Growth & Grace

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU n b Studio's original program. The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group and Chris glow and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jaz and Moore the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education

Music 0:18
even better than I was the last time, baby. We back and

Music 0:35
we back and we back and we back and we back and we back. And I was the last to eat. That

Leaha Crawford 0:42
was the last time. Hey, Julian, how you doing? Happy Saturday.

Julian Rosado 0:48
Oh yes, it's hot outside. Oh yes, it's really hot. It's really, really hot.

Leaha Crawford 0:56
It's really, really hot. AC works, correct? Yeah, okay, yeah. You know, people always ask me when they find out that that, especially when they visit in the summertime, like, how do you live in all of that heat? And I'm like, well, it's not like I'm standing outside, yeah, you know, I'm walking to the car, getting in the car, and going in another air conditioned place, then back to the car, then back home, you know, yeah. So I'm not standing outside, and if I go out, it's in the evening, yeah, and the mornings are beautiful.

Julian Rosado 1:24
I was watching it was like a high school, like, kids practicing for like, you know, like, intramurals or something like that. I was like, this should be, like, you know, legal, because it is, like, was 115 degrees. They're running around, like, no water, no

Leaha Crawford 1:41
breaks, build stamp.

Julian Rosado 1:45
Yes. All right,

Leaha Crawford 1:47
so today we're gonna talk about me, huh? Yes, yes. So you're going to interview us today, yeah, so I can talk about my business. We always have other entrepreneurs on here, and I never really talk about what I

Julian Rosado 1:56
do. Yes. All right, so how did you begin? How did I

Leaha Crawford 2:00
begin here in Las Vegas, or just Period? Period? Well, I was born, that's what people in 1970 in Philadelphia, right? I am a Howard University graduate accounting degree, and I worked for a small company in DC, and no Shouts out to Jimmy Cobb, because he loved me through being this wild, teenage, young adult company. It was, it was new metropolitan management and consulting services. So what we did at the time was we automated businesses and with accounting systems. It was in the mid 90s. So at that time, a lot of companies weren't automated. So what we know today, but all the software's and stuff. That wasn't the case then, and I remember him handing me stuff. So even though, when I met him, he said, Well, you want to know what I want you to automate my business. And I was like, I don't know what that means. I understand accounting, but I'd have no idea what that means. So he gave me three options for software packages. I picked one, and I automated the business. Can I tell you the most complicated thing I had to do was it was payroll, because there are so many different things with payroll, with the taxes, paying the taxes, quarterly reports and different things like that, being

Julian Rosado 3:11
explained to me, what? What are the steps to facilitate payroll?

Leaha Crawford 3:16
So pay? Oh, God. So the steps to facilitate payroll if you're going to do it. And I learned this in the process, because we did payroll in house. We didn't use the outside company at the time. And first thing is, well, back then, you really didn't have to have a w4 and I nine, it was, I mean, well, you had to have a w4 but not really, I nine, and you had to know the number of exemptions, the the status, and, well, you had to complete the form a certain way, and then you had to enter those numbers into the system with the social security number. And then you had to process paychecks. So you would take the hours, multiply the hours, times the hourly rate or the salary rate, to come up with what the gross payroll was. And then, and we had, well, we were in DC, so you don't have to pay your federal taxes and your DC taxes, that's deducted from the paycheck, and the FICA tax is matched by the employer, and then we had to pay unemployment and things like that. So I had to when the system calculated the paychecks, because he was doing it manually and actually sending in the forms, and his numbers didn't match my numbers, so I had to figure out how to go in and correct it. So did you find out why? Yeah, well, it was a calculation. So he calculated it based off of what he thought it should be, and they calculated it based off what they put in their system. So I had to go in and figure out how to adjust it, like the FICA was right, because that's based off of, that's based off of a percentage. But the federal income tax he had it, he paid, I think, a little bit more. So I had to adjust that in order to get the paycheck to work. So I did

Julian Rosado 4:47
that, and it was saving him some

Leaha Crawford 4:51
Well, not really, because he had already paid. I was automating the prior year, and he had already paid all the taxes, so I just had to make it reconcile to what he. Already paid. So I learned a lot about reconciliations, a lot about entering information into a system, classifying transactions, how important a chart of accounts was for an accounting system, how to run the payroll, I mean the financial statements, and just how everything worked. And this is back in the 90s. After doing that, I also then I was an auditor for a little bit of time. I was an auditor for about a year. I believe auditing was interesting to me, because you're taking the financial statements and you're looking backwards to see if the numbers on the financial statements that they have the documents to back those numbers up, and then you're monitoring processes and things like that. And this is pre Enron. So this is pretty the big Enron scandal when auditing changed. So this was in the 90s,

Julian Rosado 5:46
people so clients didn't like to see you, well, not as

Leaha Crawford 5:51
an auditor. But I also, all this time, I always did taxes, always, I've always done taxes, and I like tax because tax was like putting a puzzle together, right? Yeah, so, and I was, I'm a puzzler, so grandma, grandma used to have a table for me in her house where she would buy me puzzles, and I would just do puzzles, really, uh huh, I loved, I love puzzles. And a tax return to me is like putting together a puzzle, because everybody's situation was different, and in school, it was so funny, because I remember in my tax class my senior year, I was I had just started working at New metropolitan and Jimmy had the tax software, so when my professor gave us the project to complete a tax return, me and my cohorts, we went to Jimmy's office and we entered the information in the system, and we gave him our printed up tax return, and he's like, Well, where, how'd y'all? We were like, We we've got, we did it, you know, it's typed up, right? But we entered it in the system. But it was a good lesson for me, because before with tax returns, you know, everybody was doing it manually. So, I mean, you had to know your forms. You had to know the documents, even though, because I've been doing them for so long, I know the forms, I know the documents, even though they've changed a little bit, but the core of a tax return is still the same. Yeah. So started there, since tax was my love, I ended up getting, you know, a eff number being an ero, an electronic number. Even number is an electronic filing identification number. So if you want to send returns into the IRS, you have to have this Ethan number, okay, uh huh. So I was an electronic return originator. That's an E, R, O, okay. And I have been one since the 90s. Oh, wow, right. And I also he, he encouraged me to go to a large tax firm, a nationwide tax chain, to get trained. So I got trained, learned more about taxes, and I just became proficient. It just was second nature to me. It just made sense that doing tax returns, even when I didn't, when I couldn't find a job, didn't couldn't find a job. I always did taxes. I always had a small tax base that I could work with. Fast forward, I move, I leave DC, I moved to Houston, and I work for a drug treatment program as a controller. And interesting experience, right? But now I'm using my accounting knowledge, just transferring the skills because I had I was controlling. Well, controller just means I was over the accounting department, and I reported to the CFO. Okay, he was the CFO. I was a controller, and I had about four staff members that worked with me. And we had an accounts payable, accounts payable payroll, and two, well, three people and two accounts receivable people. And I came in because he was like, Leah, it's a mess. And he basically taught me clean up. So we would go into companies when we were automating them, and clean them up. So take it clean it up. Give them clean financial statements and move on. I was doing this in the 90s. Mind you. So fast forward, I leave DC, I go to Chicago for a year, I just do taxes, and then I end up moving to Vegas. Lived here for three years, found a job in accounting.

Julian Rosado 8:53
What made you choose from Chicago to Vegas? Grandma,

Leaha Crawford 9:01
so she was moving here, and my mother said, you know, she she didn't want her out here. She's like, I need, I need you to move so me and my daughter moved out here with Okay, so you guys were here, and then we moved out here yearly. I think we moved here in 2003 we moved out here in 2004 Yeah, so we're here 2004

Julian Rosado 9:17
actually, I moved back, I left, and then I came back here. 2014

Leaha Crawford 9:23
Okay, so, yeah, so we moved out here, and 2004 we're out here. I have a job in non profit, non profit, 2004 for 2005 it was interesting. I just, I'll just leave that there. It was interesting. 2007 I started my company. Wow, scared to death. Didn't know. I'm like, Okay, I'm sitting in a bookstore, Native Son bookstore on D Street, and Mr. Sam Smith is we're talking because Sam was amazing. Sam, you could walk in the store. Tell him your name, he'll tell you all about your family history. I don't know how he did it, but no matter who you were, where you're from, he could tell you all about your family. And I was like, what? You got a crystal ball in the back or something? Right? And he one day, someone came in and they were talking about starting a business. And I was like, Okay, well, if you can start the business, you need to do this. Need to do that. Because I learned this back in the 90s, yeah? Because starting a business anywhere is basically the same process nationwide, no matter where you are, maybe different licensing requirements depending on what type of structure you want to set up. Or state, yeah, well, state or, I mean, well, structure and state, but most states have a secretary of state where you have to file documents if you want to be in business. Then most counties or cities have business licensing different things. It's just you do the same thing. It's just where you go in each state to do what to get, what you need to get. Yeah, and I understood that. So moving here, though, was a little bit different, because I had to learn a difference between Henderson, unincorporated Clark County, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and then all the other areas, right? So at first I was like, hmm, this is okay. It was little bit challenging. But over the years, now, like second nature, I can tell you where your business is. This is what you need to do, if you know, depending on where you are in the valley. But with that, I always had the tax, I had the tax and I had the accounting knowledge. And people say, Well, you're a bookkeeper. I'm not a bookkeeper. I'm an accountant. I went to school, and I do a little bit more than I know, because I do a little bit more than a bookkeeper. You're not just giving me your stuff, and I'm entering it in where look. I'm entering it in, I'm analyzing and make sure your chart of accounts are set up properly. I am reconciling your bank statements. I know how to classify. I know what the difference in the equity accounts depending on your structure, what the equity accounts need to say. If you're LLC, it's one way. If you're a S corp, it's another way. If you're a C Corp, it's another way. If you are a sole proprietor, it's another way. And I understand what the what the balance sheet, the profit and loss statement, and also your Statement of Cash Flows. I understand the difference between all those statements, and can tell you work with you on how to analyze them to effectively run your business. And I also understand payroll, because, remember, I did it manually, so Right? So I had to figure it out the hard way, and with that information in the business, just years and years of practice, and then we always did taxes. So understanding, you know, it's like granimals, you know, you got to know which animal goes with which so if you have a sole proprietor, what types of tax reforms do you need to file? If you have a S corp, what forms you need to file? If you have a LLC, what forms you need to file, you know? And depending on if you're a single member or multi member LLC, did you go ahead and do an S corp status? Did you do a C Corp status? All these, all of these questions are second nature to me, because I been doing it for so long. Yeah, right. So started the business. Had to get to know people in Vegas, because I'm not from Vegas. I don't have contacts. I from the East Coast, right? And I was blessed in that our guests that we had on last week, but we didn't put Jerry Merritt on the show. Jerry Merritt and Mike Wallace. Jerry had went to Mike because they needed an accountant for one of the nonprofits she was working with. Okay? And Mike was like, I'm too busy, but I just met someone that possibly can do it, because that's what she does. And I met Jerry Mary, that was 17 years ago, my gosh, and through the through the years, I automated the nonprofit. And she was like, you did that? I'm like, Yeah, this is because this is what I do, right? And from there, someone has saw the work that was sitting on the board and introduced me to another nonprofit. They were like, look, they need help over here. So I went over there, and I was like, Okay, this, this is how you do it, because I did also with small businesses, I also did not nonprofits, so I would understand the grant funding. Basically you if when you write a grant, you tell them what you're what you need the money for, what you're going to use the money for. So when you do your programming, it needs to fall in line with what you said you were going to use the money for. And was very good at connecting the dots and cleaned up that nonprofit. Worked with Jerry there and, well, not with Jerry, sorry, one of the other board members. And from there, I just started getting clients referred to me. Well, you know what? Trier no and see. And I ended up getting an office space with an office with an attorney, and that was an easy mix, because in DC, it was an accountant, an attorney. So my mentor, my boss, his dad, was a second generation attorney, so I understood the attorney, accountant mix. After about a year or two, ended up getting my own office downtown, and we've been downtown ever since, and we just expanded services.

Julian Rosado 14:24
Yeah, do you find any clients that come to you that realize, like, well, I'm in an S corp, and then you do the numbers is like, Well, you shouldn't be in an S corp. You should be an LLC, or you should be in a C Corp.

Leaha Crawford 14:39
Not really, not really, not really, because most, most of the time, when you what we do find is not from an S corp. What we find is, if they're in, if they're a single member LLC, and they haven't done any election, we see some of that because there's a certain dollar amount that we, I believe you should hit before you decide to go to an S. Work, because one of the things I learned early on is, when most people start a business, they don't last for three years. Yeah, that's the right. So why pay all of the fees? Because you have to have a business license anyway. So if you are not sure if you're going to do this, do a sole proprietor. Save yourself some money right before you get because a sole proprietor is if I pay you for something, you are in business, right, yeah. So instead of you doing this complicated structure or this structure, see if you're going to do the business. And the state of Nevada is very friendly with that, because to set up like Delaware, yeah, but I don't, I don't get into comparing. I stayed in Nevada, that that's what I know the state of Nevada with a sole proprietor for the first year, I believe there's no charge. The second year is a minimal charge, but because you have to have a state business license in order to get your city or county business license, and you have to be registered with the Nevada Department of Taxation.

Julian Rosado 15:59
Wait, I didn't know there's different charges per county? Yes, wow. I didn't know, depending

Leaha Crawford 16:03
on where you depend on where you live, wow. So that's why you have to know what jurisdiction your business is in here, right? And we and we talk about that, you know? And there is a multi jurisdictional license, because there are some people that do business in all of the jurisdictions, so you want to make sure that you have the proper business licensing for your business. Okay? So I learned that and the state of Nevada also has a doc prep license. So my company, we also have doc prep licenses. So document preparation says that if we prepare certain forms that you have to have this license with the state, and you also have to have a bond. So I'm a CPA and an enrolled agent, but my staff, they're not so we do tax returns. And also, in state of Nevada, you don't have to be an attorney to be a Commercial Registered Agent, whereas in most states, you do have to be an attorney. So we don't give legal advice, but I understand structures from the accounting side, and I have an attorney sometimes that we work with that we have to do some legal documents. Okay, yeah, but we work with our clients to understand what business, what structure works best for you. Like I said, if you're just starting, we always say, just do a sole proprietor, see if you're going to do the business and if you are going to do the business, then let's talk about going into a different type of structure, and then which structure works best for you? Yeah. So it's a it's a good conversation. And I always stress that I always talk about bail. So bail is, if you're a business owner, that is, you need to have your bail, bail, bail, bail, bail, bail, and b, a, i, L, bail. And a friend of mine took it bail. A friend of mine took it because she calls it bails and not bail. But bail says, If you are a business owner, you need to have a banker, a banker that you have a good relationship with. And you need a banker, because, you know, banks have products, and you might need certain products to start your business, or even while you're running your business, say you want to purchase equipment, you want to purchase a building or starting off you you need startup capital. Got no have a good banker. You have to have an accountant. And what the person I learned this from, they said, you want to have a CPA. You want to have a CPA? And I was like, Well, no, no, you want to have a CPA. I was like, Okay, I'll get a CPA license. So you want to have a CPA, you want to have insurance. You know, that's the i You want to have insurance. And then you always want to have legal counsel, right? And then the s that she added on was support. You have to be in a supportive environment, environment as a business owner, so that you can flourish and grow. So, yeah, that's

Julian Rosado 18:21
bails. That sounds My gosh. Can you go over elegant Ella's lawyer? My gosh,

Leaha Crawford 18:27
Ella's lawyer, because you need legal counsel. You and legal counsel could be, I have a contract that I need you to read, because I want to make sure that they didn't bury something in the back of the contract that it's going to, you know, bite me later on. So, you know. But we always say, and people talk, well, I don't need bales. When I start, well, you start building relationships. Yeah, you start building

Julian Rosado 18:47
relationships. Misconstrued part is that you really do need a lawyer. Well, you

Leaha Crawford 18:51
need real relationships. You need real relationships. And when you need not, not I just met, and I'm asking you for a lot of stuff, but who is in your network, because your network is your network a lot of times. Because, you know, I remember early on, even with Jimmy, he's like, you know, look, you need to look at the five people closest to you. What are they? Who are they? What are they doing? What do they aspire to be? I'm 24 years old. I'm like, I don't know why. No, we want to go to the club. He's like, no, what are their long term goals? You know, what do they want to do with their lives? I mean, because what they want to do will determine what they're doing today. Because every day, you're doing something to get you to where you want to be, and you're walking as if, and I remember even like was his dad. His dad, Papa cop. I love Papa Cobb. He was a professor at Howard University Law, and he just had the best sayings and just the most amazing advice, just every day on how you live your best life every

Julian Rosado 19:53
day. Is that where growth and Grace came from?

Leaha Crawford 19:55
Well, growth and Grace came from a multitude of things that and. Me just sitting down with Tiffany. That was the that host that started it with me, okay, and Tiff, and I just coming up, just talking like, what would be something that would hit that makes that would that makes sense and growth and grace. Because when you're growing, you know, growing, sometimes it's painful, sometimes it's lonely. I mean, just all of these things, and your mind, right? Because your mind goes all over the place. And just always remember that you want to grow, but then you always want to give yourself grace. Always want to give yourself grace. So we went back and forth with a few names, and we just landed on growth and grace. It just, it was easy, it sounded good, it felt good, and I thought that it was worth it. But, you know, our contact information at the office is 702-382-5737 if you're looking for an accountant, 702-382-5737 because the services that we provide, we of course, do the accounting services. We call them CFO services. We do tax preparation. We also do IRS tax resolution. So what that means is, if you come in you have an IRS issue, we can help you. We can help you figure it out, solve it and figure out what we need to do. We've helped a number of clients through a number of different scenarios just to understand, number one, if they did owe. Number two, if they are in financial situation and they can't pay, or if they're in a good situation and just don't want to pay so we have all of those conversations with our

Julian Rosado 21:24
clients. What's a real complex situation that you had recently? Complex

Leaha Crawford 21:28
situation? So there was a gentleman he had, I want to say, four LLCs, an S corp, a nonprofit, which was separate and in a strain, and just a whole bunch of other stuff going on. W2 because he had a job that it wasn't that it was busy. He was, yes, productive, productive, we'll say productive, and not that it was complicated. It was just, we're all of the pieces. And then he had everything set up in different states. Oh, my God, on top of that. So it was number one, pooling all the documents together, making sure that we had all the documents aligned with the proper company and and actually, he wasn't my most complicated. He was he was one of the most complicated, but just making sure that we had everything in order so that we could file His return, because there were other returns that needed to be done, so that we could do his return. And it took days of going back and forth, pulling documentation, asking for the, you know, just asking for this, like, years behind No, oh, he's no, he's current. He does it every year. Does it every year. He does it every year. But he was in transition because he wanted a younger tax person that he could talk to that was available to answer his question, not daily, but, you know, just reason, you know, when he had a question, okay, he could get an answer back. That was, you know, that would aggressively, you know, look to see, okay, this way you can do this. You can't do this. And helping him to organize so that he understands what he needs to do to grow his businesses. Okay, you know, but the most complicated in house we had was a non profit that they had an accountant that didn't understand grants, or they didn't understand this grant, this federal grant, and we had to go behind them and then clean it up and have conversations with a whole bunch of

Julian Rosado 23:15
stakeholders. How are non profits normally structured? They're

Leaha Crawford 23:19
they're okay, so non profits are, set up as corporations, okay, so it's a nonprofit Well, in Nevada, it's a nonprofit Corp, okay, okay, and normally, because that's the it's less expensive if you do it that way. And with the nonprofit corporation, you just said you pay annually. You set it up like you do normal other businesses. You have to have bylaws and things like that. And you want to have bylaws that are good bylaws, and you know that you understand what's in the bylaws. And you want to understand what happens if you dissolve the nonprobable there are certain things that you need to have, any conflict of interest dissolution. You want to make sure all of this stuff, how many board members you have to have, what makes a quorum, all of this stuff, you want to make sure that are in your bylaws. And you want to make sure that you're following your bylaws. Your bylaws, that you had a documentation show that you're following your bylaws. So when I because, whenever I join nonprofit boards, that's the first thing I ask for, is the bylaws, because I want to make sure that, if there's any you know, that we're in alignment with what we our grants, are in alignment with what we said that that we were going to do, okay, you know? But with nonprofits, the nonprofit status you have to apply for. So it's not just you set it up with the state. You have to file with the IRS to get the nonprofit status.

Julian Rosado 24:28
So you can be, you can be

Leaha Crawford 24:29
denied. You can be, you can be, you can be, yes, you can be, but once you're approved with the IRS, then you have to take that and then you have to file with the state in order to get your tax exemption with the state, your sales tax exemption. So it's not just you. You file this one form and you're done. That's what I thought. No, no, it's to be a nonprofit. It's steps to become a nonprofit. And then there are steps to maintain a nonprofit like you have say, some people have set them up and they haven't done anything, um, because my son had, well, I set one up for my son with what we were going to do with my son years ago. So he hasn't done he decided he didn't want to do it. Well, I kept it. So what I do is I pay the Secretary of State every year, and I also pay, also file his 990 every year. Okay, so I make sure that his, his, he's in compliance all the way around. But those are the things that we also work with. Is compliance, making sure that our clients are in compliance. Because when you come in our office as a business owner, we ask you for your documentation, because we want to see your articles of incorporation or your Articles of Organization. Do you have your organization? I mean your other organizational document? What did you What do your financial statements look like if you've already been in business to make sure that your contributions, your initial contributions, are listed on your financial statements, your splits are there, if you're a sole member or so proprietor, just making sure that you have all of your documents in place. That's how we you know, and we call it our red folder. But in essence, that's what I do. Do you have any churches used to not anymore? Why used to not anymore? No no reason. No reason. No. Just grew the business, and I think that we got a little bit too expensive for the church. Oh, really? Yeah, we were doing small churches when I first started. I did. I did. And people think are set up the same way so churches, churches don't have to pay taxes. They don't really

Julian Rosado 26:17
okay as a church, but they're set up the same way as a not

Leaha Crawford 26:22
necessarily, necessarily, it depends. It's a little bit different. A little bit different. How is that? That's a long conversation, and we only got one minute. That's a long conversation. But churches are, churches are a little bit different, okay? But churches don't pay taxes, okay? They are, they are exempt if they are church, and normally they have to set up with whatever denomination there with they set their documents up with them, okay? And some of them do have nonprofits that they do set up separately, 501 C threes that they set up separately, and then they have to go through the same process the 501 c3 and the church is separate. So yeah, church and state got to be separate, yeah? All right. So that ends our show for the day you learned about me, a little bit about me, man, a little bit a little bit, just a little teeny bit, just a little little teeny bit. But I am a rolled agent, certified public accountant, Masters of Business Administration, and we're currently working on a PhD. So really I am. You left that all out. I left all of that auto certification. So yeah, how long are you PhD? I probably have another year left, almost done. I will be Dr Crawford, yeah, yes. Dr Crawford, in the making. Wow. All right. All right, well, until next week, when we bring on another guest. I just want to talk about me one of our shows. So remember, huh? Future doctor, future doctor, future doctor. All right, y'all, that ends our show for today, we will see you next week with another amazing guest. Remember, growth is a journey, and grace makes it worth the while. Keep pushing forward, keep showing up, and, most importantly, keep giving yourself grace to grow until next time. I'm Leah Crawford, this is Julian Rizzo, and we will see you next week. Bye. You.

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