“Someone said that smart people learn from their own mistakes while wise people learn from someone else’s. I guess if you are going with a franchise model, you get an automatic update from ‘smart’ to ‘wise’,” says Max Emma (CEO and Chief Bookkeeping Officer at BooXkeeping Franchise, Inc.). Max is a serial entrepreneur who is leveraging his business acumen to drive the growth of the company as well as its franchise system.
The Journey with Ebbs and Flows
Max always had the zeal to be an entrepreneur since his childhood. Growing up in the former Soviet Union, he used to resell Snickers bars when he was in school. Thereafter, when his family immigrated to the United States, Max had to work to support himself through school. Consequently, after graduation Max accepted a position with a large telecom company and gained a considerable amount of experience in the accounting and finance field. However, following his passion towards entrepreneurship, Max decided to quit his job and start his own business in 2002. Since then, Max has owned multiple businesses ranging from construction and consulting, to maintenance and services.
The Inception of BooXkeeping
At a point after commencing his entrepreneurial journey, Max needed to outsource the bookkeeping function as he was focused on sales and business development. Consequently, he searched for 20 local bookkeepers and called all of them for precisely the same scope of work. However, he was dismayed with the response he received from the bookkeepers. Some of them didn’t even return his calls, while some agreed to meet him but were very unprofessional.
Moreover, the few estimates he received from them ranged from $300 to $1,800 per month for the same scope of work. Thus, noticing this gap and identifying the opportunity to serve customers better, Max and his partner decided to open their own remote bookkeeping practice –BooXkeeping – with an aim to make the whole process of financial data entry, billing, bookkeeping, and reporting, as simple and efficient as possible. Eight years later, they decided to franchise BooXkeeping and share what they had learned over the years with the franchise system.
Bouquet of Bookkeeping Services
BooXkeeping strives to get its clients’ financial records to the point where they know exactly what is going on with their company, at any given moment without investing extra time or effort. The company provides numerous bookkeeping solutions such as daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual data entry, bank and credit card reconciliations, and general ledger management.
Alongside, it also offers services such as vendor bill entry and payment, invoicing and billing, payroll reporting, sales tax reporting, etc. Also, the company provides BooXDesk – a proprietary cloud-based client management software application providing a suite of tools to manage customer data. BooXkeeping is committed to providing a fast turn-around process, competitive pricing, knowledgeable professionals, and the sharpest bookkeeping experience.
Empowering the Franchise Owners
Alongside the aforementioned services, Max emphasizes on simplifying the process of franchise establishment for the franchise owners. BooXkeeping Brand Service Manuel has close to 850 pages and covers everything from opening the bookkeeping practice to successfully running and promoting it. The company provides numerous advantages to the franchise owners such as:
- Turn-Key Business Model: BooXkeeping’s cloud-based system provides the franchise owners with a complete business in a box that is easy to learn, secure, and efficient. It also offers round-the-clock IT support and training resources.
- Marketing Support: Franchisees are provided with local web pages, SEO, content, blogs, social media pages, and more to market their business and get new clients.
- No Experience Necessary: The franchise owners don’t necessarily need any bookkeeping experience as long as they have good people, skills, and can concentrate on business development.
- Staffing Solution for Faster Growth: Franchisees can outsource the bookkeeping process to BooXkeeping’s trained professionals, allowing owners to concentrate on acquiring customers and growing their business.
- Initial and Ongoing Training: The company provides two weeks of training initially. Moreover, as BooXkeeping is an emerging franchise, its early adaptors have a pretty much unlimited access to Max and other BooXkeeping executives, so they get the opportunity to build and grow the brand together.
Streamlining the Operations
During the COVID-19 pandemic majority of businesses are trying to streamline their processes to stay upfloat during the crisis and bookkeeping is usually one of the first functions they are trying to outsource. Thus, Max believes that the pandemic has given remote bookkeepers the ability to grow their practices nimbly.
Unlike the companies in other industry sectors, BooXkeeping has made the adjustments swiftly. It has been offering its employees the option of remote work even before the pandemic, thus the shift to remote working was also relatively easy for the company. In addition to this, the company has moved the franchise training completely virtual. As part of the BooXkeeping Technology Fee, its franchisees are getting a license to use BooXAccess – a bundle of internet cloud-based software applications and office tools –that are essential to run their franchised business.
Expanding the Footprint
Under the leadership of Max, BooXkeeping is ready to continually expand its footprint in the near future. The company is set to release the new version of BooXDesk by the beginning of 2021. Alongside this, the company is providing its franchisees the opportunity to participate in its optional “Enterprise Account Program”.
In this program, it recruits larger businesses spread across multiple geographies that require Authorized Services for distinct offices, business properties, or business divisions and specifically request that their work be handled by a local Network Member proximate to their place of business. “BooXkeeping is working with several more national banks to become their preferred bookkeeping provider and to provide our franchisees an opportunity to get more clients,” asserts Max.
Cornerstones to Success
There are several secrets to Max’s success as an entrepreneur. He seeks motivation by remembering that he’s working on building BooXkeeping for his kids, the company’s employees, franchisees, and clients. Alongside the work ethic, taking out time for recreation and leisure is also important for a leader to stay productive. Max believes that planning is essential to succeed. “Planning tomorrow night before helps tremendously to get things done,” he adds.
Max often finds time for personal growth; alongside he maintains the work-life balance by spending quality time with family and friends, going to the gym or for a hike, personal travel, and finding a good show on Netflix.
