I am excited to officially introduce you to Braden Calligan and Neil Patel, the faces and minds behind Calligan & Patel.
Why did you start your firm?
BRADEN: My dad gave all of his kids the “entrepreneurial gene”. When he and my mom were starting our family he opened a business as a financial advisor. Years later my older siblings (one brother and one sister) would start businesses too. My sister runs a dance studio in Waterdown and my brother is a board game developer!
What really drove me to starting this firm though, was to achieve a deeper sense of fulfillment with my work. I learned over the years that moving up a corporate ladder and tackling more and more complex work didn’t give me the same sense of accomplishment that I had felt when I was helping small business owners navigate their accounting and tax.
NEIL: I first thought about starting a firm long ago when I was exploring career opportunities in high school. After graduating from undergrad and continuing with obtaining my CPA designation, the thought of starting my own firm was always at the back of my mind.
During my 10 years in public accounting, I’ve dealt with small and medium sized businesses as well as larger businesses that typically have their own finance team in house. I enjoyed working with small and medium sized businesses the most as I felt that I was really able to provide value to the actual owners of businesses, as opposed to a finance team for larger businesses. This is the part of the job I found rewarding and I knew that if I started my own firm, I would focus on providing high value added services in the small and medium size business space.
Since starting our firm, this has continued to be our focus and it has been extremely rewarding. I absolutely love working with our clients to provide them with not only tax and accounting advice, but also general business advise to help them reach their goals.
When did you know you were ready to go all in?
BRADEN: During the covid lockdowns in 2020, I started exploring the emergence of work-from-home and virtual-work. I had never seen an accounting firm operate this way before, but the business seemed like the perfect match. I started doing some tax returns for friends and family in my spare time and I really had a vision of growing this into a real business. Neil and I had grown close back when we were working at a firm together, pursuing our CPA exams, and we always stayed in contact with each other after getting our designations. Lucky for me, when I told him I had started envisioning this virtual firm he was enthusiastic to start this up together.
NEIL: During my honeymoon last year in September, my wife, Nisha, and I were discussing the next chapter of our lives and I had brought up (probably for the 100th time) the idea of starting my own firm. Nisha is the one who really pushed me into pursuing this dream. Her support was everything I needed to go all in and bet on myself. It’s been an incredible journey so far with our firm, and I’m so thankful for her love and support throughout the journey.
Why are you a good fit for Lisa’s clients?
The first time we met Lisa, we were really impressed. Of course, she has a brilliant financial mind, as most CPAs do, but she offers much more than that to her clients. Lisa cares about the little details of her client’s lives, and these little details go a long way. At the core of every business are people, and if you don’t know them, or care to understand them, then you really can’t help them succeed. Success doesn’t always mean the same thing from company to company, from person to person. Lisa is an empathetic person, and her approach to working with her clients is very aligned with ours.
How would your clients describe their experience working with you?
Our clients place a high importance on our communication. We make ourselves available throughout the year, not just at tax time, and we are not delegating work to a staff that clients never see or hear from. We’ve had much appreciation from clients about our drive to discovering things for them that they hadn’t asked for. Sometimes there are opportunities to change ownership structures, or some other complex tax strategy. Other times, we simply find a cheque on their CRA account that they’ve never cashed or knew existed, and we get that cheque back into their hands.
Why did Neil choose to specialize in tax?
In a way, I stumbled on this specialization by accident. My first job as a co-op student was in the tax group of a large multinational accounting firm and I haven’t looked back since. I really enjoyed the world of tax from those early days and thrived on finding solutions to help our clients save on their tax bill. I received my CPA designation while focusing on tax and since then have completed several tax specialization courses to ensure I am on top of the most recent developments and tax law changes so that I can advise our clients in the best way possible.
Why did Braden choose to specialize in financial reporting?
Imagine you are vacationing in France. Do you need to be fluent in French? Of course not, but it would certainly help if you knew how to ask for directions, order a meal, or say “merci!”
Well, accounting is the language of business, and learning some of the in-and-outs is one of the most important things a business owner can do. You certainly don’t need to be fluent, but you should learn the basics.
During my career, one of my favourite jobs was training new CPAs. This accounting stuff can be really intimidating, so making it fun and digestible is the key to alleviating the daunting nature of it. I loved making a difference for new CPAs, and turning some of that stress and anxiety into confidence and calm. Now, I get that same sense of joy teaching my clients. If I can help my clients learn a bit of this language, and ease some of that stress, then my job is fulfilling.
Piece of advice for clients:
BRADEN: Staying on top of your books throughout the year, ideally monthly, makes all the difference. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to reconcile old statements the further out they are, and it’s more difficult to categorize transactions if they are not fresh in your mind. “What was this e-transfer for last week? Ah yes, I refunded a client”, is a much better scenario than “what was this e-transfer seven months ago? Let me scour my emails and box of receipts to find out”
NEIL: Record keeping is an important aspect for business owners and individuals. This is one area that we highly recommend everyone, business owners and individuals alike, stay on top of. This is important for a variety of reasons. The area we see it most commonly come up is when CRA sends out a review letter to confirm certain claims on tax returns. We have seen many instances where the CRA sends out a review letter, say to support a medical expenses claim on a personal tax return. When the CRA sends out a review letter, they want to see the actual receipts for the expenses rather than a list of the expenses with the description. If taxpayers are not able to provide these documents to the CRA will be quick to deny the claim.
This is something Braden and I like to communicate to our clients to ensure they are not missing out on legitimate expenses or deductions because they didn’t know to keep receipts. Proper documentation is also important when you are unsure of whether an expense is eligible for a tax credit or tax deduction. Good record keeping will allow Braden and I to review the document to make this determination for you to ensure you are not losing out on tax credits or tax deductions.
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