Business Spotlight: Huckstep & Associates LLC

Business consultants say now is the time to get smarter and leaner, and the accounting firm of Huckstep & Associates LLC is helping businesses do just that.

Certified public accountant Jeannie Huckstep and her team of 14 employees work with nonprofit organizations, government entities and for-profit businesses on projects that help them better manage their time and finances so they can focus on growth.

"We've had about 15 percent organic growth every year," Huckstep says, declining to disclose revenues of her 19-year-old company. "Things are really going well in the nonprofit side. The nonprofits are receiving ... stimulus money, and they need to do more with less; (such advice) is what we sell."

Working with clients across the country and in the Ozarks - United Way of the Ozarks, Ozarks Area Community Action Corporation and AIDS Project of the Ozarks, for instance - the firm has designed and implemented more than 250 software systems in organizations ranging in budget from $400,000 to $40 million, according to www.huckstep.com.

Recently, Huckstep & Associates experienced its own growth by purchasing two accounting practices. In December, Huckstep acquired the Sage MIP Fund Accounting practice of the Clifton Gunderson LLP Peoria, Ill., office, which covers Chicago, downstate Illinois and Indiana. In May, the company acquired the Dallas-based Tut Services.

Huckstep & Associates helps clients with technical support, end-user training, data repair and conversion, procedural documentation, and custom software applications. As a public accounting firm, the accountants also provide pre-audit services, tax return preparation and compliance, payroll services, consulting and other accounting services.

Huckstep earned her master's degree in accounting from Missouri State University and is a licensed CPA in Missouri and Michigan with more than 20 years of experience.

"I came out of grad school in 1986 ... and that was the time that technology was evolving," Huckstep says. "I worked on the audit side of CPA firms for several years and recognized the issues that clients, mostly nonprofits, were facing at the time with technology."

After studying three major accounting products in the 1980s, she determined that Sage, a global business management software company with 5.8 million customers, offered her nonprofit clients the tools they needed to run their organizations efficiently.

"It was something that they could afford and something that would work for them," she says. "Nonprofits have issues that a normal for-profit business does not have. If they are grant-funded, they might have 50 to 60 grants from the state or federal governments, and each of those has a different year-end that wreaks havoc on a for-profit accounting system."

Huckstep & Associates entered the software consulting business in 1990 and is a software technology partner of Sage, which has a global network of 27,000 business partners and 40,000 accountants. Huckstep's firm currently ranks as a Top 5 Premier Reseller of the Sage MIP Fund Accounting software and also supports Sage software products such as Sage Abra HRMS and Sage FAS Fixed Assets.

The Sage MIP Fund Accounting software is used to plan and manage budgets, maximize grants, and produce accurate customized reports. The Sage Fundraising 50 software is used to manage donor profiles, process donations and send out online marketing materials. The Sage Abra software helps to manage employee tasks, including payroll and taxes.

"Jeannie's leadership skills are relevant to all who work with her," says Krista Endsley, senior vice president and general manager for Sage North America's Nonprofit Solutions business, based in Austin, Texas. "She currently serves as president of our business unit's partner advisory council, so her industry influence is really national. Springfield is lucky to have such a strong business leader in their community."

Huckstep says she does a lot of networking to build her business and is on the board of the Missouri Victim's Center and Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Foundation. She regularly speaks on new audit standards for nonprofits, as well as changes to Form 990, which nonprofits must file annually with the Internal Revenue Service.

"We expect things to continue and level on the for-profit side (of the business), but it seems to be brightening," Huckstep says. "I tell my clients, 'Don't let fear drive you.'"