Who We Are

There are thousands of bookkeeping and accounting firms around the world, offering very similar services. It is not hard to find a firm to hire for your business, but on the front-end, it can feel intimidating and hard to determine which one is going to be a good fit for you. You can read about both of our co-founders below, along with the real reason we think you will enjoy working with us under their short bios.

Stephen

One of our co-founders, Stephen, has been starting businesses since he was a small child. His first business involved pet-sitting in his neighborhood. Throughout his life, he has started numerous businesses, invented a product, and produced a podcast on entrepreneurship that reached the #5 spot on Apple iTunes for career podcasts. You could say that he breathes innovation and business. He obtained his college degree in Accounting from the University of South Florida and went to work for one of the big four firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). While working at PwC, he worked on getting licensed as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). From the time he started his career at PwC, he has done external and internal audit for international publicly traded companies and managed over 100 small businesses, including bookkeeping, payroll, sales tax, and income tax. Additionally, he pioneered a full robotics and automation program within the audit team of a publicly traded Fortune 500 company, building/coding over 40 robots that cut down on process times by thousands of hours. He has seen the best and worst of large and small companies, and performed everything from initial business filings to implementing new systems that allowed businesses to reach the next level.

Maria Antonia

Co-Founder Maria Antonia has always had a unique perspective, having come to the United States from Colombia at a young age. She always dreamt of creating a life for herself in which she could be of service to other people. She has a background in handling administrative tasks for small businesses, including medical offices, home insurance companies, a public adjusters (PA) firm, and a valet company. The growth of her knowledge towards managing businesses began with her position in the Pediatrics office of a solo practitioner. She tackled tasks all the way from checking patients into the system to preparing vaccines, labs, vitals, etc. She was also responsible for handling certain billing for the business, as well as communicating with insurance companies and hospitals. She moved on from the medical field and went on to manage two businesses from the inside out. This is where she became very knowledgeable in all things bookkeeping, payroll, business marketing, client communications, and overall business administration. She began handling the financials, organizing all income and expenses, along with processing payroll for both firms. In addition to the administrative tasks, she worked closely with the employees to ensure their well-being and to provide them with the tools they required to better perform their jobs. She has specialized in facilitating efficient workflow within companies to ensure their success and growth. With her ability to take on whatever is thrown her way and make sense of it, she has been and continues to be an essential and highly valued piece of the puzzle.

Our Philosophy

The various experiences we both had when we got married and started our family just happened to align perfectly when it came to accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, and business management. What started as doing bookkeeping for a $2M telecommunications business as a favor for a friend has turned into a passion to help other businesses in the same way. It isn’t that we hadn’t both managed this type of work previously, but helping a business that was three years behind on taxes because of poor experiences with other bookkeepers ignited a spark in both of us to help other businesses as well. We found that being able to offer our services, which give our clients access to a CPA at a reasonable rate, is something that most bookkeeping firms cannot offer. Need help researching tax issues? We can help with that. Need a CPA to help you structure a legal contract? We can help with that too. We can help with anything, from simple to more complex issues you need to work through. Really the only thing we do not perform ourselves anymore is income tax returns. Are you a law firm who needs help with three-point reconciliations and trust fund compliance? We actually created a strategy for ensuring you stay compliant. We have worked with clients in real estate, construction, hospitality (restaurants), agriculture (farms), telecommunications, law firms, valet, insurance, pawn shops, architecture, transportation communication logistics, and more. We like to think of ourselves as bookkeeping with an edge at a bookkeeping price.

But all of that sounds pretty boring, right? Many of the firms you might come across will have similar people with backgrounds that will read much like the above. And to be fully honest and transparent, it sounds cold and tells you nothing about the people you will be working with. Do we have the necessary credentials to help your business succeed? Absolutely. Do we have the experience that you are looking for? Yes. But these are not the things that are going to bring you joy as you move through this process. One of the things we pride ourselves on here is that in spite of the more than a decade of experience we have, we have never reached a point where we wanted to blend into the typical cold business approach. We want you to feel comfortable with us. The two co-founders are involved with every client we are fortunate enough to work with and that will never change. When you contact Just Counting Beans, these are the people you will talk with. At the root of every business, what makes it either fail or succeed comes down to the level of care and dedication from everyone involved, including the people you decide to hire for bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, etc. We called our business Just Counting Beans because we wanted to bring back the humanity to a profession that for too long has thrived on a cold reputation. By now, you may have realized many bookkeeping firms out there basically find work and outsource to the cheapest help they can find around the world. That is not us. We can help you with your needs, but more importantly, we will treat your business like our own. Sit back and enjoy your coffee while we count your beans.

– Stephen and Maria Antonia