Have you heard the news? Last April 1, 2022, Summit CPA officially joined Anders CPAs + Advisors (Anders) with a vision to achieve their highest potential together. Anders is a Top 100 St. Louis-based CPA and advisory firm that has delivered full-service accounting, tax, audit, and advisory services to growth-oriented companies, organizations, and individuals for more than 55 years. In this special episode, our Director of Accounting, Jamie Nau interviews Mark Hinsen, Partner and Director + Audit and Assurance at Anders and Kim Moore, our Director of Audit to talk about the recent merger and how it will affect the audit department, services provided, and clients.
Summit CPA Group has merged with Anders CPAs + Advisors! Visit our website to learn more about our 401(k) process and pricing: https://anderscpa.com/401k-audits/
"We're very excited about the possibilities...the joint marketing, the results of that, how that plays into the rules going forward, and the way that impacts our interactions with clients and prospects going forward are some of the really exciting parts of the combination." - Mark Henson
In this episode, Kim Moore and Mark Henson discuss the merger of Summit CPA Group with Anders CPAs + Advisors, a Top 100 St. Louis-based CPA and advisory firm. For more details on the merger, visit: https://anderscpa.com/anders-and-summit-cpa-group-to-merge/
The finer details in this episode:
Episode resources
Summit has joined Anders - 401K (Kim Moore and Mark Hinsen)
Episode 28 - Summit CPA has joined Anders - YouTube
Jamie Nau: Hello, everybody. And welcome to today's podcast. Today is a big, exciting podcast because we want to announce to our listeners some exciting news on the summit CPA sites.
So on April 1st, we merged with Anders CPA, which is a top 100 CPA firm based out of St. Louis. And we're really excited about this change, and we want our audience to kind of understand what this change means for our company, as well as for our 401k audit side.
So today I am joined by two audit partners, obviously one from Summit and one from Anders, but I'd love for them to introduce themselves and kind of get their background.
Obviously you're familiar with Kim, so we'll get to her second, but let's start with you. This is Mark Hinsen n from Anders CPA.
Mark Hinsen: Thanks Jamie. As Jamie said, I'm Mark Hinsen. I am the audit partner that oversees the audit practice for Anders CPA + Advisors here in St. Louis. We do a wide array of audits.
I've been here for 18 years at Anders. Prior to that, I was a partner in a firm in the Kansas city area, but like most St. Louisians, I came home to St. Louis in 2004. So I've been here for about 18 years.
Jamie Nau: You love St. Louis and you call it home?
Mark Hinsen: Definitely, most definitely St. Louis is a great city to live in and raise a family.
Jamie Nau: Awesome. Yeah, it's part of the merger talks, both Kim and I went there, as well as the rest of the team, and were able to experience St. Louis a little bit. Definitely had a really good time and a lot of good food. Of course, that’s what a lot of people talk about, but I also had some fun times over there.
Kim Moore: Yeah. Good, good group of people. And I'm Kim Moore. If you've been listening to our podcasts, you know me from having spoken on pretty much all of them. I'm the director here at Summit, now part of Anders, and we do exclusively 401k plan audits, which Anders does as well.
So it was a good fit from that perspective. Anders does a lot of other types of audits, but they do EBP audit, so it was a good fit. Yeah. Other than that I've been here since the beginning of 2014. Before that, my background was with a fortune 250 company heading up various audit teams, auditing various operations in a financial services company. So a little bit of a different background than a lot of folks, but I'm here now doing 401k audits and happy to be here.
Jamie Nau: So as you can hear, we have a lot of experience on this call here. And so I think a future podcast will be nice to get Mark and his team in here as well. Just to kind of expand the topics we talk about and really get the depth of the audit experience and the 401k benefit plan experience.
So let’s start with the differences. So obviously the you know the merger is happening, and we're discovering differences as we go, but let's talk about kind of the differences between the two firms, especially when it relates to the audit department. So let's throw this question to you first, Kim, and get your thoughts.
Kim Moore: Yeah, there's quite a big difference. We kind of talked about similarities a little bit in that we both do audits. We both do 401k audits. But Anders's obviously is much bigger than Summit was on the audit side. And so they do quite a number of other different types of audits.
I'll kind of let Mark elaborate on all of that, but theirs are much bigger, much broader and do a lot of different things. In terms of the audits themselves, though, if you looked inside the audit some of that is where I think you see the big differences. As we've talked before on some these podcasts, the former Summit folk are working remotely, so we're not in an office working all together. We're working from different locations, and we don’t travel to our clients. We do the audit remotely. So we're interacting with them much like this. So I'm on video chats through email, through other mechanisms that we use as part of our audit. So it's a very interactive experience, but not in person; it's virtual. That's probably the biggest difference is that we do them remotely, but also we have clients across the country because of that.
So I may have a staff person in Ohio working on a client in California, as an example. And we don't design our audits [based on] location, doesn't matter. So it's really just whoever's available to do the audit. So there can be vast differences in terms of geography of clients versus where we're located, and it really, for our work, doesn't matter. So I think that's kind of the biggest difference.
Jamie Nau: Mark, any differences that Kim missed there?
Mark Hinsen: I don't know that she missed, she touched on them, but, I think like she said, the biggest difference is we tend to go onsite to perform our audits. I'm still doing that. As a result of the pandemic, we made a lot of adjustments though, too, and we are actually doing a lot more remote now, especially in our employee benefit plan space.
We're not tending to travel for our employee benefit plan audits. We're tending to do those remote. We still do a number of just commercial financial statement audits for companies and not-for-profits and governments, things like that. We find that going on site still works best, and we'll travel, across the country at times, for those.
So there's some more travel involved for our audits. The other thing about our employee benefit plan practice is, we do a larger variety of audits than Summit has traditionally done in the past. Summit is focused on 401k. I'll show the limited scope audits, the old terminology, rather than the nature of I'm still kind of stuck in that pattern.
But, also maybe some defined benefit plan audits that Summit had done. We have a lot more defined benefit plan audits, as well as, we do a lot of multi-employer plan audits for unions that are serving a wide array of employers and number of participants. So we just have a broader practice in that area, doing a little bit more variety, but the thing that's been exciting for me anyway, is as Kim and I have gotten to know each other and starting to look at the practices, really our approach to audit is very similar, which is great.
Jamie Nau: I think that's really exciting. And then you mentioned the pandemic. I have a question about that. So were you able to figure out how to do an inventory count remotely? Was that something you guys able to ever figure out?
Mark Hinsen: Well, we actually did do some of that. It was challenging. You know, it came down to using FaceTime or Teams, technology on cell phones and iPads is really what it did.
It was a challenge though, and we still did some in-person inventory counts with full masks and gloves and fun things like that. You know, for the most part when we had to do them remote, it was via FaceTime, you know, using technology.
Jamie Nau: Yeah. I see that guy walking around with the camera saying, ‘okay, there's this number of pies.’
Which is unfortunate because that's really an experience that every auditor needs to experience their first year as being able to stay up until midnight counting whatever the product is, whether it's pies or bolts or whatever it happens to be. Cause we've all done it.
Mark Hinsen: Exactly. Exactly. It's one of the joys of entry-level auditing.
Jamie Nau: It was kind of fun. I thought it was fun, I guess.
Kim Moore: You got to know the client really well cause you right at the heart of what they do at that point. So it was definitely a learning experience.
Jamie Nau: So let's go to the benefits. Obviously, a merger happens because it benefits both sides. It's kind of like a marriage. If this would have been only a benefit for Anders, it probably never would have happened. And I think vice versa. So let let's talk about how this merger is going to benefit both.
Kim Moore: Yeah, I think it's a good opportunity. I think the biggest thing is to learn from each other. I think that, as Mark mentioned, I think we both have a similar approach to the guts of the audit–what's important in an audit. Where do you spend your time? How do you document things?Things like that. I think we're all on the same page with that, which is really important.
If we weren't, that would have been a big problem moving forward. But outside of that, I think we're both open to trying to learn from each other, whether that's technical type information from each other–maybe somebody has done an audit a different way, or an audit that the other hasn't done, you know, sharing information.
I'm looking forward to being able to talk to some of the Anders folks at different times and say, ‘Hey, I've got an audit and I see this. I've never seen this before. Have you?’ Because they may already have kind of gone down that path.
There's no point in me recreating that if they have already done that. So I think learning from each other is a big part of this. You know, as auditors, we are learning-type people. We don't like to just do the same thing over and over and over again, or we wouldn't be here. So I think it's just a natural component of who we are, and that that's going to happen naturally throughout our time together.
I also think the expertise that Anders has can help us. You know, we do a very limited scope of audits. We don't do the breadth that Anders does, but even in the types of audits that we do, occasionally, you'll come up on something that ‘I wish I had’ (evaluations is the best example I can come up with) ‘I wish I had somebody that does evaluations for a living that I could bounce these ideas off of them’ instead of me trying to go and do it. That's not my expertise. I know enough about it to get into it, but I'm not the expert there. And I know the Anders folks that do. Why not let them help us with those kinds of things?
That's one example. I'm sure there's a bunch of others, but that's kind of what I'm really excited about–being able to share knowledge across both sides. You know, we've got talented people coming from Summit as well. So I think there's, you know, there's a lot of knowledge to be gained on both sides. So I'm looking forward to that.
Jamie Nau: And I also think that, just from what I've seen, the audit world is changing a lot. And I'm sure we see that. And as a smaller firm and as a smaller audit department, we're probably not as up-to-date on all of the changes that are happening.
And we're probably not as involved in some of those national audit committees and national audit discussions that are happening with some of the bigger firms that I'm sure Anders is aware of–some of the technology that's out there. And I think that'll definitely benefit us as well. What about from your side, Mark?
Mark Hinsen: I think one of the benefits, I think having additional points of view and additional experiences as part of the team is always a positive. And so I'm looking forward to, as Kim alluded to, future interaction, as we're trying to resolve issues that we run across in engagements, I think we can help each other.
Through that and use each other's mutual experiences to work through some of those issues. I think the other thing is, I'm looking forward to learning from Summit’s experience and Kim's experience working virtually. We successfully transitioned that way, like I referenced earlier. during the pandemic.
But that's a much shorter time frame, and it was forced upon us to a certain extent. Summit has been doing that for a long time. So I'm sure they've learned some tricks and tips from an efficiency standpoint, from a communication standpoint, how to stay on top of things, and how to keep things moving in a remote environment.
I think that'll be really beneficial. And I think when you combine the progress, the progressive nature, that Summit has approached things with their audit, combined with our size and resources and the way that we've tended to do things as a firm, I think we're positioning ourselves to be a firm of the future and to be able to tackle some of the things that are coming down the pike, whether it's, you know, some of the complicated issues surrounding blockchain and, you know, some of the technology issues that are coming that, you know, they indicate are going to transform the audit profession.
And I think having greater resources, greater points of view on the team working together is going to benefit everybody and move our processes forward quicker.
Jamie Nau: I can, I can definitely see that. So obviously, we've talked about the benefits, so, it's not all going to be easy. Mark, I'd like for you to talk about some of the challenges that we've seen so far, as well as some of the other challenges we’re anticipating over the next six months as we figured out how to make this work.
Mark Hinsen: Sure. I think probably one of the biggest challenges is going to be making sure we're dotting I's and crossing T's with regard to licensing. You know, our profession likes to talk a lot about mobility. That's been kind of a buzzword, and how it's easy to work within jurisdictions at different places.
And we're finding the state rules are all very different, and it's being directed by various things in different states. While here in Missouri, a lot of it is based upon where your practice location is combined with where the client’s location is. Other states are focused on different nexus triggers.
I know working through who needs a license and who doesn't need a license in certain jurisdictions and making sure we get that nailed down and make sure both firms and individuals are licensed and in the right place, that's going to be a challenge.
I think the other thing that I've been talking about here with some of our marketing folks, how we're going to approach marketing from a standpoint of, Anders has a lot of word-of-mouth and networking– things like that over the years. Summit is definitely a heavily web-based presence. We have a web-based presence, too, but they've just been different approaches.
So I think blending those marketing approaches and learning how to play off each other's approach to the best benefit of the firm going forward, I think will be a challenge. We just have to learn and work through those differences and figure out the best way to y get that handled.
I think the biggest thing with any transaction like this is consolidating systems. Kim and I have talked about that, and I think we have a solid plan in place. We’re going to leave a lot of the individual systems in place for now. As we work more together and see the benefits of each other’s system and how it goes forward, we will pick and choose what makes the most sense.
Jamie Nau: I think the marketing aspect of it will be really interesting because the online marketing, the web marketing, works really well for 401k. I think a lot of people when they find out they need a 401k audit, it's pretty easy just to Google. The first place you go is Google. Whereas, if it's another audit, a bigger audit or you know, a bank audit, I'm sure you reach out to your resources and be like, ‘okay, who do I talk to?’
I'm sure that's not as much of a web-based search, but it'll be interesting to see how much combining those two strategies will expand our customers, because maybe we'll have more referrals come in for the 401k side and maybe there are people that do say ‘I need an audit. Let's Google it. Let's find that auditor.’ And then we'll find a way to connect there. I think that’ll be really interesting.
Mark Hinsen: I think it's exciting possibilities.
Kim Moore: Agree. I think that the different audits probably need different approaches. I can't see someone needing a commercial 401k audit, a commercial financial statement audit, and Googling that. They might do it just for the fun of it, but I can't see them picking their auditors that way.
But, you know, I think there's a lot of other audits that are more commodity-type audits that it definitely lends itself to. And it's probably in an area that's underutilized right now by other firms. So I think there's definitely scope for that.
Jamie Nau: Definitely, it makes sense. Okay. So let's go to some of our listeners now. I know some of the people that listen to this podcast are our clients and Summit clients. They're hearing this news and they've already heard this news and ‘okay, what does, what does this mean for us?’
And Kim, I want you to talk about the experience they've had in the past and what it will look like in the future and how it'll be the same and how it'd be different.
Kim Moore: Yeah. This is gonna be pretty short and sweet probably here because probably they won't see any difference. They're going to be working with the same folks. If their audit is underway right now, it's going to proceed as it has in the past. So they're going to work with their staff. We're still using our Smartsheet. For anyone who has worked with us, we've talked about Smartsheet before, and that's how we gather the information that we need from the client. And it's encrypted. So it's a secure platform that we use. We'll continue using that. We're going to continue having access to their platforms with their providers to gather as much information as possible.
So the audits will proceed as normal. They're going to get issued. As they would have before. The biggest difference they're going to see is when they look inside and they look at what we call the opinion letter. So it's way up at the front of the audit where we are giving our opinion on the audit and describing the work that we did.
It's going to say Anders on it instead of Summit. And it will have a signature at the bottom where you would've seen Summit CPA Group. That's going to be your biggest difference. Other than that, things are going to pretty much proceed as normal. As Mark has mentioned, we're looking to consolidate things going down the road, but most of that, the client won't see it.
So we do our work in a tool that we document our work papers. The client doesn't work in there. They don't see that. It's important for us, but to the client, not really all that important. So a lot of what I think will change going down the road will be seamless as far as the client interaction.
Jamie Nau: And you mentioned earlier, the expertise, and I think that's something that a lot of the clients won't see, but that's something that they'll hopefully feel. I know that when I was in audit, I had a partner that always said, ‘you never want to be in the boat alone on a difficult decision.’
And I think this gives us more breadth and more places to go when it comes to difficult topics you've talked about before where, kind of the buck stops with you, Kim. When you have a complicated question come up, like, ‘okay, I'm going to research this myself now.’
Like you said earlier, you've had someone that's experienced this. You've had someone that has seen this and you can say, ‘this is what I'm thinking, but what do you think about this?’
Like you said, you're not in the boat alone. You have someone there supporting that opinion, which makes you feel a lot better, but also makes you feel like you're getting that right idea out there. So I think that is super important. So over to you, Mark. What do you see for your clients?
Mark Hinsen: You know, I really don't see any significant differences. Like Kim said, you're going to be dealing with the same audit teams, and we'll be taking the same audit approach.
Both firms have a very similar audit approach. So I don't think, even as we combine processes and things, I don't see a lot of significant changes even down the line from that standpoint of things. So I think our clients will have the same experience they've had over the years. Much the same, Summit’s clients will have a similar experience.
We really don't see this impacting clients in anything but a positive way, primarily potentially additional resources being added to engagement teams on both sides. While we might be the larger firm, Kim has focused on 401k plan audits for a number of years and that's all she's done. So she's done a deep dive, and she's developed expertise there.
With our size and variety, we might've seen some things that she hasn't as well. We can combine those experiences and, like you said, adding more knowledge, more experience to our engagements that will overall benefit the client long-term.
Jamie Nau: This is all very exciting. And I know you guys have been working hard together over the last couple of months and maybe even longer than that to try to figure out the challenges and what everything's going to look like. And I know it's been a long road, and we got a ways to go as well, but I’m very excited for this.
Any final thoughts, anything we missed? Let's start with you, Kim.
Kim Moore: I don't think so. I think it's a positive change for everybody. I think it offers more opportunities for my group and additional expertise that we've talked about. I think from the client standpoint, it's nothing but good.
I think all of the good things that they like will remain. But now, they're hooked in with a bigger firm that offers other opportunities. Who knows, maybe one of our clients will need another type of audit, and now they don't really have to go look; they can ask us, and I can refer them over, and one of Mark's crew can help with that. So, I think there's just all good things. I don't see any major changes for anybody that's going to be in a negative way. So I'm looking forward to it.
Jamie Nau: Great. How about your final thoughts, Mark?
Mark Hinsen: I think I would echo Kim's thoughts. We're very excited about the possibilities. I think something you alluded to earlier, Jamie, about the joint marketing and the results of that and how that plays into the rules going forward, and the way that impacts our interactions with clients and prospects going forward are some of the really exciting parts of the combination.
I look forward to getting to know the Summit team better and working together and just moving things forward in a positive manner and providing additional resources and availability to both firms' clients.
Jamie Nau: Great. That’s a great summary there and very excited. So I have one final question for you, Kim. The podcast is not going anywhere, right? It's still going to be out there for all our listeners?
Kim Moore: It is not going anywhere. That's right. We're going to continue on. And I know when Mark and I talked about it a month or two ago, I can't even remember, I know he wants to get some of his folks involved, which is a great thing for us because it's been myself and my manager pretty much trying to carry it forward.
So it'll be good to have some other faces and voices and different opinions and different topics. I think we can even expand it into other audit type areas that are not maybe even specific 401k type topics. So, there's a lot going on in the accounting world.
Leases come to mind. That's been a popular topic. Everybody hates it, but it's been a topic on everybody's mind. So, I think there's an opportunity to do podcasts on things that aren’t specific to 401k that we can do with the Anders folks. I can maybe just be a moderator instead of having to talk during the whole podcast will be nice. It'd be a nice change for me. So, we'll definitely continue. And for those who might be listening for the first time, we do these monthly, and we try to get topics of interest.