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Founder Files: Stephen Buller broke the Big Four mold

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While most accountants dread conducting on-site inventory observations — often considered one of the rote tasks shoved onto those at the bottom of the food chain — Stephen Buller loved them.

While working for a Big Four firm, he remembers going to a lumber yard in his home state of Washington for an inventory count. He recalls walking around the snowy fields in soaked sneakers and socks, looking every bit the ill-dressed, out-of-place accountant, but loving every moment of it. 

“I really enjoyed those experiences because I got to see the nuts and bolts of the business,” Buller said. “I think a lot of what I’ve taken into my own business now is that numbers are just numbers. Is a million dollars a lot? I don’t know, what’s the context? Is this a good revenue number? Am I paying too much for payroll?”

“The numbers are not enough,” he said. “You have to have context in the business.”

It’s one of the reasons he was never content working at the Big Four. Buller wanted to spend his hours helping business owners put more money in their bank account, not telling the Securities and Exchange Commission that a company’s finances check out. 

“I never felt much satisfaction from the actual work that was being accomplished, and maybe that has to do with the intangible nature of numbers,” he said. “The final delivery of a $100,000 audit is a single page, written up, signed by the partner that basically says, ‘We don’t find any problems with your finances.’ That’s just the industry — it’s not necessarily a criticism of that product.”

Stephen Buller Founder Files

‘It was really painful for me’

Buller studied accounting at the University of Washington. He was a member of Beta Alpha Psi, the accounting and finance honors society. From his interactions with recruiters through the society, he interned at the Big Four firm before graduating with his master’s degree and joining full time. But it wasn’t what he expected. 

“It was really painful for me,” he said.

Buller didn’t enjoy the number of hours spent behind a desk. While the firm had an efficient and detailed audit methodology, he felt as though seniors and managers were always creating more work — even after the job was done. 

“There were a couple of people I worked with, supervisors and managers, who bucked this trend,” he said. “They were really focused on, ‘These are the things we need to get done, and when we get those done we’re done. We don’t have to work hours we don’t need to.'”

He said it boils down to the billable hours you can charge a client: “I got the sense that partners never wanted to report fewer hours because that might justify a cut in the fee.”

Buller felt his proposed ideas for improving processes were usually shut down before even being considered. “This isn’t necessarily a criticism directly of [the firm] but just of any very large organization,” he said, referencing the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. 

He also disliked the lack of work-life balance: “The overall perspective of the public accounting industry is that 45 to 50 hours a week is a break. That’s like vacation to them.”

Buller left the firm in 2010 after about three years. He jumped around a variety of tech companies, startups and public companies as an accountant and controller. Around the same time as leaving the Big Four firm, Buller took his first swing at building his own company. He dropped a few thousand dollars on setting up a website to start an e-commerce business selling self-defense and security products, like pepper spray and tasers. The venture was unprofitable and he jumped ship after one of his managers told him he needed more time before he’d be ready to run a business. 

He finally started his own practice, Buller Accounting, in 2015 after acquiring a bookkeeping firm from a local tax accountant who was selling. Buller’s firm offers a variety of services including bookkeeping, in-house payroll and more. With his five employees, he manages about 50 clients, mostly small-business owners based in Washington State and the Northwest Coast. 

‘We can do things differently’

Buller’s creed is that he can do things differently at his firm. 

“I felt like at [the Big Four firm] I was not treated like a human being, with thoughts and feelings, good ideas and bad ideas, wants and dreams, and hopes and fears. I felt very much like I was a tool. I was meant to be used, and when my productivity or patience had run out I was to be discarded. And I think that is awful,” he said. “I think there are plenty of good things that I take from [the Big Four firm], and then there are things that I say we can do differently.”

But Buller isn’t trying to rebuild the wheel. One of the things that he carries on from his time in the Big Four is the mantra, “If it’s not documented, it’s not done.” 

Oftentimes, a business owner hiring an accountant doesn’t necessarily care how the work gets done — just as long as it gets done. Problems usually don’t arise until someone is audited, it’s tax season, or they receive a surprise letter from the IRS. That’s why showing his work is so important.

“Everybody messes up from time to time, and we can do our best to build processes that avoid mistakes, but they will still happen,” Buller said. “And so our real goal should not necessarily be to ensure no mistakes ever happen, but to ensure we can support what we did and why we did it.”

Where Buller does diverge from big firms is in his pricing model. He explained, “For me running my business, a huge part of being successful is knowing how much revenue is going to come in, and how many expenses are going to go out.” 

It seems simple, he said, but it’s hard to do for many business owners who don’t know anything about accounting. For instance, when Buller tells a client they need to amend a filing, which may take a couple hours and result in an additional $500 added onto their bill, clients can feel blindsided. 

So instead, Buller works with his clients for a couple of months to develop a thorough scope of what services they actually need, and then he quotes them a flat-rate fee. “If we do work outside of that scope, I do my best to tell the client ahead of time, ‘This is outside of scope, I think it’ll take about this much. Is that OK?’ And then anything that’s in scope that just happens to take us longer, then that’s on us.”

“So I just need to manage my hours very carefully and see what clients are consistently going over budget or under budget, and adjust accordingly,” he added.

For clients that consistently take him and his team less time than he has budgeted, he’ll voluntarily reach out and tell them he’s decreasing their bill by a certain amount. For clients that consistently take more time, he explains what he missed in the estimate that constitutes a higher bill, but he purposefully works on a month-to-month basis so as not to make clients feel as though they’re locked in to an unfavorable agreement.

Buller’s first piece advice, for young accountants especially, is the reminder, “You don’t know everything.” 

“I think a really good way to start your career is to go to work in an industry that interests you. Work for a company, boss, team and people that you respect and enjoy,” he said.

He also does not recommend trying to start a business right out of college, warning that most people will lack the experience and knowledge necessary to do so effectively. “Instead, I would go to work for somebody who does what you want to do, learn as much as you can from them about what not to do and what to do, and then maybe move on to starting a business.”

And as someone who did not feel like he fit into the traditional accountant mold but loved the accounting itself, Buller emphasizes the broad scope for applying accounting skills: “Once you have that framework and you understand the debits and credits, the different accounts and how it all works, you can look at any business with a perceptive eye.”

“A lot of businesses come out of a couple of people working at some company, seeing the same complaint over and over again, and then saying, ‘Why don’t we start our own business and solve this problem?'” Buller said. “That’s the heart of entrepreneurship — seeing a problem and solving it — and people will pay you to do that.” 

This story is part of series on how accounting entrepreneurs launched their practices.

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In the blogs: Exciting yet tricky

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Commissioner roulette; tax crimes and green cards; the trap of major projects; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Nothing but trouble

  • Don’t Mess with Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): That revolving door spun with unprecedented speed this season at the IRS. Would that were the only sign of disorder. 
  • Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox): What’s the future of tax administration? Or, more plainly, “How did the IRS end up in this much trouble?”
  • Global Taxes (https://www.globaltaxes.com/blog.php): How much will the slashed workforce hamstring the IRS for questions of international tax?
  • Eide Bailly (https://www.eidebailly.com/taxblog): Nothing unites people like a common enemy — which, for Republicans, means higher taxes. So it’s “a bit of a surprise” to see many indications that the White House and President Trump are considering letting the top individual income tax rate rise next year even as they try to arrest other Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expirations. 

Hamster wheels

Exciting yet tricky

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Education Department to restart student loan collections

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The U.S. Department of Education plans to resume collecting defaulted student loans on May 5 after a yearslong pause since the pandemic.

The Education Department said it hasn’t collected on defaulted student loans since May 5. The resumption of collections under the Trump administration comes after courts blocked the Biden administration’s attempts to offer student loan forgiveness. The Department of Education said it would start a communications and outreach campaign to ensure borrowers understand how to return to repayment or get out of default.

“American taxpayers will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a statement Monday. “The Biden Administration misled borrowers: the executive branch does not have the constitutional authority to wipe debt away, nor do the loan balances simply disappear. Hundreds of billions have already been transferred to taxpayers. Going forward, the Department of Education, in conjunction with the Department of Treasury, will shepherd the student loan program responsibly and according to the law, which means helping borrowers return to repayment — both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation’s economic outlook.” 

The department noted that 42.7 million borrowers currently owe more than $1.6 trillion in student debt. More than 5 million borrowers have not made a monthly payment in over 360 days and sit in default — many for more than seven years — and 4 million borrowers are in late-stage delinquency (91-180 days). As a result, there could be almost 10 million borrowers in default in a few months. When this happens, nearly 25% of the federal student loan portfolio will be in default. 

Only 38% of borrowers are in repayment and current on their student loans. Most of the remaining borrowers are either delinquent on their payments, in an interest-free forbearance, or in an interest-free deferment. A small percentage of borrowers are in a six-month grace period or in-school. 

Currently, almost 1.9 million borrowers have been unable to even begin repayment because of a processing pause put in place by the previous administration. Since August 2024, the Education Department has not processed applications for enrollment in any repayment plan such as Income-Based Repayment, Income-Contingent Repayment. The Education Department is already working with federal student loan servicers and expects processing to begin next month. 

Federal Student Aid plans to restart the Treasury Offset Program, administered by the Treasury Department, on Monday, May 5, 2025. All borrowers in default will receive email communications from FSA over the next two weeks making them aware of these developments and urging them to contact the Default Resolution Group to make a monthly payment, enroll in an income-driven repayment plan, or sign up for loan rehabilitation. Later this summer, FSA intends to send required notices beginning administrative wage garnishment. 

The Education Department also plans to authorize guaranty agencies that they can begin involuntary collections activities on loans under the Federal Family Education Loan Program after student and parent borrowers have been given sufficient notice and an opportunity to repay their loans under the law.

Over the next two months, FSA will conduct a communications campaign to engage all borrowers on the importance of repayment. FSA will conduct outreach to borrowers through emails and social media reminding them of their obligations and providing resources and support to assist them in selecting the best repayment plan, like the new Loan Simulator, AI Assistant (Aiden), and extended servicers call times. FSA will also launch an enhanced Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) process, simplifying the time that it will take borrowers to enroll in IDR plans and eliminating the need for borrowers to recertify their income every year. More information will be posted on StudentAid.gov next week.  FSA said there will not be any mass loan forgiveness.
More information is available at StudentAid.gov/end-default.     

In response to the announcement, a student loan advocacy group blasted the move.

“For five million people in default, federal law gives borrowers a way out of default and the right to make loan payments they can afford,” said Student Borrower Protection Center executive director Mike Pierce in a statement. “Since February, Donald Trump and Linda McMahon have blocked these borrowers’ path out of default and are now feeding them into the maw of the government debt collection machine. This is cruel, unnecessary, and will further fan the flames of economic chaos for working families across this country.”

The group said that earlier this year, the Trump administration chose to block access to affordable student loan payments by removing the Income-Driven Repayment and consolidation application and secretly ordered student loan servicers to halt all application processing. 

Prior to the Trump administration’s decision to remove IDR applications and halt application processing, over 1 million borrowers remained in a backlog waiting for their application to be processed. Only after pressure from a lawsuit filed by SBPC and Berger Montague on behalf of the AFT did the Administration restore the application. But to date, the administration has yet to begin widespread processing of IDR applications, leaving borrowers in economic limbo.

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PCAOB sanctions Adeptus Partners and Howard Krant for violations

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The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board sanctioned Adeptus Partners and its partner Howard Krant for violations related to supervision, review and quality control.

Krant and the firm violated PCAOB rules and standards in connection with the audits of two issuers: Blockchain of Things and Applied UV. 

“Substandard audit work and inadequate quality control put investors at risk,” PCAOB Chair Erica Williams said in a statement. ”When violations like these occur, the PCAOB will take enforcement actions to hold auditors and firms accountable.” 

PCAOB logo - office - NEW 2022

The violations committed by Krant include failing to adequately supervise the engagement teams on the 2020 Blockchain of Things and Applied UV audits, including failing to review the workpapers or obtain computer access to review the workpapers. according to the PCAOB. Krant also failed to properly review the engagement team’s work on deferred revenue for the Blockchain of Things 2021 audit to ensure appropriate audit evidence was obtained.

The firm was also sanctioned for failing to provide reasonable assurance engagement teams performed the audits in accordance with the applicable standards and regulations.

“The firm and one of its partners violated PCAOB standards in the conduct of the audits and failed to implement quality control policies and procedures to safeguard against these violations. The sanctions imposed by the board hold the respondents accountable for those failures,” Robert Rice, director of the PCAOB’s Division of Enforcement and Investigations, said in a statement.  

Without admitting or denying the findings, Krant and the firm consented to the PCAOB’s order, which:

  • Censures both respondents;
  • Imposes a $75,000 civil money penalty on the firm, and a $50,000 penalty on Krant;
  • Suspends Krant from associating with a registered firm for one year; and,
  • Requires the firm to hire an independent consultant to review and make recommendations to the firm’s system of quality control.

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