From Tax Forms to Fresh Starts: Karla Brannen’s Financial (and Creative) Journey

And today we have with us our dear friend Karla Brannen, and she is the principal at Brannen CPA Services PLC. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation with Karla because I know that every time I get together and talk with you about accounting, but just your life perspective, I think, wow, what a creative individual. So welcome and thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I'm not sure, I don't want to speak for everybody, but for people outside of accounting, they may not always think, wow, accounting, creativity. So maybe you could lay the path so that people can start to understand. I understand it, but I think it'd be interesting to hear from you. The creativity side of it is you are working with the same tax forms, the same sort of process, but every client has a different situation. Their financial situation is different. Maybe their wealth level of wealth is different, retired individuals versus somebody who may be working. So there's a lot of different perspectives to look at when you're preparing just simple what people think are simple tax forms and the rules and the laws behind those forms, and what goes into that. What you've described to me in our conversations is that one accountant may look at a certain situation and say, oh, this is the way that I interpret the laws and this is how I think we should proceed. Another accountant could actually look at them slightly differently, and they're the same laws and it's the same situation. So I think that's surprising sometimes for people to understand. Yeah, so there's a lot of room for interpretation, and when new tax rules and laws come out, a lot of accountants have to wait for guidance. And so there's a lot of different interpretation that happens, especially in the beginning because the guidance, guidance documents are not available. And so again, that interpretation has to come in from either prior experience, years of experience, different situations that accountants have been in over the years that apply to different tax rules. And then also the situation is sometimes different. It's not always a black and white situation that a client has. Looking at those fine details can lead an accountant down a different route than they may have in a similar tax law situation. But again, it's really applied to that actual tax situation that your current client is, and then interpreting the rules as it applies in that exact. So in an interesting way, this reminds me of the practice of medicine, or I'm going to speak to the practice of medicine cause that's where I come from, but I think it's also maybe even the practice of law and some of these other professions where people will say, oh, well chat GPT is going to come in as going to take over for doctors. And I think what doctors actually can do, or really anybody in the healing professions is they do offer perspective. They're able to look at specific contexts and other things in a way that's not only providing their own experience and bringing that into the conversation and making it very specific to the person. But also there's a translational element to things. So when you look at tax laws and you look at rules and regulations, you're going to be able to immediately see those things as to how they apply to people. And somebody could go to chat GPT and be like, please explain to me what this means. But chat GPT might not translate it in a way that is actually true to what the client needs. Correct. And there's a lot of judgment that happens in preparing tax returns, doing planning with clients. There's a lot of judgment that has to be made that chat GPT just doesn't do. And then on top of that, I have found in searching and getting AI related feedback that you end up having, you don't get the exact answer, you don't get the law and what the tax code actually says, you get an interpretation, which isn't always accurate if you were to go look up the actual tax code and follow the tax code and the rules that you're supposed to follow. So there is some judgment I think that gets lost in chat GPT AI type stuff. So I don't think it can take over our jobs because that judgment really is needed. It isn't black and white. If a situation happens with a client, they sell a certain piece of property, there's a lot of work that goes behind getting that reported accurately on the tax forms that I don't think AI has the ability to do right now. I agree. And actually I use AI all the time and not just chat GPT. I mean, it's a really valuable tool if you know what it does and what it doesn't do. And I kind of look at it from the medical side as you have a stethoscope, you have to know how to use the stethoscope, and some people know how to use the stethoscope in a really basic way, and some people know how to use a stethoscope to actually, there's all kinds of different heart sounds and variations and heart sounds that you'd have to be a cardiologist who spent practice 30 years to know how to do it. So I'm guessing there's a similar thing that you're describing that comes along with years of experience in accounting. Absolutely, absolutely. And I use it personally to help write letters because it saves time. So not having a strong administrative support, having the ability to at least start a template for me, and then I build on that with the client specific information that needs to be added to the letter. Sometimes I do it just to get a basic format, but again, to try to use that to prepare actual tax forms, I don't see it going well because of the judgment that and the work that needs to go into. It's not always just taking a tax form and transposing the numbers into a tax software. There sometimes can be situations where, again, if you sold a piece of real estate working to get that basis correct and additional costs that would go into that transaction reported correctly. Well, I appreciate you're letting me go down the road of AI because this happens to be something that I'm just so fascinated by and I think it's something that we all are continuing to get comfortable with. So thank you for allowing me to go down that path. Also, I think about, for example, my mother, we lost my father last year, and as someone now who is responsible for the household, I mean, she has had the logistical responsibility, but then there's also this whole entirely emotional component. And I think it's so helpful to interact with a human being, to sit across the table from Karla and be like, Karla, let's talk about how losing my husband has impacted my life. And you being able to take that back as a human being, like, I'm going to help this person who's in front of me and I'm going to help her get through this phase in a way that keeps her fiscally intact. So tell me about your experience of working with humans in the accounting. So that's actually a great example because I have, a couple years ago, I had several women that had lost their husbands. Their husbands handled all their financial matters, and so it was new to them. They had started as their husbands were getting sick a lot. They tried to transition some of that financial responsibility over. But I had several women that had never dealt with the finances before. They'd never dealt with filing the tax return. They didn't know what tax forms needed to be gathered. So being there to support them through that process was very, it was rewarding to me because I felt that I could be a support, I could be there as a resource and help them through what usually for some people is a very scary situation when it comes to taxes and everybody is scared of the IRS. And so a lot of people will say that clients will come in and they're like, I don't want the IRS to come after me. And it's like, that's not going to happen, and this is kind of the route we need to go to get to getting everything completed. And then helping them understand their situation, what the tax documents are, what accounts they relate to, kind of putting it into a picture that makes sense to them versus this large overwhelming process that has to happen once a year. Helping them come up with their own process that works for them to prepare themselves for tax time as well as helping them understand the whole situation and then working with their advisors. I love working as a team. So having somebody, an individual or a client that is a investment team and a legal team and we all work together helps us provide the best service to our clients. And again, I think about that in the relationship, the parallel to medicine where it's really important for all of us to feel like we're surrounded by a team of people who are all trying to afford the best, our own best interests as say patients, but bringing their own expertise to bear. And I think this is what I love about bringing accounting and creativity into the same conversation because people think, oh, it's numbers and it's so straightforward, it's so objective. What's the creativity? And you've just described multiple different ways in which this is a very creative field. And on top of that, you also have a connection to the art gallery, like specific to art. And that may be a little unusual for people who have this background in finance. Talk to me about art and your connection to the Portland So I met Emma many years ago, and I was part of, I chaired an event at the Wayfinder Schools for their holiday annual event that they had, and they hosted it at the Portland Art Gallery. So I met Emma many years ago during that whole process, and a few years ago I was talking to somebody from Yarmouth that I was catching up. She asked how my office was going. I said, I'm looking for art, my walls are bare. And she reconnected me to Emma. And so that's kind of how the process started in getting back involved with the Portland Art Gallery. And so Emma and I have stayed in contact. She invited me to come in. I was at the time looking for something to make my office less boring, and I had moved into a new space. Everything was very neutral. We didn't have a lot of art. The space that we had moved from was really small, so I only had some little things that just didn't go in the new space. So I spent an afternoon, an hour or so at the Portland Art Gallery. Emma brought out tons and tons of different art, and I just really was kept going back to Paige's work. And again, so just looking for something that was bright would bring a smile to my client's face when they walked through the door, my employees as well. I ended up picking out a few pieces from there. I found out about first Thursdays and started attending those events. I think the most important part of going to those events is learning about the artists and their background, where they come from, what they do, what different material they use in their art and kind of their story. And then relating those stories back to the art that they create, I think is really, it's very fascinating to me. And every artist is different, and I think you don't think about that unless you spend time in an art gallery. Actually, there's so many great connections there. And Emma Wilson, of course, being the gallery, the longtime gallery director, she's been with the gallery for the entire decade that we've been in existence and all of her many works sort of in the nonprofit world, the Wayfinder School, her connection to you, but then Paige, I mean, her art is so vibrant, it's so colorful, and she's such a vibrant and colorful person. There's something about Paige that actually just makes you want to bring a piece of her story into your space, which intersects so well with you and your story because you're such an interesting person to me because you were working for a firm for many years and then you said, you know what? I'm going to take this big chance. I'm going to go out and I'm going to work on my own. I'm going to start my own business. I'm going to make this leap of faith. And so when you bring this brightness into your own space, it's like you're claiming your space. This is me, this is Karla Brannen, this is my space. This is what people can expect from me. You're claiming your own ability to bring your type of work into the world. So I think that it gives me chills when I think about that. So do you think that bringing the art into your space was a way of making a statement about this is where you are now? Yeah, absolutely. And I'll share with you, when I was picking out furniture for my space, I went with pistachio green chairs for my conference room because again, I wanted a statement. I wanted something that stood out and I wanted something different than the traditional dark leather black chairs that most accounting firms have in their conference room. I wanted to bring out color, and I wanted, again, for my clients that come in my office to feel comfortable, I didn't want them to come into an office and think that it was quiet. One of the firms I worked at, I had clients that walked in and they would make statements. It feels like a library in here, and it was a big wide open space. And so there were people working, but everybody was very focused, heads down, not a lot of conversation happening throughout the office. So clients would come in and I think that statement stuck with me because I didn't want my office to feel like a library when people walked in. I wanted my employees to feel that they could have conversations with each other, but also for my clients to come in and feel comfortable. What was it that caused you to feel like you wanted that it was time to take that chance? It was time to move from the library to the life of Karla to actually growing up in Aroostook County, you have your undergraduate degree, you have your master's degree from Thomas, you moved to Southern Maine, you've got this great career working with firms. But then one day you're thinking, I think I'd like to do this differently. Tell me about That. So I got to a point where I was very overwhelmed with my workload and I didn't see any change happening. I would have my annual reviews and I would have to set new goals with those goals would usually come more work and more effort that would need to go into my career. And I felt that I loved what I did at the time. So this was sort of at the end of 2019, I knew that I needed to do something different. I didn't know what it was going to be, but I needed to do something different. So I knew in 2020 I had to make a decision, and so I decided that, let's just think about it. What options are out there? Do I want to work for somebody else in an accounting department, which I had done through college, and I thought it was boring. I did the same thing every day. And so I said, if I'm going to work this hard, I'd rather work this hard for myself and have control over my schedule, have control over my work life balance. I don't want to, it wasn't about the money, it wasn't about anything financial. It was really, I enjoy what I do. I enjoy my clients. It's the best part of my job is working with clients and I need to do something different. So if I'm going to work this hard, I'll work this hard for myself. So I decided to go out on my own, and I was actually lucky enough to take several of my clients with me, which is unheard of in the industry. The firm that I worked for didn't have the capacity to keep a lot of the clients that I had, so they did offer for me to reach out to them, which again is sort of unheard of. So I actually was able to start with a good solid client base, and I've been able to grow that client base from there. So trying to figure out whatever the next thing is, let's make it fit better. So that's what you're describing is that you had a good situation, you had multiple good situations, but you're like, but I need a situation that is more conducive to the life that I want to live, as opposed to just working long until you die, which is not a bad thing. I mean, it's good to pay mortgages and make sure that you can survive financially, but you're describing more than just surviving. You're describing, I would like to have this life and this is what I would like this life to look like. Absolutely. And that is my plan is to retire early. I say that I'm not going to stop working. It's just not in my nature to stop working, but I'm not going to work full time. I would love to either transition my firm to somebody else or maybe I can get somebody to come in and eventually sort of take the firm over. But my goal is to not work until retirement age, at least full-time and have more ability to do things with nonprofits or volunteer my time somewhere and have that balance and be able to enjoy going into retirement age, doing the things that I enjoy doing outside of the office. It's more rural. I think it's a very, for a large county, it's very close knit. People seem to know each other, but it's the county. And the county is so different from where we live in southern Maine, which is often considered like a suburb of Boston. It's not. It's got its own feel. But when you lived in the county, my husband's from the county, it's like a whole thing. So how about being a girl from the county growing up and making this big leap to move to southern Maine? That's like moving to the city. I mean, talk to me about that. Yeah, so when I was in college, I had to do an internship and it was part of our curriculum, so it was required. And I actually said I refused to go to Portland, and then I didn't end up getting an internship in the Waterville Augusta area, so I had to look outside of the area. I ended up coming down to Portland, doing an internship for a tax season. Actually enjoyed it. I lived with family in the area and learned what it was to live in the city, and I don't think I would change that. It was a great experience. And the year after I was offered full-time employment, coming from a Rooster County, it was a big step. Even going to Waterville to school was a big step because I didn't spend a lot of time outside of Aroostook County growing up. We had family in Southern Maine, and we would come down and we would visit, but we didn't spend a lot of time outside of the county. So it was a big adjustment. I would say it was a great adjustment. I have a hard time going back to the county for a long period of time because there's not a lot to do. Everything closes early, and so it is different. But I will say I love to visit because I do still have family up there, and there was so much to do in Northern Maine that every summer I try to plan something new that I haven't done a hike, a trip with family, finding a new site, that sort of things, just to kind of enjoy what Maine has to offer. And Matt isn't from my partner. Matt is not from, he grew up in Southern Maine, so taking him up to enjoy what's up there and show him the sites and the things that you can find that a lot of people don't know about. Well, I think it is interesting having spent quite a bit of time over the years in the county, there is a ton to do, and it also closes early. I mean, you can go fishing, you can go hiking, there's lakes, there's rivers, there's streams. The people are very friendly. It's a very family oriented place, and it's also just a large geography, and people are tired by the end of the day. They put down the shades, the lights are off, and you're not going to go out dancing unless I guess you could cross over into Canada and go dancing there, which I have to admit I've done at least once. But you're right. I think when you move down to Southern Maine, it's a different way of life. It's not Boston, but there's more going on. There's art gallery openings, there's other sort of cultural things. There's connections with people. So I love that you're able to sort of honor the good things that you can find in all the spaces and kind of bring the county person with you down here. What caused you to be interested in accounting? What was it that you woke up one day and you're like, I'm going to go to school for this at Thomas College and this is going to be my life? It was a very last minute decision. So when I was in high school, there was actually part of the high school curriculum was the college prep curriculum. Business courses were offered, and so I took a couple business courses. One was accounting. I took another business course. You learned how to use a 10 key calculator and a variety of different other things. And the teacher that I had, Mrs. Barlett was very supportive. I also worked with her on the yearbook committee, and so I really built a stronger relationship with her, and I liked the numbers. I liked science, I liked math. I hated history and English. I didn't enjoy them. I did them. I did well in high school, but it wasn't my thing. So I, growing up, always wanted to be a veterinarian, and then I realized I had to go to school for eight years and decided I did not want to go to school for eight years. And so I started thinking about what other options are out there. A few of my friends that were older had graduated and gone to school for accounting, and so it started me thinking about what an accounting career would look like. At the time that I was graduating high school, the National Board of Accountancy had changed the requirement for a CPA license. You had to have 150 credit hours, which required a master's degree. So a lot of the colleges were starting to offer five year bachelor's and master degree combinations. And so I decided why not apply to Thomas College and go to school for accounting because I don't know what else I want to do. Again, I loved my courses in high school and I liked that math component, and so I decided to give it a shot and told myself, Hey, if I don't like it, there's plenty of other options out there. And I went to school at Thomas. I enjoyed all of my accounting courses. I did fail my very first accounting class my second or third year there. It was miserable. I had never failed a test before, but it woke me up and said, I guess you got to try a little harder. And so with that curriculum at Thomas, they required the internship. So I did the tax internship and found that I really enjoyed doing tax work, and then my career kind of took off from there. I got to say, I love that you just said, oh, I failed that course and it taught me something, and then I moved on. Because I think that's the stories that we always hear are, oh, this person was a success because they were successful and success breed success. And you're like, well, actually, there was this thing that happened and you just integrated it into your experience and you didn't let it derail. You were just like, well, that was some information. I'm going to use this information. I'm going to keep going. So it's important to hear things like that, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think at the time when that happened, my accounting classes were easy. Everything came to me naturally, and I didn't have to put in a lot of study hours. And that really having to, it was a cost accounting class. I had never any introduction to cost accounting other than this course, and it really taught me that not everything is going to come easy to you, and you do have to put the effort in. But in doing that, I was able to pass the class with a decent grade, and I also learned a lot. I think that that can apply even outside of school in daily life of sometimes you do have to put in the extra work to be successful, and it's always worth it. Well, I think I can understand why in 2018 you received the M-E-C-P-A Women to Watch award and recognition of your leadership and professional excellence. I kind of had a sense already, because you and I have talked several times, I just have a sense, but as this person that people apparently have been watching since 2018, when you're thinking about people who are coming up through and are in your field and they're deciding what their future might look like, is there any advice that you can give them other than if you fail something, just go back and figure out how to do it differently next time? Yeah. I think the biggest piece of advice I would give anybody starting in the accounting career is ask questions. Don't try to figure it out on your own. If you can't come up with an answer in five to 10 minutes, ask somebody that has more experience. You're going to learn a lot more by asking questions than trying to figure it out on your own or struggling through it, not getting it right. And then by the time you get the feedback, it may not be as current in terms of being able to relate it back to that situation. I think over the years of working at different firms and being an intern myself, the biggest thing that helped me was asking questions, asking for clarity. If you don't understand the answer, ask them to explain more. I think that's even more important than just asking the question is if you don't understand what they're saying to you and the answer that they're giving you, ask them to put more context behind it and really apply it to a situation so you can understand it. I think that's actually, that's great advice in a lot of areas. Well, Karla, I always enjoy talking to you. It's great to see you again, but I really appreciate your coming in today. Yes, thank you so much for having Me. It's been my great pleasure to speak with Karla Brannan today. Karla is the principal of Brannen CPA services PLLC. I'm sure you can find her very easily online. Actually. I would really encourage you to come hang out with Karla and I and the rest of our wonderful Portland Art Gallery community on first Thursdays or other times where we're holding events here in Portland, Maine. I'm Dr. Lisa Bile. You've been listening to or watching Radio Maine where we explore and celebrate creativity and the human spirit. And I feel fairly certain that Karla exemplifies creativity in her field, and I hope that you get a chance to connect with her because I've always enjoyed the connection and I appreciate your being willing to come and talk to me today. Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure.