CPAacademy.org Check-In | Episode 13: Vanessa Vasquez

Nathan
Welcome to the CPAacademy.org check in. I am so excited to have you on the show. Full disclaimer for our audience. Vanessa is one of my favorite people. I'm pretty sure she is one of everyone's favorite people. I've known Vanessa for about seven years now. She has presented regularly on our platform for many years. Scott Zarrett originally connected with you right? And I've also had the pleasure of being able to tag along and spend time with you at many conferences over the years. Vanessa is always the life of the conference and I would bet the life of any situation that she is in. She has so much excitement for life and all the people that she knows. Everyone knows her, everyone loves her, and it's amazing she gets anything done with so many people she has to hug and talk to. You can't miss her and she always draws a crowd.
 
Before we dive into our interview, I'd like to share a bit more about Vanessa and her background. For our audience. Vanessa's superpower is to inspire Hispanic entrepreneurs to create a living legacy with their businesses by combining strategic plans, bulletproof processes and strong finances with their passion and material talent. Destroying the kryptonite of small business lack of knowledge, vanessa presents the correct tools and methods for businesses to grow and expand. Her main focus has always been helping business owners streamline their financial management processes through education and the application of technology. As a Latina entrepreneur for more than 15 years and Wonder Mom, vanessa recognizes the importance of providing learning opportunities and financial solutions for the rapidly growing, Spanish speaking small business community. She is the creator and producer of Conferenceia Fit, a conference on finance, innovation and technology for the Hispanic community. Vanessa recently was appointed the prestigious top pro advisor.

Not just Top 100 Top Pro Advisor. Named Top Apologist for the Top Pro Advisors advanced Certified Pro Advisor on QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. She's also content creator for the firm of the future CPAacademy, insightful accountant and intuit trainer, writer, network member. Once again, Vanessa, thank you so much for being here. Then we'll get into the questions. My first question for you how did you first get involved with QuickBooks and what inspired you to become an expert in it?

Vanessa Vasquez
Well, first of all, now it's my turn to brag about you. Thank you so much, Nathan, for having me. I thank all the CPA Academy team to Scott, to you that have had faith in me from the beginning to do all this, to really change and impact so many people. And it has been an honor and a pleasure because you guys allow a platform to be available, and you guys do all this work behind the scenes for us to be able to bring not only information, but also implementation of things that, if it wasn't for you guys, we probably would not have the opportunity to impact so many people. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you. And yes, you're one of my favorite people. We always talk about not only the amazing things that we do with the applications, the solutions, the QuickBooks, the Xero, and all the different things that we apply, but we also talk about our families and what we do and our travels and all that.

 So I'm very grateful for your friendship. That question, it is very funny that you asked because I was going into all my profiles and all my things and I got encountered into how everything started. So, first of all, I started back in 2000 when I got here to the United States. I started working and one of my friends, all of a sudden she contacted me and she said, well, I'm starting a new job. I want you to help me learn this thing, this accounting software. And I said, what is it? And she said, well, it's QuickBooks. And I'm like, okay. So we sat down on a weekend and I went over what the app was, what the software was, and we figured out, I was able to figure it out. Back then, there was no classes, intuit didn't train anybody on QuickBooks, so I had to learn it and then teach it to her.

She didn't have a background in accounting, but she needed a job. And I was like, I was just willing, and that is what it takes for all of us to be willing. And I just helped her. And from that on, I noticed that back then we didn't have all that we have now for Google and YouTube and all that, but it was starting to grow. And I see that there was a need for Spanish speakers training this software. So I started just learning more about it. And even though we had that weekend of training, were able to go back and revisit some of the topics. So I started creating training through Gotovating and GoToWebinar and being able to train one one and then teams of people. And then I said, well, you know what? Why I don't dedicate myself. Then I decided to get married and have kids and my girls are my priority.

I always say that. And I said, you know what, once I was pregnant, I said, I want to start my business. So I started training and teaching on QuickBooks and I developed this website which was a blog back then in the time. And I developed just content and I started writing and people started contacting. I can do this. So I started training and guiding people and just becoming an expert means a lot of things, but really what it means is that you just train yourself enough that you can train people and finding solutions for what they need. So that is exactly what happened. I learned so much from all the different industries and all the different businesses that will come to me, spanish speakers mainly. And then people started saying, well, but she's doing Spanish, she can train in English, let's just do it. And I just started doing it.

And I'm able to do this from my home the moment that I started being a homeschooler mom and being able to do it with the grace and the favor and the mercy of all of you while we learn all the different industries in QuickBooks.

Nathan
Awesome. Thank you so much. Next question is how do you feel your identity as a Latina entrepreneur informs your approach to finance and accounting?

Vanessa Vasquez
Well, one of the main things that we see in the Latino community, in the Hispanic community all in general, is that we come from a culture that it has been impacted by social economics, right, the politics. And we have to do a lot of education. I do a lot of education to our community. It is part of growing, it is part of showing them that if I'm able to do it in this country, they're able to do it as well. The Latino community is growing so much. The last survey that Intuit did it showed that we have around 4 million new business owners that are Latinos that are part of the Latino community every year since 2021. So we are growing exponentially. But the most important thing is not just starting a business because we know that we have a span of seven years. If we don't survive in seven years, then that's it.

But we have to educate. And that is the main thing that I do. I educate in the financial, I educate in the accounting. I educate them on understanding what are their numbers. It's not only, okay, let's just do the balance sheet and the PNL to do our taxes, that is more about understanding what can we do? Can we hire, can we buy inventory, can we grow and how can we grow? This whole idea behind it is difficult. It is not when what your business depend on is the numbers, right? It can never be enough education and it can never be enough understanding of your numbers. So that's what I do. As a Latina, I come across sometimes as tough. And I like that idea because I prefer to be looked as tough than as somebody that is just full of fluff so I'm excited to what is going on in the Latino community and all the growth that we can see.

Nathan
Perfect. Why do you believe there's a significant need for financial education specifically tailored to the Latino community?

Vanessa Vasquez
So, talking about that and just taking into consideration our last question, the whole main idea is that Latino community is very like, it has a lot of effort to start and doing building something in this country, right? We come from our countries understanding that we have a better opportunity. The American Dream give us the idea that we can do anything right. And we come to this country and we not only come to work for somebody, but we also have the necessity to make it happen. It is that thing of like, oh, we're going to make it happen in a country that is not ours, but we're going to make it happen. So we know that it is true what they say about the American Dream. So we come to this country with the idea that we are going to start a business and we start a business and it's like with our nails, right, we're like, we're going to do it no matter what.

And everything that happens, it doesn't matter what it is, we're going to make it happen. So in that whole sense of pride, in that sense of like, we're going to make it happen. It is the difficulty of like, yes, we're working, but we are also into this roller coaster. We're always not always up, but most of the time down because we're working so hard to keep it going that we don't understand how we can keep it steady. So that is when the education comes to the Latino community, there's not enough, like I said, to educate. But the main idea is to get the community out of that circle of like the rat circle, right? Going around and around, not understanding how to stay in a steady slope and then continue growing exponentially. So it is a lot of education on the financials. It is understanding what are really the differences between a net income and their profits and their income and what is in the banks and what is really what they took out and what is really that they're investing and what is that thing that we have in loans?

And how does that impact our businesses and how buying assets impact our businesses in our lives and our personal and our families? So it's all about understanding what each of those decisions that we make involve in all of our businesses. So yeah, there's a lot of education that goes behind it.

Nathan
Thank you. So I guess similar to that. But the next kind of step is can you tell us about your vision of bringing joy through financial prosperity and of course, from the education, how does a well structured financial plan lead to happiness for your clients?

Vanessa Vasquez
Well, one of the main things that I go by that is my vision is to create living legacies. Create living legacies mean something very profound and it goes very close to my heart because we normally think that we are here to impact certain people in our lives, right? Our kids, you have kids, right? We impact our kids, we have a good healthy relationship with our significant other, we have all this thing and we're impacting those people that are next to us. But really creating a living legacy is that you are doing it while you're alive. You are not doing it only when you die. People, you know, Nathan was amazing and he was a great guy and I knew him and he created this opportunity for people to train and all this no, you're doing it live. You're not only impacting your girls, but you're impacting every single community and society that surrounds you.

So this is like I don't know if anybody have seen a Cocoon the movie but it is kind of like that, right? Each of people, each businesses, each accountant, each CPA that it's going to be able to watch this interview is impacting those businesses that they provide service to but those businesses are also impacting their community, right? If I have landscaper as a business, as a service that I provide my accounting and my tax professional services, if I have a landscaper and I have a contractor and I have beauty salon, a stylist, and all of these people have customers as well. And they're impacting not only their families that are surrounding them in providing financial stability, in creating a growth in their lives. Either that they can go a first generation, they can go to the university, or that they can graduate, they can impact their whole community wherever they are, whatever their nationality is here in the United States.

Because we're not only talking about the Latino community, if we ever talk about creating living legacies, we can talk about all the Europeans that are coming, we can talk about all the Asians that are coming. So if we create that impact while we are living right, we can definitely impact even more people when we have that deep in our minds. So creating the financial happiness that joy when we give as a human beings, we give the best that we can. Normally most of the people give the best, right? So what we're trying to do is that they understand that every time that they impact one person, they're impacting not only that person, but a bunch of other people. They're impacting their kids, they're impacting their friends, they're impacting if they don't have kids, their cousins or their niece and nephews, right? So in all the different actions and decisions that we make in our lives, in our businesses, in our professional living right, we are contributing for good or for bad to different people.

So that's how you bring joy. Joy means to be able to see a smile in somebody else's face. Joy means to be able to find a solution in the lives of somebody else. Because we can fulfill ourselves in so many different ways with material things or with emotional things or spiritual things, whatever you really want to do. But the joy really comes when you give at the end, we're all human beings. That when we see the smile, when you see the smile of your daughters, when you see the smile of me as a friend and as a colleague, right. You know that you are impacting me and you're impacting so many different people in another level that you cannot fulfill that joy by yourself. So that is what my vision brings. I am very excited that I discovered that now we're going to be two years from what that was.

And I had all this idea that it was joy. I wanted to bring joy. I wanted to bring joy by how and it's by creating living legacies. So I'm very excited about that.

Nathan
That is amazing. Thank you. That's awesome. So, speaking of financial management, financial plans, can you talk about some of the ways you assist accountants in streamlining their small business processes? Like apps, AI, things like that?

Vanessa Vasquez
Yeah. One of the things that I do, Nathan, is that everything I apply to myself first, right? I go over applications, solutions, things that I know that it will improve my efficiency and my effectiveness. One of the things that I always do is that I look at how I can short the time that I'm doing something right, how I can shorten that, how I can make it easier, how I can make it faster just because some people say, well, Vanessa, what people think that way is because they're lazy. Well, if you can want me to consider lazy, then I'm good with that. I just wanted to make it easier. And then after I implemented it myself, all the apps that I do and all the apps that I use, I go ahead and I train on it. I train people on it. I present the idea of it even if they don't use it, because at the end, everybody is different.

Even accountants have different processes, even if they do accounting, right? Everybody that has a different platform, CPA Academy has a specific platform, but there is another platforms out there that may not work the same way as CPA Academy. So everybody has a landscaper, may have a single process. But when I talk about streamlining, it means to make it easier. It cannot be that you implement a process and then you have to do everything for that process to be able to work. If you implement a process and you have to make it work and it make it worse for you and more tedious and more task, then you're not really doing what this app or this solution has to do, right? So one of the main things that I do for accountants is that I go over what they do with their staff and I make sure that everybody has a sense of ownership, of what they have to do.

Having a sense of ownership means that person is going to say, no matter what, I am going to do my best to do that thing, that task that I'm doing it. But I also have this tool that is going to help me do it in a better way, in a more efficient way. And when I do that, I always apply the 1 Minute Manager. Right? One of the books is a book that is called the 1 Minute Manager. It is an amazing book. Whoever hasn't read it, I recommend it right now. The name of the author, I don't have it in my mind right now, but it's a great book because it talks about that. It talks about that sense of ownership and that sense of gratification that when you do something in an easier way with a solution and streamlining your process, then you feel good about it.

And then you also bring results for not only the company or the business or the services or the clients or the people that you're surrounded, but also for you. And you have more time to people sell the story of like, oh, you have more time to be family. But not only for family. Also for you also to enjoy just reading a book, also to enjoy just sitting out there and looking at the lake, right? It's one of those things that once you streamline your process, you're happier in every single way. Even when you take a shower in the morning, right. What is that process that it takes you by the end? How long it takes you? Right? So streamlining all your process is very important for accountants but also for the businesses that you start. So think about that every time that you're doing some streamlining for you as an accountant, as a bookkeeper, as a CPA, as a tax professional, think about how can you streamline also the businesses that you're serving because it really makes it easier for you too.

So that is my way.

Nathan
That's great. That's a great process. Thank you. You've developed training content in Spanish for QuickBooks online. How important is it to have resources available to one's native language when it comes to complex topics like finance and accounting?

Vanessa Vasquez
Well, as people say, there is five languages of love, which I think that is six, because my husband says that food is his language of love and I believe that most men do as well. But the way that we understand our brains, right? And I believe that it's yours too, Nathan, because you're laughing. So one of the main things that we talk about is that people understand and I think that we have talked about it before, where our brains when we are born, the way that our parents talk to us. That's why they say that the first seven years of a kid and actually the first five, but we send it up to seven. That's what the last studies have come out, the first seven years of a kid. Whatever language those kids learn, they will be able to learn faster in those main languages.

So in my case, Spanish being my main language, my first language, I understood that even if I read in English and I understand in English, I learn faster. Not that I don't learn in English, but I learn faster in my main language. So it's the same thing as if I talk to you in the language of food and that is the way that you react to things you're going to learn and you're going to love and you're going to express faster in the language of food. It's the same thing in Spanish. So that's why I decided to build a whole platform of training in Spanish. And that's why I teach in Spanish on CP Academy. And that's when we started, because people need to be able to hear in their own language, even if the platform because we started QuickBooks, teaching QuickBooks completely in Spanish.

But the software is in English, so people will say, but the software is in English. You're training in Spanish? Yes, but I'm training the concept and the know how in Spanish, even though the platform is in English. Now when we come to the United States and we have to learn the language right, it's not that the things are going to have a label in Spanish and it's going to say well, this is the door and it's the La Puerta. It's not like that, but you know that is the door. So you're associating your terms with what you learn in your own native language. So it is the same thing. So that's why I decided to develop it. It is very popular among the Latino, the Spanish speakers first generation and the people that really their first language when they come to this country and their moms talk to them in Spanish and that's their main language.

To be able to understand concepts. Concepts very general. Because maybe then later they started understanding assets and liabilities and all that in English. But the way of doing things you press here, you go there, you open here, you close there. The whole procedure, it is said to you the same way that you learn how to take a shower, put your clothes, go here, prepare your food, put your lunchbox, go to school. So those are steps that your brain associate with what is a process. It's the same thing when you're learning any type of software and any type of understanding. It is faster to reading your native language and understand it than to read in another language and understand the same thing. Sometimes I even buy books in both languages just because it is easier for me to understand it, and it makes sense because I can grasp it faster.

My subconscious will acquire that information faster than when you read in another language. So that's why I created this whole platform. That's why we teach in CPA Academy completely in Spanish, definitely.

Nathan
We love having you on our platform. Thank you. What do you believe are the most pressing challenges for Latin tax preparers in the United States today?

Vanessa Vasquez
Oh, dear. That is a question. So the main thing is having the books done, having the accounting done, having the bookkeeper complete their tasks before the deadlines, having the business owners understand that they have to have a software that they have to have a platform, that they have to have a solution, that they put their numbers in, that there is no such thing as having everything in notepads or notebooks and having things in paper because things can happen. Papers can get wet or the hurricane can pass through Florida and now it seems to California, right. Since the last events that we saw. I think that is the main hurdle. That's the main problem that we have. The main challenge, I will say it, is to have the books done. And what happened is that tax professionals in the community, in the Latino community, in the Hispanic community, need to learn more about how to educate those businesses, to bring them on board on preparing their books before tax season, leaving the business to the last minute.

It is one of the things that we have as human beings, most of the human beings. It says that imagine nine out of ten. That was the last statistics that I saw on dear heavens. This podcast that I follow on psychology and homeschooling and all this stuff, it says nine out of ten human beings. Nowadays, I'm not saying when were born or 2030 years before were born. I'm saying now this society, because of all the disruption that we have, nine out of ten people in the United States and all over the world are procrastinators. Nine out of ten people. So if you think about procrastination when it comes to tax debt, mind IRS is not going to tell you, oh, by the way, because you're one of those nine, we're going to leave it for after October 15, because that's the essential. We have such a wonderful system in the United States, Nathan, that we have ascensions up to September and October.

You go to Latin America and there's no such thing as sanction. You have what it is. You better pay the money to the government. This is like England, right? Latin America runs like England. You pay the duties to the monarchy, or you are out. So that's the same thing that happens in Latin America now. We come to this country and then we lay back. We're like, oh, we have until October 15, and then the procrastination and all the things that comes to our mind now we have until October 15. But you know what? Even if we're part of those nine people out of the ten, the IRS is not going to wait for you until October 16. So that is the education it comes. That is when the tax professional either needs to start doing or providing those services of accounting and bookkeeping and being on time with those businesses or get together and make a liaison or like a friendship or a partnership with an accountant or a bookkeeper to help that tax services they're providing to be on time.

Because what happens is that then people end up not only bringing the last minute papers and they end up doing 60 taxes on April 15 or March 15 right for all of these businesses. And most of them have errors and then they have to resubmit it and then they have to go over it. And that is the main challenge of getting them to understand why it is better to have it in advance because you can do something about it. Once you do tax planning you can save on paying more than what you should be paying. So it's an education of this is your advantages, this is all their advantages and this is the only bad part about it. You're going to continue being a procrastinator or you're going to save all this money and you can make projections and you can buy assets at the end of the year.

Before if you plan in October, November, you can reduce and you can do that tax planning. Plus that's another service, Nathan. Because if you're providing tax services, but you also providing tax planning, then you can charge for that. So those are all its challenges but those are all the advantages. So we always have to look at the side of what is the solution and being positive about it at the end you are providing not only a service but you are the one that moved the economy. Tax professionals at the end and CPAs and accountants are the ones that are making the government function because they're the ones that do the taxes to pay the taxes to the government, for the government to continue working, for our society to continue working and prospering and all this stuff. So it's a cycle but if we don't do our side, our job to provide that sense of financial education and sense of being not anymore procrastinator to the next moment, we can be procrastinator other things, right?

If we're going to plan a vacation, we shouldn't be. But people are, they take this last medications. But what I'm saying is when it comes to taxes you want to save and you want to be proactive. So that is the most important thing is that you have to find a solution for what the problem is and move to the next level providing better services. So that is what I would say about. That.

Nathan
Thank you so much. Well, looking ahead, what's next for you? Are there any upcoming projects or endeavors you're particularly excited about?

Vanessa Vasquez
Well, yeah, we just launched a membership for all of the entrepreneurs, for all of the accountants, for all the bookkeepers, for all the professionals that want to learn more about financial law when it comes to literacy, right, understanding what are their financials tax planning, understanding applications, solutions. And those memberships I provided, there's two memberships. One that is more of basic understanding. I have one that is free, but I always will provide free knowledge. And what they say that is like the eminence, right? Understanding that it comes from a good source. But there's two memberships and one of the main things about those memberships is to provide everything. Every time that I learn, not only from my colleagues, but also the conferences that I go, every time that I learn, I want to be able to pour back to the community. That is what creating, leaving, legacies is all about, right?

So I have everything that I get something, and if I don't get some client to either buy on that service, then I keep it. But I want to give it through memberships. I want to be able to be the one that you have a membership with me. Let's just give you everything. Let me pour everything that I have on you. And that includes courses and CPA academy classes and that we're going to be doing. That may not be free, but the ones there are trainings, there are paying. So all that is included in those memberships. So the whole idea is to bring a whole package, a holistic package that it makes sense to people by having everything. It will have consultancy, we'll have training, one one training, so it has all that. So I'm very excited about that. And I am going to be in so many different due to the fact that now they have given me this prestige honor of having the top pro advisor.

There's so many different conferences that have contacted me. So this next year is going to be super hectic because I'm going to be in different conferences presenting and being able to bring solutions and all the knowledge and applications that I have for all of you. So, yeah, I'm very excited about that.

Nathan
We are excited as well, excited to see you and everything that you're going to be doing in the next year and onward. Vanessa, thank you so much for spending time with us today and sharing all this fantastic donations, giving us better understanding of the Latino business and the county community. Thanks again, fantastic talking to you today.