, Kent Moyer, uh, has an amazing background and has seen many different businesses. Uh, within his practice, there's a significant amount of real estate and uh and um contractor groups. There's even a a uh he he has within his practice uh an appraisal group. So actually valuing individual buildings. We don't do um single family residential homes, but we do anything bigger than that and uh everything through data centers or biofuel uh energy production facilities, hospitality, um, land value that is entitled, which you know, at each stage of entitlement, different values happen. Um a lot of that comes in too with ultra-high net worth, where uh if there's investments that need to trade hands between trusts, foundations, um after a passing, um, you know, the the that's where that group really steps in on the real estate side and helps out with um the best process to to get the right valuations so you can move the real estate.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

And so on that, I mean, this we're that we're not talking about accounting, we're right. I mean, we're just it's just an appraisal, but it's I'm trying to you guys have a vertically integrated group that's all dialing in together from different aspects of the construction and real estate where you're entering all different areas, uh, where you're offering different services so you vertically integrate. Is that what I'm understanding?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

That's

Valuations, Ownership Discounts, And Exchanges

SPEAKER_01 16:49

right. So, from a tax perspective, um, there might be one set of concerns and strategy because you want to accomplish something over uh an allowable timeline before a transaction happens. And there's a lot of different reasons why you need to work with the right attorneys and CPAs um to get ready for a transaction. You know, one of those transactions is you know at the passing of an individual. Um, another is um well ahead of that to make sure that you set up your family with trusts or maybe even a foundation. And um uh the valuation group understands the ownership at each at each of these different periods, and there's an adjustment that needs to be done, which is debits and credits, it's accounting, so that you can keep track of what that value is in each entity and at the right time, and that you've got the right file that is compliant with a uh a documented valuation at a moment in time. And you you what's interesting about this is you think of a piece of property having a value, but in the hands of a uh an entity that is 49% owner, it is a different value to that entity than if that entity was a 100% owner. And so that that's the uh discount for lack of marketability or my minority um uh ownership or lack lack of control. All of these things can adjust the value. And if you do it um uh under the under the right guidance, you can achieve what it what you're trying to accomplish. So you need to work with the the right providers to talk through that strategy. Um another component, Tony, that you probably have heard about is tax-deferred exchanges. So there are moments in time where um you feel like you've accomplished what you're trying to do with one property and you're ready to move that that uh net asset value into something else. And so um those types of transactions may benefit from the right um movement of the asset. You might have multiple partners involved before that happens, and some of the partners may want to stay in that asset. So you need valuation professionals and tax strategy to make those types of transactions happen as well. And and my team works together, um, like you said, vertically integrated to make it happen.

unknown 19:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

So for something like that, if you're trying, some are trying to dispose, you might have to restructure it to a tenants in common formation uh before you can, you know, dispose of the asset, and you have to do it in a certain amount of time before you dispose of the asset. So it's not looked at as something that you're doing just to dispose of the asset. Uh so that's exactly right. Of complex maneuvers. Uh, so yeah, absolutely. If you're offering that guidance and then you're going through business, I that it's quite comprehensive, all the different sectors that you're in. And but and just to reiterate, your main focus in this has and your so your niche as a partner is still on the audit side, or are there other sides that you are you specialize in as a

Client Accounting Services Explained

SPEAKER_00 20:14

partner?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah, I've I've properly confused you with a sleight of hand, but uh, I am no longer in in either of those. I mean, I lead the real I lead the real estate practice um in our go-to-market strategy as a firm.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Good.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

But I'm in the advisory trying to transition because I'm just I I am trans, I am, I have moved over and I and I did officially 10 years ago into our advisory practice. And my specific niche within the advisory practice is client accounting and advisory services. And um, so uh there are eight partners uh within my practice, within the CAS practice is what we call it. And um, we help companies get the right accounting platforms stood up. We coordinate with the attorneys and the CPAs that are uh providing the entity structuring, and we coordinate with the valuation professionals to help us adjust the books according to fair value in some cases or transaction value. And we do the debits and credits and we create the financial statements themselves. The CAS practice is, you know, think of us as back office accounting for your business, and we do it as a uh a fractional or a complete back office, um, including CFO services in some cases or FPA services, full controllership, and even accounts payable functions. So we'll pay bills, we'll get the um the purchase orders ready, the sales orders ready, we'll close the books at month end, and we'll even um have discussions with bankers or or uh your investors. Um one of the latest additions to our practice.

Fund Administration And Tech Platforms

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Is fund administration. I don't know if you've heard of fund administration before, but this is where we mind the cap table. So if you've got many investors and they want to make sure that there's a rigorous fund administrator. So somebody making sure that their capital account has been properly treated, we provide that service. And so it's audit ready. It's for private equity funds. It can be for family office portfolios or syndicated portfolios. It could be for um if you have a new joint venture, uh, we can jump in and do um all of these services or just one.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Perfect. So fund administration. So if you've got a 506 C fund uh or a fund of funds and you're looking for someone, I know there's there are companies like Invest Next that gets into this and Avestor.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Uh so you're saying that you would be those are a competition, Tony. I don't know if you should be saying their names on here. I understood. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

So now tell me, do you have a I know those have platforms, right? Do you have a platform for your reviews? Okay, and what is that platform?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

We use we use All View uh as the platform for that service, but we um you can't do the detail accounting on a one of these um uh capital table uh uh accounting platforms. So we use things like Yarty, uh real page, app folio, um, net sweep, sage intact, and even QuickBooks Online uh in some cases to be able to run the business. And then we will use all of you for the fund administration component.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Okay, so you would use one or the other of a Yarty, real page, app folio, or sage intact as your accounting uh side of it, and then um and then what what did you say you would do?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Uh we and and and we would we would um basically provide we could just do the the fund administration allow the business to run on whatever system they want, and we would tie out to the capital account, you know, that's one way to do it, or we can run the entire platform for a client. So doing the detail accounting work for the the business and run their cap table uh through through all of you.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

And do you do that as a yearly service or because I or so is that only for structured funds, or do you do that? I know you mentioned single syndications. Do you also do that on just single syndications?

SPEAKER_01 24:42

We do it on single syndications, yes. And any client with a relationship with us, there's only one platform fee. So um, while the the volume of work uh might adjust, the the um access to our all view platform and that uh investor relations portal and all of the way we transact with our clients is all through a single single portal. So we have clients that can have you know a hundred plus entities, and all of them could be um done through our single all view platform, for instance. That's an example. And some of our clients have told us, you know, we design this around what other groups don't do, and we want to be able to provide the right fund administration practice. So we've learned um from what our competitors don't do, and and we try to create uh the environment for all sizes of clients. Typically, size would be around 50 million plus. So we've got a few that are in the billions uh uh dollars of net asset value that we um that that we do services for, but we're as low as 50 million uh is a kind of an entry point for us.

Differentiators And Scaling For Smaller Clients

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Okay. And so tell me some slight differences that you offer that someone else doesn't offer. Like what makes you better and different?

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Well, I think the ability for us to do the accounting down to the property level or down to the company level is a major differentiator. Most of our competition doesn't try to uh do that work. But the reality is that's where we came from. That's what our our um our business, our CAS business was based on was actually doing the operational accounting. That's everything down to transactional accounts payable. Like I said before, setting up a PO system or sales process, bolting into your CRM, um, producing rent roles and the like. Then we'll also be able to do this very specific accounting around the cap table and uh with our fund administration platform and um assist with investor relations. So we've got people that are uh project managers and so they're not accountants necessarily by trade, but they'll be able to do things like reach out to utility companies and uh and change over addresses and get involved with calling your investors and updating their information, uh confirming that they received the K1s. You know, not only does the system record it, but we've got a personal touch. These are the things that we've heard that that our uh competition you know isn't willing to do, and we and we are client first, so that's our differentiator.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

That's interesting, yeah. Uh that's actually very interesting. So going back here, and and so this would all tie in as well. So when you're when we're talking, it would tie in with your fractional CFO service that others don't offer. So yeah, I can see where you basically just even with what we've discussed previously, the vertical integration, these other companies are just kind of a one-box shop here, right? And so you're still farming out. Now, I would say some of them will go in uh and offer some uh quasi stuff with like uh um online QuickBooks, but nothing, but these are I think these would be much smaller than than what we're discussing because you know when we're talking Sage Intact App Folio Yardi, these are more established, uh and want somebody to go in and and manage a much bigger operation. Where I don't I think these other ones would lack. So those those other ones I think are more structured for people, you know, maybe five to ten million dollars, right? We we do when you get to when you get to the size that we're talking about. I don't think that they can really meet the needs of uh what we're discussing here. I think they would run into it, and I think their whole environment and platform uh would almost break when we get to this level. If if I'm on that's that would be just my experience in understanding those other platforms that I'd mentioned comparative to yours, is is that how you guys see it? And is that really your dip another differentiator for you?

SPEAKER_01 29:21

That that would be great if the if theirs were broken and then we could step in. Uh, exactly. But we we appreciate that some of our clients are not yet established and that they're aspirational. And so we do have a scale suite solution where we're willing to work with smaller clients. And that is a QuickBooks Online, you know, the type solution where we can plug that in um and talk and we can talk about what it means to get onto the all view platform and work with their attorneys. So we do have that capability. Um, it it's a very permission structure. We have to get uh client acceptance through um the firm to be able to bring on clients that are of a smaller size, but I did I did um seven years ago, and they're one of our largest clients now. So we're we're willing to do that.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Awesome.

Fractional CFO Work In Practice

SPEAKER_00 30:15

All right, so tell me a bit with the CFO, the fractional CFO service. First of all, I guess with a fractional CFO service, could you explain uh to the listeners what that means?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Fractional CFO uh is everything from somebody helping you interpret your financial information, have sophisticated conversations with a banker, maybe put together board packages to be able to talk with your your board or your senior um LPs. That can be one level of it, but it can also be somebody that tells uh tells you where you need debt and how to refinance and how to have conversations with banks. So that's really the fractional CFO role. Um we blend that with controllership. So sometimes you can have somebody that's really good at closing the month end and understanding how financial statements work, but they don't understand who's gonna use them. Uh and and that, you know, I don't want to say that uh all controllers are like that. In fact, many controllers are super sophisticated, but we like to feel like on our team, we can we can blend everything from month end closed to talking to your most sophisticated investor. So that's really the fractional CFO service.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Awesome. And so with that, you guys, I'm assuming, offer uh different engagement amounts. So it's been depending on the person's uh or the company's situation, uh, you might engage once a month, you might engage once a week, or you might engage multiple times a week, correct?

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Everything down to sometimes on Saturday mornings.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Um a lot more versatile than uh so the the advantage of it is uh them being able to outsource and dependent upon need have a savings from bringing someone in-house.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

The idea is that you might have a need that you think you're gonna fill at some point in the future, and so we can bridge that gap, or you might have a long-term plan that you only need a fraction of an employee

AI In Accounting And The Future Workforce

SPEAKER_01 32:33

doing a specific role in perpetuity. And with AI nowadays, there are many aspirational companies that think that they will not need to have the same FTEs, full-time equivalents in their accounting department. Um, I I tend to agree with them. We we are super powered with what we can do, but we're super powered because we do this this same work across many different clients. So we're very efficient, but we're also we also have the best in-class tools. We we have um you know robotic process automation. That happened, you know, 15 years ago, and AI now assists with that. So we we can be more efficient than um what some companies can even build in-house because they don't have the time to do it, or it wouldn't make sense for them to build it themselves. You know, many of these processes and technologies we've built over years, and a lot of RD and a lot of uh IP that we keep to ourselves and other things we share with our clients so that they can build it into their internal ops. Um and and uh you know it's the it's an exciting time in accounting. I I actually recently put out um a post on on LinkedIn about you know, BPM is hiring. We're hiring because we know that we need to continue to grow this practice. Um, AI is not going to be the panacea solve all for everybody to just run on their own. Everybody wants a real CPA, an accountant to be able to talk to them about what it means, what the financial statements means. What were those pipes that were built that were uh put together to get this data into a financial statement? They don't want to just rely on AI. Um, we also need to hire straight out of school because these individuals are AI native. They've been working with this since they were freshmen. And uh we we know that they're probably best and most capable to become these superpowered you know accountants, but they have to do the very baseline work first and understand what debits and credits are. And BPM is here to incubate that and uh continue to grow our workforce and our tech.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

So I I see the need for that. I would say, you know, just in my opinion, I I think you know the fractional CFO piece is going it's going to continue to grow partially because of AI in a way. And I would say, you know, the baseline workers um with the AI that they're adapting, I you know, I do still have a concern on what what AI is capable of gonna be capable of doing in two years based on two years ago what it was capable of and what it is now is significantly different. Um, so uh when you guys look at that, are you having any plans? I know you're saying that you're not seeing AI because of the personal level, which I agree. I think the strongest, uh like someone in your position that's been uh decades in, uh AI is going to take a long time uh to get to a level and maybe never, right? Because you you there's human elements and there's knowledge, and and uh I I feel like back to your point, yeah, you want to be able to communicate. Do you feel like there is a little bit of danger for the baseline worker?

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Um, I think that over the last three years that we've been talking about the danger for the baseline CPA or the baseline accountant. And I I actually don't think that it was the right discussion to be having because we we still need people to be able to assemble the prompts and check the information so that the managers and partners can buy off on it and have the relationship with the clients. The clients themselves, I mean, if they're if it's an internal accounting department, um, they can understand the work that's being given to them. But I think increasingly a CPA firm or a consulting firm helping out is going to be the solve for companies. And there are going to be less internal accounting departments because of that. Um, there are so many new businesses popping up. I mean, there was a little bit of a stall out after the ZERP era went away and MA and venture back companies slowed down, but it's really coming back in the last six months. I mean, we're seeing companies come out of the woodwork. I mean, San Francisco was a ghost town. I it really felt like that, and it's all of a sudden bustling and as active as you know, pre-uh 2019. A lot of it is AI, the AI companies, but all of the um the legacy companies are being powered by the AI as well. So so we in the same way that private equity funds are targeting CPA firms for roll-up, you know, what are they seeing the value in a CPA firm? Well, we're a legacy process that is being superpowered with AI. And we're gonna be able to do more with less, is the is the comment. But I still think you need every single layer of what we had before from the entry-level associate to the partner that is ultimately directing how we're spending the RD and blessing the work and having conversations with the clients. You just need uh it will just make a higher value proposition to our clients, but it'll be superpowered. So I think that there this AI revolution is just creating more work and more more great businesses and better accounting solutions for the clients. There was a lot of terrible accounting solutions out there for decades, and uh, and it's all getting better. That's the the end result.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

I would have to agree. I think it's it makes everyone more productive. I I don't know that I see where people are going to go away. I think that it's going to a lot of entry jobs might go

Economic Outlook And Closing Contact Info

SPEAKER_00 39:16

away where you know, because you you could one person with AI can do the job of two to three people, right? Successfully. That's right. And and their job, and they do their job much better and they're more effective. So, you know, I I do think it adds value. And to your point, it there's so many opportunities that this is going to create. It was a lot like you know, multiple fears as we've transitioned into different aspects as the economy has transitioned over and over again. There's a lot of fear, but it opens so many doors that those fill a lot of the gaps that everyone's so concerned about. You just have to be agile and ready to uh shift and move with the changing times, and you can still be highly successful. And I think wholeheartedly wealth in the world is going to increase increase with this, right? Um, just hopefully the inflation doesn't kill all of it.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Yeah, well, it's deflationary uh at the same time as inflationary. It'll be interesting to see which direction it goes.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yeah, that's that's the big, that's the long-term concern is the major deflationary conditions that could uh impact everything.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Yeah. Yeah, my my undergrad degree was economics. So I I'm very passionate about reading and listening to you know all of the directional shifts, uh supply, demand, uh, and where value is gonna go. I think it's I think we're gonna end up, you know, in a more abundant society with better products uh and more meaningful, you know, things that we're we're all doing in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Absolutely. Well, Mark, it's been a pleasure having you on and getting a quick overview. If people want to find you, uh, what's the best way to reach you?

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Best way to reach me is to send me an email. It's mark at bpm.com.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Perfect. And we'll put a link to your website and your uh story on here. We sincerely appreciate you jumping on. Uh you you've gone into so many different things, it was hard to uh stay in. I don't even think that we hit all of the different pieces that you're touching, but man, it's been great connecting with you and finding out a bit. And now, if if on another side, that connection, if someone is interested in potentially discussing, you know, bringing a fund to you to help manage, uh, do they go uh to the website that you mentioned? Do they find you up directly? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Hit me up directly. I'm happy to to to discuss it. I get a lot of inbound through clients, referral sources. Some of them don't fit, but I'll always help them find where they should go. So I'm I'm happy to have those discussions.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Fantastic. I'll put it all in the show notes. And Mark, thank you again so much for your time. We've had a pleasure having you on today, sir.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Pleasure being here, Tony. Uh, good to meet you.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

You too, sir. Have a great one. Thank you. All right.