Jessica McCauley
Title: CPA, Partner, Beers, Hamerman, Cohen & Burger
Age: 41
Experience: 16 years
Jessica McCauley kicked off her accounting career at what was then Price Waterhouse. She worked for five years in the company’s auditing department, working largely with startups and tech companies before taking a hiatus to raise her children. Beers Hamerman offered her the flexibility to balance work and life when she was ready to re-enter the accounting world, and it was there that she developed a specialty working with nonprofits. This year, McCauley became one of three women named partners in the New Haven-based firm.
Q: How and why did you develop a specialty working with not-for-profits?
A: When I came to Beers Hamerman 10 years ago, in the auditing department, the focus was really either not-for-profits or employee benefit plans when you were doing auditing. I ended up working a lot for not-for-profits under another, more senior partner and I really liked that. I really liked how mission-focused they were. It was really nice because I felt like not only was I doing an audit, which is more of a compliance requirement for a nonprofit, but also I was helping these places that were doing something you could put your heart into, and I actually believed in what they were trying to do.
Not only was I doing auditing, but I was also doing something that benefitted the community. Over the years, that’s been my focus. I still do quite a few employee benefit plans as well, but I would say that probably about three-quarters of my time in the nonprofit industry. I really enjoy it, and the more you do it, the more you learn about the unique issues that are facing nonprofits and what interests them and what motivates them. It’s a nice area to be in.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges facing nonprofits today? How do you help them navigate those challenges?
A: Most of what I do for nonprofits involves accounting services, auditing services, occasionally we’ll do a review, but I would say most of them need an audit. A lot of them it’s because they were receiving state or federal grant money, so they need a special audit – it’s called a single audit – just to make sure they’re in compliance with the requirements of the government. In a nutshell, that’s what we do.
We spend a lot of time with our nonprofits helping them with their bookkeeping. Because their budgets can be tight, a lot of them don’t have a really sophisticated accounting department. They tend to have more bookkeepers, so we’ll spend a lot of time helping them with their bookkeeping, we’ll give them recommendations on how they can improve their internal controls and how they can improve their operational efficiency. We’ll usually prepare their financial statements for them, do their audit, but we’re there year-round if they have any questions, if they need advice for anything throughout the year.
The biggest challenges facing nonprofits are always going to be with funding. Depending on who’s in office in the government, they might see cuts. I know there have been a lot of cuts lately in the state of Connecticut. Also, it’s competitive to get funding privately, so a lot of times they’re competing with other nonprofits for funding. And that’s always an issue. They want to make sure they have enough money to support their mission, to do what they need to do. That’s probably the biggest struggle I see for nonprofits.
Q: Do you often find yourself working in partnership with those nonprofits’ banks? How can bankers be better partners to CPAs in this space?
A: It’s helpful when we have situations where a nonprofit has a loan and they maybe have some debt compliance issues, a covenant compliance issue, we don’t tend to have too much communication with their banks, but one thing that would be nice is for bankers in the community to make sure that they network w/the CPAs in the community. What would be helpful is if, when I’m out at a nonprofit and I’m doing the audit work and I know that they have a certain banking need or maybe they come and talk to me about something, Maybe they’re looking for a loan or a maybe they’re looking for particular type of service, I could know from our network of bankers the bank that might be best for them and I could kind of steer them in that direction.
It’s good I think for bankers and CPAs to have a good relationship so they can understand what we do, and we can understand what they do, and we can make sure each nonprofit is best matched up with the service that they need.
Top Five Places McCauley Has Visited:
- Paris, France
- Naples, Florida
- San Francisco, California
- Block Island, Rhode Island
- Blue Ridge Mountains, Tennessee
