If you are a young entrepreneur or small business owner, then you have probably spent many hours at your favorite local coffee shop brainstorming, creating marketing plans, and envisioning the future of your company. Like us, you've consumed copious amounts of coffee, tolerated a never ending indie rock play list, and struggled to find a place to sit with decent elbow room. Coffee shops and co-working spaces provide their customers with an opportunity to be productive alongside other similarly diligent minds. The socialization and relaxation of a place like this is hopefully the impetus for super genius ideas. 

We've had the wonderful opportunity of working at some truly awesome coffee shops and co-working spaces in Phoenix. Here are our favorite places to work away from home. 

On the best days Phoenix has to offer, you will have to stop by Giant Coffee to take advantage of their open air/indoor coffee shop. They offer personal desk like seating with easy to access power, long community tables, and brilliant natural light. Plus, it’s about a minute walk to the Burton Barr library, which in itself is another amazing place to work from.

Copper Star was one of the first places we visited in Phoenix. Located on 7th Ave., it is a vintage gas station turned coffee shop. It has semi industrial décor with local art hanging from their concrete walls. On nice days they also have a garage door that opens to let the light and air in. At times it gets busy, so start your day early at Copper Star if you want to get a good work space. 
  

While we were temporarily housed at Monorchid, we frequented Songbird daily. We’re big fans of their fresh pour-over coffee and their soda espresso. While at Songbird you’ll be right in the heart of Roosevelt Row. After a long day of work you can walk over to a nearby restaurant and complete your local adventure. 

We are extremely fond of our local café. Located in Coronado, Astor House provides excellent coffee, service, and food. They serve an amazing Japanese brewed coffee which will light I fire underneath you. They also have Blaise Farber, who we feel is the best bartender in Phoenix. His cocktails are as good as they get. We love to meet clients here and hold Accountingprose super genius meetings! Come for coffee or after work cocktails. 

Of course our favorite place to work is our home! Co-Hoots! We’ve been at our new location on Washington row for almost a month and we can’t stop talking about it. The people we work with there are our Phoenix family; we’ve grown close to all the businesses that operate out of Co-Hoots. If you are interested in checking it out let us know and we can have you as our guest.

November brings big changes for Accountingprose. We have upgraded our membership at our co-working space, Cohoots, to accommodate our growing staff. We are really excited about this because this is a big leap. For the past year we have been drop-ins, with no real home to call our own. Now, with our 2 desk nest we can finally let our business establish roots in the city center. 

With this new upgrade, we also have the use of 3 super cool conference rooms- all of which can be reserved for a private meeting with you. On Dec 1, we will once again have our coffee fix satisfied when Greater than Coffee moves in

We'd love to have you as our guest in this really beautiful and unique space. Give a shout and let us know when we can host you. 

By Daniel Zayas
Cohoots Blog

Cristina Garza, founder of Accountingprose, knows what it’s like to turn down easy opportunities for the greater good. In fact, her entire business was founded after leaving her paychecks from toxic lenders in Texas to pursue more stable accounting and business practices in Arizona. 

Accountingprose does bookkeeping and payroll for small businesses. They operate entirely remotely and specialize in getting people to their “happy place,” as Cristina calls it, by taking the payroll and bookkeeping off the shoulders of entrepreneurs so they can get back to the difference they set out to make in the first place. 

Cristina comes from a background of doing mortgage finance for a large broker firm in Texas. Although some of us are not inclined toward numbers or math of any kind, Cristina enjoyed the number crunching, but not the ethics inherent in the mortgage practices that led to the Great Recession in 2008. 

“On one hand I really want to help people and give them abundance and wealth,” she said. “But you are giving people these toxic loans and it wasn’t fitting into the good I wanted to provide people.”

At the time, Cristina was studying Buddhism, inspired by Geshe Michael Roach, the first American to receive the Geshe degree at Sera Monastery in India. By the time Cristina heard of him, Geshe Michael had published a book, "The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life", detailing how Buddhist and non-competitive practices can actually enhance your wealth and expand your business. 

Cristina moved to Tucson to study Buddhist practices under Geshe Michael. Because of her intense interest in accounting, she eventually became the Chief Financial Officer for Geshe Michael’s consulting company, The Diamond Cutter Institute. 

During her time as CFO, Cristina began receiving requests to do people’s bookkeeping and financial favors a la carte. As more people in her circles and her circle’s circles began to learn about Cristina’s talents, she decided to form a small business for herself, later to become Accountingprose . 

“As I started to form my business, I started to realize how much I enjoyed working with small business owners.”

Cristina's next step was moving to Phoenix where she made her business official and created Accountingprose . 

“It’s really fun to take businesses that are in total chaos and get them to have ownership over their finances,” she said.

The hardest part of managing small business finances is changing people’s habits, Cristina said. But at the end of the month her clients get financial statements and they can then make educated business decisions based on her services. 

For Cristina, her love of accounting always comes back to the simplicity of numbers that are black and white. There isn’t a lot of guesswork or grey area, she said. 

Since creating Accountingprose , Cristina has expanded her business and taken on a number of employees, to include a new construction accountant. 

What makes working for Accountingprose so alluring is the personal support Cristina has integrated into her business. All work is kept at a manageable level and all of her employees receive paid vacation and unlimited unpaid vacation. 

“At big companies, you’d work 80 to 90 hours per week, which equals about 10 bucks an hour with a Master’s degree,” she said. “That is terrible. People who are happy with their lives are happy at their jobs.”

To accommodate her expanding business, Cristina also signed on with CO+HOOTS to fill a nest membership, which means she will have permanent desk space to use when she works out of CO+HOOTS. 

“Coworking is non competitive,” Cristina said. “I get to bounce ideas off people and I get people’s opinions in a safe place.”

In Cristina’s opinion, the way businesses today are headed, everything needs to be open without proprietary information. Her background in working for a large mortgage lending company has all but solidified her desire to help small business and do so ethically on her own terms. 

“I’m great at one thing: accounting,” she said. “I am able to outsource the rest because I work in the same building with a diverse set of professions.”

Cristina has moved from Texas to Tucson, Tucson to Phoenix, and Phoenix to CO+HOOTS. She has learned life lessons along the way, embracing change and finding ways to pursue her passions beyond the confines of a cubicle. 

“You should do the things that scare you,” Cristina said. “Never let your fear keep you from doing the things you love.”

We held our first mixer on 10/11/12 at Astor House and it was a total success. We had a great turnout of 38 guests, from all kinds of industries. We are planning our next event and looking for a great venue now. At first we thought monthly events would be essential, but after some consideration we think every other month or quarterly makes the most sense. We want to have an event that people look forward to and not another networking obligation. After all, we are creating a fun night out first and foremost. 

Navin from Pathangay Associates was our first arrival and we were so excited to have him. He was an integral part of the Parlor Pizzeria remodel, which is an excellent example of adaptive reuse. He is working on a new project which really excites me; a remodel of the Miriam Building at 7th St and Osborne. The new tenant is Gadzooks, a cool new enchilada and soup restaurant. I have been watching this building for a while, and I am excited that someone will put it to good use. 

Laura Petersen from Student Tutor also attended our event and even brought a special guest. It was great to hear about the success that Student Tutor has had and to learn more about her guest who is a marketing intern all the way from Cologne, Germany.  I think she wins the prize for longest distance traveled. 

Nicole Gonzalez was also a bright star on our guest list. She recently attended the Phoenix Pride Festival and it was fun to hear about that event. She is doing a great job helping LGBT families with their wills and trusts. I love that she has found a market that sorely needs helps and is offering her service with great enthusiasm. I think she is person to watch; a true change-maker. 

Pierre and Amy from Sputnik Moment were late arrivals,  but were able to jump into the fun right away. They help Non Profits integrate Salesforce CRM Software into their business, allowing them to build even greater relationships. I personally think that using a CRM in your business is essential. It allows you to stay in touch with your clients and set a follow up schedule, an essential part of customer relationship building. 

Kelsey, Jenny and Odeen from Cohoots and Eeko Studio also made an appearance. They are doing such great things for Downtown Phoenix and I am happy to be a part of their Co-Working Space. There are lots of great events hosted at their office and always a desk to work at. If you are ever in Roosevelt and want to work in a cool space, you should definitely check them out. 

Finally, Loren Condron from Dotted and Crossed Marketing graced us with his presence. He had just hopped off a plane from Reno and headed straight our little party. Now that's commitment! Thanks for coming, Loren! We appreciate it!

Check out some pictures from our event: 

Would you like to be on our guest list for our next event? Send an email to cristina@accountingprose.com and let me know. I am happy to keep you in the loop. 

We had another great week of networking and social schmoozing. Keep an eye on our  Calendar, so you can meet us around the Valley. 


On Wednesday 9/26 we attended two events, Young Executive Series and Fuerza Local. Young Executive Series (YES) is headed by Paige Gruner, Marketing Specialist for the Chandler Chamber of Commerce. YES is a part of the Chandler Commerce, but you don’t have to be a member of the Commerce to attend their free monthly events. YES was created as an effort to incorporate younger professionals into the chamber. If you have networked at all in this part of the Valley, then I’m sure you’ll run into some familiar faces here.

For this event, attendees were asked to create their own QR code to share their business information. Everyone walked around with their smart phones clicking away at pixilated black squares. I found it a great way to introduce yourself instead of traditional card swapping, which may only last a second or two. If you’re in Central Phoenix we recommend you get out of your networking comfort zone and head out to Chandler for their next event.

For more information about YES you can contact Paige Gruner: paige@chandlerchambers.com.

After leaving YES we headed straight for Fuerza Local, the Spanish language preferred group from Local First Arizona. This event was held at Poblano’s, who provided us with some tasty salsa  and chips to nom on. Fuerza Local is aimed at uniting Spanish speaking business owners to promote community building and offer support for each other. We’ve attended these mixers for the last few months and we’re excited to report that the attendance at each event has grown! There was a wonderful frenzy of energy. Lots of business owners spoke adamantly about this group’s objectives and goals. 

Carlos Velasco, who heads the group, reminded the members that this group is about    a local focus, empowering the small businesses of our community, and encouraging others to do the same. He was later joined by Kimber Lanning, Local First Founder, who added her own words about “leveraging your localness”. If you are interested in seeing what Fuerza Local is about talk to us, we’d love to have you as our guest at the next event.

On Thursday we attended the Internations monthly night out. This month the event was held at J&G Steakhouse at The Phoenician, which boasts an incredible view of Phoenix. Internations is a social media site that builds ex-pat communities worldwide. It’s free to join and free to attend. The Phoenix chapter has only been up and running for a few months, but already has close to a hundred people attending their events. This has quickly become one of our favorite networking events. We’ve met dozens of friends and are constantly telling others about it. If you have an international background, or are just globally minded, join up! You must be invited to the group to join, so If you are interested you can ask us about membership and we’ll happily send you an invite.

Finally, on Saturday we attended the Phxmix hosted by Phoenix Design Week.  Many of our clients work in the creative industry. We value the many aspects of art and creativity that exist in business and feel it is a wonderful industry and community to be a part of. In fact, I worked for the Salvador Dali Society as a project manager for many years and still dabble in the art world. 

The event started with a light mixer. People trickled in from many of the day’s panels and activities. We were treated to a talk by Sam Harrison about creativity and choices. He touched on how to expand and share ideas and grow them, and making the choices that make those two happen. The most interesting part of the night was when he asked us to take a sheet of paper and write down something that inspires us and then write our name down. Next, he asked us to fold that sheet into a paper airplane.

Check ours out:

We then all stood up and faced opposite sides of the room and let’em fly. Everyone then picked up a plane and we were encouraged to get in touch with person whose plane we had! This was a super fun and creative way to connect with others. Sam…we may have to steal this idea from you.

We hope to see you around the Valley. Let us know if you want to be our guest at a mixer and we will gladly oblige. 

- Salvador

Come show your support of local small businesses at the 2012 Local First Fall Festival. 

Important Details (write this down!): 

Local First Fall Festival
Date: November 10th, 2012
Time: 10am to 4pm
Location: 
Portland Parkway
Downtown Phoenix
10 W Portland St, Phoenix, AZ 85003 

Here is what Local First has to say: 

This family-friendly street festival drew over 6,000 attendees last year with 60 members participating. We hope you'll count yourself as one of the attendees for this year's festival!

$1 tickets will get you great food and all kinds of fun for kids!

Many booths will have fun activities! Entertainment is provided by some of Arizona's best musicians and bands.

*Side note, we will have a photo booth at our booth and you can take pictures will a real life small business superhero! We even have a top secret prize giveaway planned! 

Local breweries and vineyards provide drinks in the Beer & Wine Garden; many local vendors will also be offering non-alcoholic drinks.

A raffle and silent auction raise funds for Local First and the first 500 attendees receive gift bags!

A bouncing castle will keep the young ones entertained while kids of all ages can scale the rock climbing wall.

Check out last years event photos.

-- 

I hope you will come out and join us and our booth bffs Across Arizona Tours. We aren't going to be out there pushing for new leads with strong arm sales tactics. We want to have fun with our community by taking pictures and shaking hands/high-fiving. So don't be afraid to come up and say "Hi!". 

What in the world does patience have to do with building a business? In a word- Everything. 

Running a business is very exciting. There are a times that great ideas run through our mind all night. We are tempted to run in ten different directions, while tweeting and facebooking all of the great things we plan to do. Often times instead of careful planning we jump the gun or our plans fall flat. Our friends and social media followers might lose confidence in us because they see a lot of "talk", but not a lot of progress. 

So, how can you be more patient with your business, when you need income now? Here are few ideas that may help bring your plans into focus: 

1. Keep a list of all the great ideas you have. Before you go to sleep at night make sure that all of your thoughts are jotted down, so you can rest easy knowing you haven't forgotten about the "next big thing". 
   
2. Make one day of the week your business development day. Spend time evaluating what resources you have and which ideas seem do-able. 
   
3. Write a game plan to see your project to completion. This includes things like creating due dates, milestones and tasks associated with each milestone. 
4. Celebrate each success and share this with your network of friends and colleagues. They will see how you are making your project come alive and also will be excited to see the progress. 

You will find that as you see yourself reaching your milestones, your confidence in project management will increase. You will see that being patient and thorough is much more satisfying than blindly running in ten directions. Your clients will have more confidence in you and your business will grow because of it. 

Have you implemented a patience practice in your business? I'd love to hear about it? Send me an email and I will share it via Facebook and Twitter. 

Last week Accountingprose superheroes were out and about throughout the valley; building relationships, extending our network, and enjoying mixers with other local businesses. We have started a new series of posts that highlight all of our networking adventures. Check out our event Calendar HERE.  You can save the event information to your calendar easily if you use Outlook, Ical or Google Calendar. 

Tuesday, September 18, we checked out AD2 Phoenix at Bungalow Bar and Grill in Scottsdale, Arizona. AD2 Phoenix hosts a free monthly mixer called “AD2SDAY”, which focuses on connecting young professionals in the creative industry. There was a great crowd and the restaurant graciously offered us the use of a large part of the restaurant. How kind! Most people stayed past the networking time and enjoyed the great menu that Bungalow has to offer. 

If you are a creative mind in advertising or design, we highly recommend you come to their next event. We had the great pleasure to meet Amy Thomas, President, and Sara Lewison, Vice-President of the Organization. Both women are extremely passionate about getting like minded individuals together and look forward to meeting you at their next event.

Follow Ad2Phx on Twitter and Facebook. 

This month's Local First Member Mixer was held at Buzzberry in Scottsdale, AZ. We enjoyed socializing with local small business owners, while getting caffeinated and sugared up. Two of our friends, Nicole of Nicole Gonzales Attorney at Law and Laura of Student Tutor, both decided to join Local First after their introduction to the group. We are so happy to have them in this fabulous group.  

If you follow us at all, you know that we are huge proponents of being a part of your community and spending locally. So, when you are in Scottsdale, take a moment to relax at Buzzberry, we know you will love it! 

Follow Local First Arizona on Twitter and Facebook. 

Thursday night Accountingprose was out in full force at The Get Your Phx Dinner & A Movie; an event co-presented by Co+Hoots and Get Your PHX. The evening started out with light socializing at Angels Trumpet Ale House before moving across the street to the Film Bar for a screening of Urbanized. Angels Trumpet Ale House offered us lots of yummy food, which was quickly gobbled up. 

If you are in The Roosevelt District please take the time to co-work at Cohoots, dine at Angels Trumpet and watch a movie at Film Bar. That is local triple threat! 

Follow CoHoots on Twitter and Facebook.  
Follow Get Your Phx Twitter and Facebook. 

Are you a freelancer who loathes dealing with your finances? Have no fear! Follow these six steps and financial bliss will surely follow...

1. It ain’t personal- Get a business bank account and run every purchase through it. Don’t use your personal account for business and vice versa. It will make tracking so much easier.


2. Find a method and stick to it- It doesn’t matter if you use a simple spreadsheet or fancy software. Just find a method of tracking your assets, income and expenses and stick to it. Update it often to see trends and at the end of the year doing your taxes will be so much easier.


3. Collect-Send invoices out each month on the same day. Put a big dollar sign on your calendar if you have to remind yourself. If you are using an accounting program, you can set it up to send out invoices. If you are still creating old school Word Invoices make sure that your clients know that you would like to get paid and if they don’t pay, remind them. Everyone has a million things on their plate, so don’t assume they are purposely withholding funds. Be nice but firm.


4. Keep your receipts- Unless the IRS shuts down its doors tomorrow, you have to hold on to your receipts for at least 7 years. So, take advantage of free/low cost storage via Google Drive or Dropbox, invest in a cheapo scanner (or snap pics with your smart phone) and start saving your receipts. If the IRS ever comes a’knocking then you will have proof readily available.


5. Back it up- Do you enjoy spending hours rebuilding your accounting spreadsheets or program? I didn’t think so. Spend five minutes a week backing up your information. You. Are. Welcome.


6. Money Honey- Here is the rule, if it doesn’t make you money, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Spend time on things that bring in the bacon and find people to outsource the things you don’t love. Hate tracking your finances? Hire a bookkeeper. I happen to know a great one. 

Ethics doesn't seem like a sexy word. For some, it means to have an incredible amount of self discipline, and self discipline takes work. However, what if I told you that by cultivating an ethical life and an ethical business, you could attract and retain more clients? It's true! 

When we know we are doing the right thing for our clients, we are happier and we shine. When we shine, we are more attractive for our clients and they look forward to working with us. When we have doubt about how fairly and ethically we are treating our clients, it shows. No one wants a snake oil salesman; we like working with people who have our best interests in mind. 

Ethical companies are stronger, last longer and have clients that evangelize on their behalf. When we run our business ethically, we have a stronger sense of commitment to our clients and they see it in our work. We also tend to make less risky decisions, ultimately affecting our clients. Instead of putting our immediate needs (like cashflow) first, we take a long term approach to our business. This will put us ahead of the pack and when the shortsighted companies, out to make a quick buck, fall away; the strong and ethical companies will be left standing. 

So while many don't think Ethics are sexy, I beg to differ.  Ethical companies are hot. 

So what is our commitment to our clients? 

• We are radically ethical. We will always be honest, open and transparent. 
  
• We are brutally honest. If we don't know something or make a mistake, we will own up to it. 
  
• We have crazy consideration. We are on your team and will always consider your needs. 

Are you looking for an ethical bookkeeping company? Give us a holler; we are ready to  show you what we are made of.