1st Quarter of 2011

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 05:31:19 -0700

What a year so far, I think that I haven’t sat down since December. There has been a lot of closed doors, but I’m not giving up.

I still haven’t taken any parts of the CPA exam - all I can say is that the 2 times that I have scheduled the first part I end up having 2-3 60 hour weeks back to back and just out of exhaustion I reschedule. So the new plan to get me back on track is BEC in 3 weeks and REG at the end of May. I need to have my CPA license by the end of 2011!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 07:18:29 -0800

There is a lot to be thankful for this year, and as usual its all about family. Today, my son is 3 months old, my wife and I have been together for 4 years, and we are going to Ventura to see everyone on the Pitman side of the family. I don’t know what I would do with out all these people in my life. This Saturday we will come home and celebrate Thanksgiving with the Flynn side of the family and hopefully we will even see some friends this weekend as well. I am thankful for all of my family, friends and the relationships that I have with them.

CPA Exam

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 11:53:00 -0700

I have finally signed up to take the CPA exam. I have also enrolled in www.rogercpareview.com and will be taking the live classes starting in October. This has been something that I have been wanting to do since I was a kid and something that I have had on hold for the last 4 years.

My family will tell you that I probably still have the first penny that I ever found, and that statement may be true. I opened my first checking account in January 1989 when I was just 5 years old. My family, being small business owners, showed me how to fill out a ledger and balance a bank account. I started double entry accounting when I was 5 years old. Since then, I have held multiple jobs in industries such as healthcare, live entertainment, security, retail, real estate investment and management, public and private accounting, custom manufacturing and e-commerce. For over 20 years I have been tracking every cent that I have seen using double entry accounting. Using computers and the software that has become available over the last 2 decades, I started with Quicken and have since switched to Quickbooks for all of my personal accounting needs.

In 2002 I was accepted to Cal Baptist University, and there was no question what I was going to major in: Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting. The first day of class started at 8 AM with Dr. John Bonagofski and Accounting 1. I was pretty intimidated when I realized that he had assigned the entire book cover to cover, every question, every essay. After a week, I had no idea if I was going to make it, but I realized that I was picking up everything as second nature.

Fast forward 4 years to May 2006 and graduation day. A friend and I lived next door to the campus in an apartment. I had been interviewing for positions for a few weeks and hadn’t heard back on anything. After the ceremony, still sporting a cap and gown, diploma in hand, I walked back to the apartment. As habit, I pulled out my keys and checked the mail to pull out 1 letter. Vavrinek Trine Day & Company hired me as an auditor and that letter made graduation day one of the most exciting days of my life.

For 2 years I audited banks, government entities, higher education, small and medium businesses and non profits. I had just started studying for the CPA exam when an opportunity came up that was too good to ignore. I talked to the owner of a established business in San Diego who was looking into selling the business. The key to this opportunity was that he wanted to hire me, train me to take over and buy him out.

I have been a Production Manager for 3 years now and have learned the ins and outs of custom manufacturing. Changing careers, I didn’t leave accounting behind. Everything that I had used in the past came into play. I used cost accounting analysis to reduce the cost of both labor and materials. I used my experence with audit planning to reduce the average time in production from 18 days to 4 and have been providing analysis reports directly to ownership to help make business decisions. There is nothing that I have done in the last 3 years that is not related to my knowledge and ability in the accounting field.

Shortly after starting this position I started getting inquires about accounting and with little hesitation, I started Pitman LLC Business Services. Currently I have 3 clients that I have provided complete accounting and reporting services to. My first client, www.hireahelper.com, has seen growth of over 100% year over year. Lead by insightful entrepreneur Mike Glanz, I have provided them with 100% of their internal accounting from data entry and tax returns to management reporting and analysis. It has also been a privilege of mine to consult them on a custom accounting database that will help them scale their accounting needs through their growth over the years to come.

After 20 years of accounting, I am excited to take this step to add to my credentials. I am also excited for any opportunities that this will bring me in the future. Starting in just 2 weeks, I will begin my review course and starting taking sections of the CPA exam 2 at a time. From what I hear, an attorney friend told me that he passed the bar and failed the CPA exam and will never attempt it again. So here is to good luck and a year of studying, reviewing and test taking to come.

Mike & Me with Daniel & Abby.

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:18:43 -0700

Mike & Me with Daniel & Abby.

Jake Pitman

1st Quarter of 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

CPA Exam

Mike & Me with Daniel & Abby.