Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Burke CPAs & Advisors has partnered with clients on everything from launching a first business to planning a successful exit. What started as a solo tax practice has grown into a multi-service enterprise spanning tax and accounting, business consulting, HR and staffing, and wealth management through its sister company, Concentric Wealth Management.
Company: Burke CPAs & Advisors
Cut collection time from 30-45 days to 10-14 days
Moved 90% of bills online within the first month
Reclaimed an estimated 82 hours of administrative time per month
Brought two separate office accounts into a single portal
Replaced a manual billing process with a PCI-compliant system
Patrick Burke started his firm in 1984 at the age of 28.
Before venturing out on his own, Pat spent four years at a CPA firm while studying law, working his last year of law school as the firm's in-house tax researcher and writer.
"If somebody would have told me during college or law school that I'd end up as a partner in a CPA firm—or starting one—I would have laughed myself off the bar stool,” he says.
Not long after, Pat built the firm around a bigger idea than tax prep—organizing services around a client's life cycle of launch, manage, grow, and exit. Tax Partner Pam Louden, sums up where that’s landed the business today: "We're not just a compliance shop. You're not coming here to just get your tax returns done. We're going to provide business advisory services across the board."
Matt Tarka, partner at Concentric Wealth Management, describes the same model independently, a "one-stop shop" spanning tax, wealth management, and HR and staffing, with one point of contact for a client's business and personal finances alike.
Before CPACharge, Burke CPAs & Advisors had a credit card processor in place, but most client payments still came in on paper or over the phone. Matt traces the breaking point to a conversation while watching front-desk staff tearing through a stack of mail.
“I was talking with [our receptionist] and she was just opening envelopes like a mad person,” Matt says. When he asked what she was doing, she told him: “This is how we get paid…every time we send a bill out, this is how we get it in, and then we have to process everything by hand."
Pam describes the same process: "Our clients were having to either write a check or call into the office and give their credit card information to the front desk person...very time consuming [and] definitely not the most secure."
The exposure went beyond inconvenience. With no card storage, the firm was losing money on processing fees scattered across different cards with no consistency. Clients had started asking for something better, too.
"I continued to have clients asking me, 'Why can't I just pay this online?'" Pam recalls. The firm considered the payments add-on in its existing software, but wanted something built specifically for accounting firms.
For Burke CPAs & Advisors, a few things mattered most in choosing a replacement for their existing processor. First, the firm wanted a platform that wasn't tied to any specific practice management system, so switching software down the road wouldn't mean switching payment providers too.
"I felt with CPACharge that you're not pegged to one solution," Matt says. "They're very flexible.”
Second, the firm needed multi-office support. Burke wanted separate bank accounts for its Cincinnati and Richmond, Indiana offices to keep bookkeeping clean, but its previous provider couldn't support that and forced every payment into one shared account instead.
"That was candidly a hiccup with our [previous] provider where we couldn't do this. We had to funnel everything into one bank account," Matt says. CPACharge was able to set up separate payment pages for each office instead, run through a single portal.
Third, the solution itself needed to be simple to implement across the business.
After switching to CPACharge, the payoff was immediate. In the first month, 90% of bills went online and collection time dropped from 30-45 days down to 10-14 days. “We’re realizing our revenue faster…we can keep things moving,” Matt says.
Jake Burke, partner and Pat’s son, describes the same result: “Our collection times and outstanding AR has been cut in half, so we’re thrilled with that. It makes our cash collection cycle much smoother.”
Two CPACharge features help to speed that cycle along. On the front end, Card Vault is a feature of CPACharge that stores the client's payment method in an encrypted vault. Instead of mailing an invoice and waiting on a check, staff can confirm the amount and charge the card on file. On the back end, next-day funding speeds up the back end by getting eligible payments into the firm’s account the following business day, 24 hours faster than standard payout speed.
With CPACharge, Matt estimates the firm’s administrative team has saved roughly 82 hours of manual billing work a month.
“It’s just given our administrative staff the ability to use their time for more impactful things, build deeper relationships with clients, and facilitate more conversations.”
Pat leaned on determination and persistence to start Burke CPAs & Advisors. Today, his business spans tax and accounting, business consulting, HR and staffing, and wealth management.
"Most accounting firms don't look at themselves as a sort of across-the-board advisor to the size of businesses that we deal with," Pat says. "Our goal is for every business to maximize its value, and if all we're doing is giving the typical advice, and it's not about how to create durable value and transferable value, then you're not doing the job you were hired to do."
That standard is personal for him, too. "I'm most proud of the fact that I was persistent," Pat says. "I think on my headstone it's going to say, 'he tried really hard.'"
With CPACharge, Burke CPAs & Advisors moved billing online, reclaimed time, and simplified payments across offices. If you’re looking to do the same for your accounting practice, schedule a demo today.
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