Springdale Firm Woos UA?s Best With Perks: Fiser Offers Quality of Life, Accounting Services

When Sam Fiser left Arthur Young & Co. in 1985, he never imagined his own public accounting firm would become a $1.3 million concern. A combined expertise in banking audits and an “employee friendly atmosphere” apparently made that a reality for S.F. Fiser & Co.r

Fiser said he can’t necessarily compete with the salaries Big Four firms use to lure some of the best accounting graduates from the University of Arkansas. But what his Springdale company can offer, Fiser said, is something the big boys can’t: a better quality of life.r

Fiser said his firm adheres as much as possible to a 40-hour workweek, although it’s sometimes 48 to 50 hours during the crunch tax season. That’s still better than the 60- to 70-hour weeks Fiser said new graduates can expect to work at larger firms and a big break from the working hours he remembers in the 1970s and 1980s.r

“I’ve been through that working 80 and 90 and even sometimes 100 hours a week,” Fiser said. “You burn people out and run them off … We try to structure our hours differently than that to be able to attract and keep people here and make sure we’ve got the kind of environment where they want to stay.”r

Three years ago, Fiser & Co. employed seven people. Today it employs 20, four of whom are CPAs, and Fiser said it will reach 22 people in May when his newest recruits from the UA come on board.r

At that time, he may have as many as seven CPAs.r

Fiser said auditing is about 47 percent of his firm’s practice, another 24 percent is business taxation and 12 to 15 percent is management advisory services with consulting, the remainder being individual taxes and miscellaneous accounting. He doesn’t pursue as much of the latter because banks have a filing deadline of March 31, which cuts into productivity for the April 15 deadline for individual returns.r

Karen Pincus, accounting department chair at the UA, said the majority of students she sees graduating still seek work at large firms. But she’s also seen an increased interest in progressive local firms that have strong internship programs such as Fiser & Co.r

“[Fiser] has happy employees, and happy employees are your best recruiting device,” Pincus said.r

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Big Leagues, Banksr

Fiser, a Little Rock native, graduated from the UA in 1971 and went to work for Russell Brown & Co. He worked there, eventually becoming a partner, until Jan. 2, 1981, when the firm merged with Arthur Young & Co. He remained a partner with that firm until 1985 when he left and opened S.F. Fiser and Co.r

Included in Fiser & Co.’s portfolio of clients are Metropolitan National Bank of Little Rock, the state’s sixth largest bank with $829.66 million in total assets, and United Bank of Springdale (see chart). The firm has also done accounting and consulting work for publicly traded Advanced Environmental Recycling Technologies Inc. of Springdale and Cannon Express of Springdale, before it was acquired by Arizona Diversified Equity LLC and delisted. Fiser & Co. primarily serves clients in Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri.r

Jerry Lipka, CFO of A&M Railroad, said he appreciates that he doesn’t get “nickel and dimed to death” over short phone calls to Fiser. “They’re a good fit for the medium- to small-sized company. They do good work at a reasonable price,” he said. Fiser has performed audits for the Springdale company for the past three years.r

Jeff Lynch, president of United Bank of Springdale, said Fiser & Co. has done his bank’s audit work for more than a decade.r

“Sam has been a longtime friend of our bank,” Lynch said. “[Fiser & Co. is] a great locally owned company, and we’re locally owned and appreciate that. Sam’s team is extremely accommodating, and they’re just good people to work with.r

“We’ve been very impressed with the quality of their work.”r

Fiser said that his business has come from word of mouth and referrals. Since the firm focuses on community banks, much of its work comes from banking officials for whom the firm has done audits and officials who have moved to other area banks, bringing Fiser & Co. along.r

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Other Benefitsr

Jeff Fender, CPA, who has been with the firm since 1995, said larger firms might have someone with only two or three years of experience working on an auditing engagement, whereas at S.F. Fiser and Co., Fiser himself will often work on the technical aspects of their accounting.r

Fender said that easy accessibility to Fiser is another great draw for new recruits.r

“Here, if one of our staff has a question, they can walk down the hall, come in and ask Sam and he’ll sit down and explain it,” Fender said.r

“I was able to work with Sam when I first started out. He was a Big Eight partner and was showing me everything that I was supposed to do. If I’d gone to work with a Big Eight firm, I’d have been trained by someone with two years’ experience.”r

The “Big Eight,” now down to the “Big Four,” refers to the country’s largest accounting firms at the time Fender graduated from college. Corporate mergers, buyouts and the demise of Arthur Andersen since that time have reduced that number to four major players — Ernst & Young, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte & Touche.r

Modest about the success his firm has experienced over the last few years, Fiser said, “we grew in spite of really not trying to.” He claims his staff of talented, hardworking people from the UA, where he recruits exclusively, is the reason his firm is able to serve its clients at such a high level.r

“Our ability to grow and continue to grow and be successful is totally dependent upon our ability to recruit the best possible people we can get in the office,” Fiser said.r

Fiser said he can maintain a client base that offers his staff the same auditing and consulting work that they might experience as if they had gone to work for one of the “Big Four,” just with a lot less travel and overtime.r

“There are a lot of young people seeking careers in accounting right now that really don’t necessarily want to go with Ernst & Young or Deloitte & Touche,” Fiser said. “We’ve been able to successfully recruit some of the best young people out of the program over at the university.”r

Fiser’s vision for his firm is to eventually have 30 to 36 people on staff and possibly start working more with publicly traded companies. He said that he gets calls from out-of-area firms seeking to partner or merge with him all of the time but that so far he has not been tempted to sell out or merge his firm.r

rCHARTr

rFiser Clients Includer

rClient——————————————City
rMetropolitan Bank————————Little Rock
rUnited Bank———————————Springdale
rCitizens Bank——————————Batesville
rArkansas & Missouri Railroad Co.—Springdale
rMulti-Craft Contractors Inc.————Springdaler

rSource: S.F. Fiser & Co.