Adam Larson: 00:21

Welcome to another episode of Count Me In. Today, we're excited to have Katrina Naki, a seasoned cross border accounting adviser join us. Katrina shares her journey from PwC to working in nationally in Germany and with private equity. Now as an entrepreneur, she helps European companies navigate US accounting centers, especially those targeting US IPOs. In this episode, Katrina discusses the challenges of cross border accounting, her motivation for independence, and how she uses technology to empower her clients.

Adam Larson: 00:48

So tune in for an insightful expertise on cross border financial strategies. Let's dive right in. Trina, welcome to the podcast. Excited to be talking to you about cross border accounting. And I figured to start off, we could talk a little bit about your experience of how you kind of got, got to this space, especially you started at PWC and, maybe your your approach to cross border accounting.

Adam Larson: 01:15

So let's let's start there in a broad sense.

Katrina Nacci: 01:18

Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Adam. Really looking forward to this conversation. I've been in the cross border space for about 11 years now. I moved to Germany initially in 2013.

Katrina Nacci: 01:31

I'm originally from Rhode Island. So I started my career with PwC in Boston in the audit practice, standard public company audits focused mostly on tech companies. I was there for 3 years and I was approached by a recruiter to move to Germany for a joint German and US listed company. I'd always wanted to live in, in Europe for a little while, just experience different culture. I had traveled there a couple of times when I was younger.

Katrina Nacci: 01:58

With that being said, I didn't know anything about Germany or any German at the time. So I just decided to take the leap and try it out for a year and see how I liked it. So I moved over to Frankfurt to work for that company, but actually ended up back at PwC as a local hire. Actually, specifically in the capital markets and accounting advisory group. So we had this specialist team here in Frankfurt and also sitting in Amsterdam.

Katrina Nacci: 02:24

That was other local Americans like myself or a lot of people that would just come out to comment for a couple of years. And we were really focused on taking European companies public in the US or doing GAAP conversions when there were acquisitions happening between the two continents. So that's where I have the bulk of my technical experience from. I was also with them for a couple of years on secondment in Dubai. So still capital markets activities, some US IPO, some UK IPOs, and a lot all around the region, Dubai, Oman, Egypt.

Katrina Nacci: 02:56

So that was pretty cool. And then after PwC, I was in private equity for 3 years. So I was actually working for a Toronto based real estate asset management company. They brought me in as their 1st European finance hire as they started to buy up assets in Europe to basically build out all the processes, procedures, and and the team from scratch. And then we were quite inquisitive around Europe as well.

Katrina Nacci: 03:20

So I think between all of that, I have exposure now to at least 10 different statutory and regulatory environments kind of around, around Europe. And 2 years ago, I went into business for myself in the cross border accounting advisory space. So I was initially working actually through other accounting advisory firms that occasionally had cross border work, but didn't have the local expertise in house. But pretty quickly realized that I shouldn't be white labeling myself that way because my experience is so unique. So I started to bring in clients on my own in the past year and a half, I'll say.

Katrina Nacci: 03:59

So now I'm really focused even niched down even further into working with European companies that are bringing in US stakeholders. Either they've done a big fundraise with US private equity, they are looking to get acquired by a US company, or they're thinking of going public in the US. So I'm really helping them through the accounting conversions for that, also with IPO readiness and execution if they need it. And like, so I kinda have this interesting place in the market where, especially with scale up companies, they can't afford to work with big advisory firms, and they don't really need a full time person in house with that skill set. So I kinda have this, you know, unique selling point that, haven't found anybody else in the solopreneur space kinda tackling.

Adam Larson: 04:44

Wow. I mean, that's quite a story. The experience in all the different places you've worked in is is something very unique that not everybody can say they have. And sometimes, question I like to ask people who are entrepreneurs is what what kind of motivated you to start your own firm? You know, obviously, you had all those experiences with all these different organizations.

Adam Larson: 05:00

But what was that motivation that kinda said, you know, I'm gonna do this and go out on my own?

Katrina Nacci: 05:06

I never actually planned to be an entrepreneur. It kind of just happened by accident. I always had this idea in the back of my head because I really enjoyed doing this cross border work that I wanted to have the flexibility to bring in clients, both in the US and in Europe and go back and forth between as much as I wanted. It also allowed me just from a personal perspective to feel like it was more sustainable to stay out here in Europe, but go back and see my family in the US when I wanted. And as much as a firm like PwC is obviously a huge global network, you still don't necessarily have that type of working arrangement in terms of the flexibility.

Katrina Nacci: 05:44

And so I always thought like, yeah, I'll probably have to go out and kind of consult on my own at some stage to really have that specific model that I want. But I always thought that I was going to have to wait until, you know, I made partner and had this huge Rolodex of, you know, I was 30 years into my career. And I'm really glad that I didn't wait. There were actually some, some personal reasons why I wanted to stay out in Germany as well. I was a partner out here.

Katrina Nacci: 06:10

But I had been considering moving back to the US. So that's what kind of allowed me to take the leap was when I was considering that move and actually interviewing with other accounting advisory firms in Boston. I told them flat out because I had, 3 different job offers and I wanted to, you know, see what they could do for me. So I just said, you know, I wanna keep my residency in Germany, but I would like to go back and forth to the US and specifically focus on your cross border activities. You know, how can you help me to do that?

Katrina Nacci: 06:42

And of course they couldn't really hire me either because they don't have the legal setup, but one of them worked with me to bring me in as a contractor. And so that's what kind of got my foot in the door and allowed me to take that dive off the deep end, which I don't know if I would have done without having that, that income stream at first, which allowed me to kind of get stood up and then establish my own brand sales marketing to be able to go to clients directly.

Adam Larson: 07:06

Wow. That's quite a story because not everybody has the ability to just kinda drop everything and say, I'm just gonna start my own business. And and the way that you're able to do it. I I appreciate you sharing that story that because it's it's not the normal way that sometimes you hear people starting in their own organization.

Katrina Nacci: 07:23

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, everybody, I think, has their own kind of strange story and I'm still kind of figuring out myself what I want that to look like. To be honest, it's kind of evolving and I'm not very good at setting even like 1 to 3 year targets for the business because I just have to kinda see what the market's like and go from there.

Adam Larson: 07:44

For sure. So to kinda focus in on our topic of the day, maybe we could talk about some specific challenges and complexities when it comes to cross border accounting. You know? Because if you're working with a US company, you gotta deal with US GAAP, international companies, IFRS, you know, and then sometimes you gotta mix the 2. You know?

Adam Larson: 08:01

What are some of those complexities and challenges that you've run into as you've been working at the in this space?

Katrina Nacci: 08:07

So I would answer that question in 2 parts because I'm dealing normally very closely with European stakeholders. So even when there's a US company that's done something in Europe, I typically focus more on the working aligned with the European team. And from their perspective, there's obviously kind of a knowledge gap that needs to be bridged in terms of understanding what it means to report under a US gap. And potentially also if they're doing something with a public company in Europe, you know, what it means to actually get stood up essentially as a public company and have all of the SEC reporting and SOX internal controls, etcetera. So that's, you know, a very specific complexity that they would be dealing with.

Katrina Nacci: 08:53

But there could also be a European company that comes to me because they're looking to expand in the US, and it's really like a acquisition environment. It's more like fundraising to get into the US ecosystem, potentially setting up a subsidiary. And then there's another host of issues or complexities that comes along with that. In that, you know, they have to understand each of the state by state regulations and all the different tax reporting requirements and things like that, that I myself, I'm not a specialist in, you know, transfer pricing, for example. But I have a wide network and I at least know the questions that they need to answer.

Katrina Nacci: 09:30

So I'll usually direct them to the right people to kind of get the ball rolling on that. And so I think from the Europe to US side, that's where a lot of the complexities come in. However, when I'm talking to, US finance teams that are doing something in Europe, where again, I might be getting brought more into their European team to help out. Their struggle is typically getting their head around what has been done locally so far. And more importantly, what needs to continue to be done locally.

Katrina Nacci: 10:04

Because I see a lot of times US companies making acquisitions and, maybe they don't even keep the European finance team intact and they just try to take it all in house and headquarters. And they'll just start booking all the transactions under US GAAP and kind of ignore the old kind of legacy local GAAP that was happening. That's not really the right approach because then when it comes to tax reporting time, they realize the mistake that they've made, that they don't have the records that they need to locally, and they have to spend a lot of time to go back and unpeel that. So a lot of that is just educating them on, you know, keeping the integrity of their local books intact, kind of what that means in terms of their local tax and VAT reporting. And again, I'm not necessarily experts in all those things across all the different countries, but can at least speak to them and get them the right support there.

Katrina Nacci: 10:59

But, you know, I've experienced the pain myself in industry where even if you're reporting under US GAAP, some of those line items, when you're talking about, VAT receivable, VAT payable, for instance, those are basically being driven by what's happening and what you're filing locally. So if you don't understand those reports and you can't reconcile them back to your kind of consolidated figures, you're already kind of losing the battle there. So those are kind of the 2 siloed, I guess, complexities. And then the overall complexity on both sides, it's just how to stand up and maintain, you know, a multi gap, multi FX environment. A lot of companies would be doing that for the first time.

Katrina Nacci: 11:38

So I'm just trying to help them there to understand, you know, how things to be, need to be mapped and presented, how you deal with all the different foreign currency roles and figuring out what is your functional reporting currency. And so that's also something that's normally coming along at the same time as the projects that I'm working on.

Adam Larson: 11:59

You have to wear a lot of hats. So you're not only an accountant, but you're also a trainer. You have to educate people. You have to make sure that they all understand things, and then they continue on. How do you help the your clients navigate that?

Adam Larson: 12:11

What are some approaches you've taken?

Katrina Nacci: 12:15

It's really interesting that you mentioned the trainer aspect because that's what I love. And what I'm hoping, you know, is what bringing business in the door because doing things like this and just educating people on what it means to kind of go into that international environment, What it means to go through an accounting conversion, to make sure that you're owning the process, even if you're not working with me and you decide to work with a bigger firm. And what it means to potentially like disrupt the way that you're getting accounting advice and trying to get a more niched expert as opposed to going a firm, going to a firm that services everybody and everything. So I really enjoy the training aspect of it. And for me, it's really just being where my potential clients are.

Katrina Nacci: 13:00

So I'm in a lot of different CFO communities on both sides of the pond. And there's a lot happening, of course, in person that I'm trying to attend conferences and keep my ear to the ground on all the new developments in tech and things that aren't necessarily exactly what I'm doing, but it's part of the host of, you know, things that are on a CFO's mind. And then of course, a lot of those are also async communities on Slack or otherwise where I'm just kind of paying attention to the conversation and what they're asking. And a lot of times there will be questions that aren't specifically something that I'm the expert in, but it's still related to some sort of international expansion. So I'll give them you know, some thoughts and offer to make recommendations.

Adam Larson: 13:44

It's really cool that you've kinda built a big network. You and you kinda need to have that network because one person can't know everything, and you kinda have to kind of build that build that up to to increase your knowledge and help your clients as well.

Katrina Nacci: 13:57

Right. Yeah.

Adam Larson: 14:00

So are there come are there any common misconceptions that, when people come into or misunderstandings that when people are coming to you and saying, hey. I wanna start I wanna, you know, have to do this cross border accounting thing. Are there are there things that people often overlook, and and that they should be aware of when it's kinda looking into this?

Katrina Nacci: 14:19

Yeah. Most people are coming to me to say, hey, we see that you do cross border accounting advisory. And then Yeah. They say something else that either allows me to think that they're coming to me too early or too late in the process. It's actually very rare that somebody comes to me at the point in time that they really should be.

Katrina Nacci: 14:38

And what I mean by that and being too early in the process is I have a lot of European CFOs that I talk to. I'm so happy to have the conversation because it helps me to kind of stay in their ecosystem, but they will come to me and say, Hey, we're just setting up a US subsidiary or a US branch so we can start doing X, Y, Z activity. Can you help us with this? And most of the time, they don't really need my technical accounting help. They don't really need to go through a full accounting conversion.

Katrina Nacci: 15:10

They really just need a local kind of boots on the ground bookkeeper and tax firm that can help them with that subsidiary, tax reporting and so on. And so I'll make those referrals and kind of just keep an eye on them because maybe it indicates that they're doing something or potentially getting ready for a US investment. Other times I have companies that are coming to me too late in the process where they've already closed a transaction. They've already had the acquisition, you know, the, the sale and purchase agreement has been signed, or they already brought in that investor funding. And now they're saying, Hey, we need to go through a gap conversion.

Katrina Nacci: 15:48

And I think this is very common because they don't want to deal with kind of the nuances of all of that compliance reporting before they have to, which I fully understand. And there's definitely a lot of pieces that you don't need to do before the transaction closes. However, I think it's a mistake if they're not at least assessing this stuff before the transaction happens, because you're not really able to speak to the appropriate kind of end gap during the diligence process, either with investors or the acquiring firm. If you haven't done an assessment of, okay, this is what we're doing currently. This is what our investor, acquirer, or stakeholder, etcetera, would want us to be doing.

Katrina Nacci: 16:32

And so let's make sure that we can speak intelligently to that. So we show that we know what we're doing. And I think that that could go a long way in terms of being able to kind of prove that the team is in place that can handle this going forward after the transaction.

Adam Larson: 16:48

Mhmm. Let's say somebody is looking to get into this. Like, they're looking to do a, a gap conversion, or they're looking to acquisition in a across borders. Are there some things that they should be preparing before they come to, organization like yours or some or some other big firm that you've mentioned? What is the what are what are some steps they should take before they they they come to you?

Katrina Nacci: 17:13

I think the more documentation that you can have already on what you're doing currently, the better. And normally firms that I work with are in the scale up space where maybe they've had a first audit or 2, but they don't necessarily have a lot written down in terms of what their accounting policies are or specific memos around significant areas. And that's something that, you know, I'm happy to kind of take the full GAAP conversion a to z and, and figure out and document, you know, what you're doing currently. I can surely do that. You know, I'm kind of adept at getting my hands dirty and figuring out what's going on inside of your business.

Katrina Nacci: 17:50

However, I'm not necessarily the person that's best placed to do that. It's just that sometimes that gets offloaded to me because the team doesn't have the time. And so I think when you, when you have some time available and you can kind of focus on those things, even if you don't necessarily need them at the moment, it could go a long way to being able to bring in an advisor later. And this is something that the big accounting firms won't necessarily tell you. Because from my experience, you know, working with PwC, they kind of when, when they come in and propose on a, a gap conversion, they really want to take the full kind of A to Z work for you.

Katrina Nacci: 18:33

You know, they have so much overhead, they need justify their costs. And so they want to come in for that full big project. Right? But me on the other hand, because I'm just one individual person, I actually kind of flipped that on its head and I'm operating on the opposite model. That I would actually prefer to leverage your internal finance team where I can and have you only use me really specifically for my expertise, because that makes things a lot more scalable for me.

Katrina Nacci: 19:00

And then I can work on more clients that wants more interesting things and kind of bring in even more best practices to you. So from my perspective, I'll always walk a company through like each of the specific sub steps within a gap conversion and say, this is what your team could potentially do, where I could leverage them. And then I'll take myself out of the equation, out of the pricing, and it makes it a lot more budget friendly for them as well. And so they can start to see and link molds that they can, you know, use my expertise in different ways.

Adam Larson: 19:33

Really cool. So you mentioned that, you you know, your key you keep up with what's happening, technological wise in the industry. How is the transformation to a lot more digital things within the accounting industry kind of impacted the cross border accounting process and and other challenges? And it might even bring new challenges.

Katrina Nacci: 19:53

Yeah. I would say in general, and again, speaking from a former big firm, I think that there is a slowness to adapting some of those new tech things that I can be a little bit more nimble on because I am just an independent person. That being said, You know, because I'm just one person, I can't go off and invest 100 of 1,000 of dollars in developing my own AI bot to answer clients or anything like that. I'm definitely, you know, using chat GPT quite a bit, and I am still kind of having to maintain that expert lens through the fact. And this can be potentially dangerous when it comes to cross border accounting as well, because I've played around with the tool quite a bit and asked it specific prompts to say, what are the differences in this line item between IFRS and US GAAP?

Katrina Nacci: 20:47

And a lot of times it will get it wrong because of the way that the LLM models work and the association that they're just looking for words that are close to each other. So if it's looking at a big four guide of differences where IFRS is in one column and US GAAP is in the other, sometimes they get like intertwined. And, I actually had this happen to me last week and it's with a large company that's paying me a pretty significant retainer. And I happen to be kind of in contact briefly with somebody on the team. That's not my, my normal contact in the finance team where they're doing something.

Katrina Nacci: 21:23

And he was asking me questions on US GAAP and I gave him my opinion and he went back and found some other guidance that says something different. And I said, well, you know, actually US GAAP doesn't say a whole lot specifically in the technical guidance about this area. And a lot of the big firms guides don't really touch it either. So I'm curious where you got this information from. If it's correct, like I'm happy to dig into it a little bit further and we can try to change the argument.

Katrina Nacci: 21:49

But he came back to me and said that he had used Copilot to put it together. So I wasn't very confident that my answer was wrong. Wrong. So I think that's a good example of like still needing to keep the experts in house. But where I'm using tech more handily, isn't so much on all the up and coming AI stuff.

Katrina Nacci: 22:06

It's more just ways of working more on an async basis with my clients so that I don't have to sit in a lot of meetings with them, which helps me a lot because I'm working across a lot of time zones. So I'll use things like just getting individual client boards set up in ClickUp and having kind of the Gantt chart showing where we are in the process, where the deliverables are, kind of who's doing what in terms of the request list. I use Loom for example, to record kind of if I'm walking them through an Excel file, I can mostly do that async and just send them the video and say, Hey, look at this one. You have a chance. Things like that that kind of slowly add up in terms of being able to work more effectively with people when you're not physically sitting right next to them.

Adam Larson: 22:49

Yeah. That's great. It I love how tools have kinda shrunk the world in a lot of ways. You know, in the past, you'd have to sit into meetings. You have to make sure you're there.

Adam Larson: 22:56

You have to make sure you see face to face or even you know? And and when video calls first came out, now everybody was comfortable with them. And because of COVID, everybody's comfortable with them. And I'm sure those things have kind of helped navigate. And and being very nimble yourself, you're able to kind of adapt new technologies to kinda help your process faster, I'm sure.

Katrina Nacci: 23:17

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And like I said, I can easily have a little bit of shiny object syndrome sometimes with the new tech rules out because I could just go and easily subscribe to it to sit out in a way that the bigger firms don't really do. So there could be something interesting that comes out that could help more on the accounting side as well.

Adam Larson: 23:37

Yeah. That's great. So one thing I was thinking we could you know, if you're up for talking about it, you know, you don't have to give any specifics for what company it was. But are there any, like, specific case studies or or an example of of a project that you've worked on? And you could talk a little bit about the challenges you face and how you overcame them when working with the organization.

Katrina Nacci: 23:57

Sure. I I can think of a couple. The one case study I always like to highlight is, a UK tech firm that came to me last year after they brought in funding from US Private Equity. And again, the, the funding had closed months before, so they were kind of all of a sudden in a time crunch where they were already engaging their auditors to go through their 1st US GAAP audit, but they hadn't done US GAAP yet. And the issue with a lot of companies is that when they're going through a transaction like that, their default is to just ask their auditors for a referral.

Katrina Nacci: 24:35

And most of the time their auditors are just going to refer them to another big firm. And as a, you know, a series B scale up, you can't really afford those fees. And so I happened to see it because they posted in a CFO group to say, Hey, we're going through this gap conversion and we got cro quoted this ridiculous amount. Does anybody else have other like firms that they work with? And so of course I raised my hand.

Katrina Nacci: 24:58

And I kind of walked them through, and this is how I started to really develop and see the feasibility and the practicality of having this phased approach with them. That'll only tackle one piece of the project at a time, and I'll try to show them where they can leverage their internal team. Because they didn't get that approach from the other firm. They just got quoted 6 figures to do the full project. And so when I proposed it in phases, they agreed and said that that was like more practical way to move forward.

Katrina Nacci: 25:26

So I was able to basically get the gap conversion done for them in, in 2 months. I helped them to identify all of the gap differences, like qualitatively. And, did a workshop with them to show them what the differences are and how you would need to calculate that. And they actually leveraged their internal team to go through and do the calculations themselves. And similarly, when it came to preparing the financial statements, I gave them some examples of what their peers that are listed would do.

Katrina Nacci: 25:59

Gave them some templates, help them. I, I basically put together their disclosure checklist, but they were responsible for actually populating the financial statements and writing the notes. Because again, think the ones that are best placed to do that. So in the end, we, we got through the audit, no problem on time, even though it was kind of a last minute rush to the finish that they get with over the course of 4 months or so. And they actually told me what they had been quoted from that other firm, and I saved them 50% of the cost.

Katrina Nacci: 26:26

So that was a pretty good kind of proof of concept. Yeah.

Adam Larson: 26:31

That is a great proof of concept. And, also, you're empowering their team to go forward and continue it on. Because once you guys once you're done with that conversion, they're gonna need to continue with that accounting. And so it's like you're you're not only helping them get there, but you're also saying, hey, guys. You're you're teaching them to fish and to go with that old adage.

Katrina Nacci: 26:51

Exactly. Yeah. That's not the first time that someone has used that simile for me. So I I appreciate that. And that's also one of the ways that I'm trying to differentiate myself from the bigger firms is to really focus on the knowledge transfer aspect because I don't necessarily I mean, I would I would love a model that's more recurring revenue to keep my clients kind of somehow in my ecosystem, of course.

Katrina Nacci: 27:15

But I don't want them coming to me with all the standard US GAAP questions that they should already understand from going through the conversion. I feel like I've failed as they don't understand how to maintain it day to day going forward. And so I've actually developed a model where I would kind of work as their fractional chief accounting officer to get layered into their internal team, which if their internal team is strong enough in local gap, and now they understand that day to day, they're not gonna need me more than an hour or 2 a month to just ask questions. If there's new transactions coming up, I would keep them updated on the new standards and how it affects their business. And then I could continue to be layered into, you know, the disclosure checklist and financial statements.

Katrina Nacci: 27:55

But it's really just trying to empower their team to make sure that they understand what they're doing. Mhmm. It's

Adam Larson: 28:04

cool. I like that. So when we look at something like cross border accounting, regulations are changing all the time, but yet they move as slow as molasses. What do you think the future is gonna look like as, you know, new technologies come out as, you know, firms start to understand the use of, you know, large language model platforms and AI, stuff like that? What do you think this few the future is gonna look like as as those things kinda develop?

Katrina Nacci: 28:28

Yeah. That's a good question. And I think that the question about regulation and question about technology are kind of diverging because like you said, regulation does happen very slowly. And even since I was in college 15 years ago, people have been talking about IFRS and US GAAP being converged and it hasn't happened yet. Of course, you know, every time they release a new standard, now they're trying to align them, but there's still certain differences.

Katrina Nacci: 28:55

I do think that it will get closer and closer. And maybe there will be some sort of mad rush for everybody trying to align those standards at some point. But on the technology side of things, Could definitely make it easier for investors to not need proper, full US GAAP financial statements to understand exactly how they would take that invested entity and, like, consolidate it and report it into their US GAAP statements. You know, I'm thinking of things like, what is it called? The tagging that they have in the US?

Katrina Nacci: 29:34

If that was something that was also happening in the different local gaps that you could potentially tag those in such a way that they would know how to get mapped into US GAAP, for example. But I don't see that being something that's happening in the, you know, near future.

Adam Larson: 29:49

Definitely not. You know, I know when the new revenue recognition guidelines came out in the US, they were like, you know, GAAP and I first have, like, they've, you know, they've come closer together, but they're still far apart. And with all the different regulating bodies, you think that eventually that everybody would wanna kinda be on the same standard, but, you know, who knows how what regulators think when they're creating their rules?

Katrina Nacci: 30:13

Right. And I think that IFRS and US GAAP are are one thing because those are what I would call a more sophisticated regulated Yeah. External standard. The issue is, and this is again something that a lot of US companies don't appreciate when they're coming into Europe or making European investment. They're typically not dealing with IFRS and US GAAP differences.

Katrina Nacci: 30:36

They're typically dealing with GAAP differences in all of the different countries that are, they're investing in. Because unless that European company has some reason to have converted to IFRS already, which they generally don't in like a scale up stage, They're only doing local GAAP reporting and that's, I wouldn't really call that like an accounting body that's regulating them. It's more just part of the legal and tax code. And so I think that's why there won't be many changes that will align those necessarily to IFRS or US GAAP because it's just based on like the way that the countries wanna tax income of the country.

Adam Larson: 31:19

So I think what you just outlined there is is shows how important it is for organizations before you make any large changes to understand what your local regulations are, understand where you're gonna be doing your accounting regulations are, and start doing research before you even you know, even if you're having conversations, you need to start doing the research on that early on because you can get caught off guard very quickly, it sounds like, especially when you're maybe you don't understand your local gap, and then you have to do this other gap or this other one. And it there's a lot there's a lot to

Katrina Nacci: 31:51

Definitely. Yeah. I mean, you definitely need to in involve the right advisers as early in the process as as possible. Because if you're working with anyone like me, that they just like to have those conversations, even if it's not immediate work for them, just makes the customer buying process a lot easier because then you're gonna come back and be educated about the process and you can actually speak to it instead of just letting somebody kind of run what your strategy should be. Like that should always be in house.

Katrina Nacci: 32:24

You should be the one that's running your gap conversion strategy. And when you're outsourcing it to a big firm and you haven't spent the time upfront to actually understand what you're getting yourself into and what the process looks like and where you could leverage your internal team, you're giving away a lot of that power kind of unintentionally and and not to your benefit.

Adam Larson: 32:45

Well, Katrina, I've sure learned a lot, and I hope our audience has learned a lot. And I encourage them to reach out to you if they're interested in learning more. And, just thank you so much again for coming on the podcast.

Katrina Nacci: 32:54

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Adam.

Announcer: 32:58

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.ima net.org.