The firm that can’t say no
BY DANIEL HOOD
Virginia’s Piascik takes its client service ethic into outsourcing
AT A GLANCE
Firm:
Piascik & Associates PC
Location:
Glen Allen, Va.
President and founder:
Steven M. Piascik
Staff:
Partners — 2; total staff — 13
Year founded:
2001
Selected services:
Corporations; partnerships;
high-level tax planning; tax and
financial planning for professional
athletes; international tax; Piascik
Passport (financial, administrative and back-office services for
international business clients);
Piascik Outsourced
Piascik president Steve Piascik, left, with Piascik Outsourced tax special- ist Elizabeth Barry, back, and staff accountant Nadine Chambers
The day before we spoke to him, Steve
Piascik saved a client half a million dollars.
Actually, it was the night before — at the
very last minute, the client wanted Piascik, a
CPA and founder and president of the Rich-mond-area firm that bears his name, to look
over some contractual agreements that it was
about to sign. So at 10 p.m., Piascik found
himself reviewing the terms of the deal, and
suggesting some revisions that would save
the client $475,000.
“We do not know the word ‘No’ here,” he
explained. “All we need to know is how to get
it done. If I’m a client looking for a vendor, I
don’t want to hear excuses — I just want to
hear, ‘We’ll get it done.’”
Those expectations have led the decade-
old firm to focus relentlessly on client service.
“We are in a service industry, and we out-
perform and we shine, or we’re going to lose
that client,” Piascik said. That ethic applies
in all its service lines, from its bread-and-
butter work with corporations, partnerships
and high-level tax planning; to the tax and
financial planning services it offers profes-
sional athletes; the specialized financial,
administrative and back-office help it offers
foreign companies looking to operate in the
U.S. through its Piascik Passport program;
and the outsourced accounting services it’s
offering clients through one of its most recent
service lines, Piascik Outsourced.
INTO OUTSOURCING
The premise of Piascik Outsourced is straight-
forward — hiring a full-time senior-level
finance executive can cost a company any-
where from $100,000 to $150,000, and that’s
often before benefits and training costs. Pias-
cik can do the same work on an outsourced
basis for around a third less, with the firm
assuming all the risks of hiring, training and
maintaining the talent.
