It's one thing to hear horror stories about fraudulent lawyers & deceptive doctors, and usually one doesn't hear about accountants, CPA's, and VCFO's in the same breath. It's quite sobering when you meet a rare someone who disappoints so badly that they shatter stereotypes & notions of group of professionals who are popularly assumed to be upstanding & ethical. Such is the case with Mary Brettmann, who pItched herself as somebody who'd meet my needs of seeking a "holistic VCFO" who can help strategize business financial needs together with my personal financial goals. Due to my experience with her failing her fiduciary duties in a very striking manner, I can no longer entrust any accountants or CPA's at face value anymore.
Here's a laundry list of objections I have about Mary:
Failed to follow executive directives for financial planning and forecasting.
Failed to deliver on projects we agreed to, such as migration to QuickBooks. What's striking is that she markets herself as being certified in QuickBooks.
Erroneously booked & classified transactions, which has resulted in potentially overstated outstanding balance due to the IRS. A trusted colleague has described the transactions & our business model as "not complicated at all."
Failed to manage to close out month-ends and quarter-ends on time with the 4 basic financial statements. After getting "caught up" for Q1 2016 and promising to keep books current, failed to execute.
Instead of planning for earmarking 50+% of net profits for state & federal income taxes, she continually advised to rely on unspecified vague tax write-offs to potentially pare down tax obligations. Ultimately, it turned out our business had very little which could be written off, and we were slammed with a roughly 55% tax bill with no money in the coffers (even in the foreseeable future) to readily pay it.
This, in turn, has caused critical business cashflow issues over the course of the last 1.5 years and ongoing. This has caused several financial & business decisions to be severely altered.
Failed to respect and report through well-understood chain of command and committed insubordination among staff. A couple examples include disclosing her suspicions of the financial ills of the company to staff while simultaneously telling a completely different story to the executives that the company "is in good shape." This happened repeatedly.
We initiated termination of our engagement on July 17, 2016.
Continued to attempt contact with staff & team after termination.
Despite engagement termination, proceeded to log into our accounting system in May 1, 2017, resulting in a data systems breach.
One / she may counter-argue that Mary's specialty is in the craft brewery business. My rebuttal to that is, aside from product type, our business similarly involves managing production time lines, acquiring, retaining & tracking inventory, retail and consumer-direct sales, the usual slate of tax considerations (sales & income), staff & tools overhead, CAPEX vs. OPEX, etc. In plain English, we sell products, too.
Even so, at any time, Mary could have professionally served us in a fiduciary capacity and decided she either lacked interest or the ability to perform expected services. That never happened.
Mary's "Rules for Success" can be found here: http://www.beveragebusinessbuilders.com/mary%E2%80%99s-ownership-rules-success
In summary, they are:
1. Know who you are and where you want to go
2. Be good to your people
3. Strategic visioning is the most important thing you will do
4. This a 4 profit enterprise
5. Don't let me or anyone else talk you into something that isn't right.
My suggestion: She should spend some quality time reflecting on her own list.
Overall, unethical & unprofessional. Seek elsewhere for your accounting & financial needs. read more
