practiceprofile
A new firm paradigm
BY SETH FINEBERG
DeepSky aims to be clients’ virtual accounting department
AT A GLANCE
Firm:
DeepSky Accounting
headquarters:
Irvine, Calif.
CeO/Founder:
W. Michael Hsu, CPA
no. of staff:
5
no. of offices:
1 (with virtual presence
in Detroit area)
Year founded:
2009 (originally called
Level Six Consulting)
Selected services:
Outsourced accounting services
including invoicing, bookkeeping
and business consulting
Starting any new business, let alone an accounting firm, in the current economy is a challenge. But less than three years ago, following a
stint at Denver-based CPA and business ad-
visory firm Hein & Associates, that’s just what
W. Michael Hsu did — though he’d rather you
didn’t call DeepSky an accounting “firm.”
Instead, Hsu views DeepSky as a virtual ac-
counting department, providing outsourced
client services such as invoicing, bookkeep-
ing and business consulting.
“For me, I never saw myself as an accoun-
tant — I always wanted to be an entrepreneur
and a businessman,” revealed Hsu, who is a
CPA. “You can’t learn about being an entre-
preneur in school, so at Hein I learned going
into audits I wanted to explore different busi-
nesses and pick the model I liked. When I left
to start this firm, I began with the consulting
model, and slowly we developed a real mes-
sage of being a single accounting department
that businesses can leverage.”
With the advent of mobile and cloud ac-
counting products, more CPA firms are
engaging in business process outsourcing
functions, a trend on which DeepSky has
patterned its operating strategy.
From left: DeepSky’s W. Michael Hsu, Rachel Clark and Mark Bayya
accountants can get caught up in providing
better financial statements or compete on
price. The DeepSky vision is that accounting was created to serve entrepreneurs. We
sell knowledge and use technology to help
deliver service.”
Walking the Walk
In terms of technology, the vast majority of
the firm’s functions are cloud-based, mobile
and paperless. Though the firm itself is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., with other associates in Detroit — where there is no physical
office — they can conduct their work from
wherever they or their clients happen to be
at any given time.
DeepSky utilizes an online accounting solution for invoicing, billing, accounts payable,
bank reconciliation and bookkeeping work.
For clients with more than 2 million customers, it utilizes hosted QuickBooks.
Each DeepSky member is equipped with
a Mac and a smartphone, and any paper the
firm receives is quickly scanned. The practice
operates on an online project management
and collaboration application.
