How Gusto Has Helped For Eyes Bookkeeping Unlock Client and Revenue Growth
A few years ago, if you had asked Dr. Wade Weisz, OD, if he’d give up his optometry career of more than 25 years to run a bookkeeping firm, it might have seemed impossible.
But in 2021, he did just that by launching his firm, For Eyes Bookkeeping. It specializes exclusively in serving other optometrists, as he knows their industry inside and out.
- “I took the philosophy that I was going to do something for the rest of my life that was going to be a second career that I enjoyed doing. I had been doing the books for my business since 1992. I love spreadsheets, I love numbers … So I took a bookkeeping course in early 2021 and set up my bookkeeping business in April of 2021. And as they say on TV, the rest is history.”
- “All of my clients have the same two letters behind their name that I do. And I kind of hit a vein for the exact reason that optometrists do not like to do books. They have a creative medical frame of mind where patients come first … But because I know the numbers, I'm able to bring value to those people.”
Wade’s career shift has truly paid off. His firm ended 2023 with huge growth of 8x its revenue since its launch in 2021, thanks to his planning and hard work.
One partner that has been critical to his success is Gusto – he and his team recommend it to all of their clients, and now more than half are on the Gusto platform.
- “My clients love Gusto because it is very intuitive, and one of the most prevalent things that I hear is how easy it is to use. Optometrists love that because they hate numbers, they hate accounting, they hate payroll. If we can make it easier for them, that's an easy sell … It's a win, win, win situation for everybody. And that's why we've matriculated literally to Gusto being our #1 choice for our current clients to change over if they're not already with it, and for our new clients.”
- “Even though I've been approached along the way by other companies with, ‘Hey, come port your clients over from Gusto over to us’ – I've always resisted that because it really truly is a platform that handles all of our needs. The customer support is very, very good, both on our end as the bookkeeping company and for the clients.”
- “In every discovery call that I have, I promote Gusto. When I'm looking at bringing on a new potential client, I want to give them the best image of me possible – and hands down, that absolutely includes Gusto.”
How Gusto Premium Gives Clients A “Full Combo Meal”
Before joining Gusto, many of Wade’s clients had been using professional employer organizations (PEOs) or other HR services to manage their teams – but the costs quickly mounted. Gusto has proven invaluable because it saves clients’ money, while delivering all of the payroll, HR, and benefits features they need to take care of their staff. Wade shares:
- “The main reason I like Premium is that it is a full combo meal of everything clients need, from basic payroll to time tracking, to health insurance benefits, to retirement benefits … It comes with an awesome set of HR features and tools, for what they literally have told me is their biggest concern and biggest headache when it comes to running a business – managing their employees.”
- “What I’ve heard from my clients is with Premium, they just feel a lot better with retaining current employees that they really want to retain, and they're much better at handling problems within their organization. If they do have problems, they feel more compliant with HR regulations. And lastly, better able to provide benefits and service those benefits for their employees and in particular, future employees.”
- “I just recently onboarded a fairly large client who was using a PEO. What we're charging them in bookkeeping services was literally almost made up for in the savings that they got from switching away from their PEO and going to Gusto’s Premium plan.”
- “I've had several clients who came from a PEO or from an HR specific company and replaced those two entities with what's offered in the Premium plan … We are saving them at least 30 and maybe sometimes up to 45 to 50 percent on their HR servicing needs by going to Premium.”
How For Eyes Bookkeeping Leverages Gusto Data for Strategic Client Advice
Beyond providing clients with a full package of payroll, HR, and benefits, Gusto has also armed Wade with the right data to provide strategic advice and insights to his clients.
Dr. David H. Steed of Steed Family Eyecare in Tulare, California, is a great example. Before he joined For Eyes Bookkeeping, he had tried QuickBooks Payroll and then switched to an accountant who used ADP. He also used another provider for HR services and tools.
However, it was cumbersome to use multiple systems for payroll and HR – so when Wade recommended Gusto Premium, David jumped on it. Premium provides vital features for his business’ specific needs, like location-specific time-tracking for his staff. It also allows staff to correct their own time-tracking mistakes – cutting down his time spent running payroll from five or six hours to just 15 to 20 minutes each month.
Gusto also provides useful payroll and HR features that provide a better experience for David’s staff – like access to their own W-2 forms, or a customizable employee handbook. And all of this is at a reasonable cost for his small team of under 10 employees. David shares:
- “I just wanted to make payroll simple, easy, and straightforward. And that's where Gusto came in … I just needed it all under one house, and Gusto provided that.”
- “It took me all about two minutes to look at the three different plans and choose Premium … The ability to customize Gusto to one's own business and one's own tailored needs was very important to me. And one of the greatest selling points of Gusto is the fact that it functions – I don't have to keep calling tech support.”
Most valuable of all is the strategic financial guidance he’s received from For Eyes Bookkeeping. Thanks to Wade’s reporting on payroll and financial data in Gusto, David was able to confidently bring on a second eye doctor to his practice – knowing he would have enough revenue to support his new colleague.
- “Looking back, my bookkeeping was like a toddler, and now I feel like an adult. It's that simple. Wade just came in and fixed it all up in a way that I understand. That's the cool part. You know how accounting language can have all sorts of cash flow or different reports that mean absolutely nothing to the layperson … Wade customized every single report, and he actually keeps up on it in such a way that it emphasizes optometry. I can't say enough how that has helped me make business decisions.”
- “Because I had all the confidence in the world with my numbers, I knew exactly where I was, I knew exactly what risks I was going to take. Accurate numbers give me peace of mind as a business owner … I love being able to talk to my patients with peace of mind that I'll be there next year to help them out.”