Allard Still Doing Right Things for Right Reasons

After two decades in the public accounting business, Bart Allard is still sure of one important maxim: accounting is the backbone of business.

His success as a leading CPA and personal financial consultant in Rogers bears that out.

“If you don’t understand the business,” he explained, “you may be the best in your trade, but you may be unsuccessful in your business.”

Allard, 47, is the owner of Allard & Co. PA CPAs and the managing member of Allard Financial Advisors. The niche practices focus on high-net-worth individuals and small business.

During a recent interview, Allard said not all of the two firms’ approximately 350 clients are on both sides, but the ones who are receive the best of what Allard and his associates have to offer.

“When we’re doing the financial services work along with the tax planning, it’s a balance to make sure that people aren’t overly patriotic in paying their taxes, as I like to call it,” he explained.

In 2001, Allard was a partner at Lundy Allard & Co. PLLC in Rogers when he was honored as a member of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s  Forty Under 40 class.

A 1994 graduate of the University of Arkansas, Allard went to work for Frost PLLC in Little Rock before returning home to Rogers in 1997 to join Beall Barclay & Co. PLC.

In 1998, Allard went out on his own — an idea that intrigued him since his college days —when he acquired an accounting business from Diane Fischer in Rogers.

He merged the practice with Mark Lundy the following year, then in 2002 introduced the financial services wing, with two partners who include his brother, Paul Allard, and Tonya Fulcher. (Allard preferred to keep confidential the amount of assets under management).

The firm reinvented itself in 2008 when Missouri-based BKD LLP, one of the country’s largest accounting firms, acquired Lundy’s considerable audit practice, comprised of Lundy, three CPAs and 10 staff members, in order to establish an office in Northwest Arkansas.

Allard rebranded the firm to Allard & Co., a practice that today has seven full-time employees (with four temporary workers during tax season) and focusing primarily on individual tax, corporate and partnership tax, trust and estate tax and business consulting.

Allard said the firm’s revenue has increased 460 percent since 2001, and his philosophy is as straightforward today as it was then.

“Do all the right things for all the right reasons,” Allard said. “Everything else will fall into place.”

Allard said he is most satisfied in helping people and building enduring relationships with clients.

“The best days are when someone says ‘thank you;’ that’s better than anything,” he said.

He also takes pride in creating a culture where the clients come first. He also takes a degree of satisfaction in the company’s continuity.

“Our two full-time accountants that both work with me (Alta Wilson and Patricia Mangold) have both been here 10-plus years,” he said. “That’s pretty big. We want to make sure we give our people opportunities and we don’t want to lose the talent here.”

Allard, who moved to Rogers in 1979 when he was 12, recently celebrated his 16th wedding anniversary. He said balancing the demands of a job with the life he has with his family, which includes two sons, ages 13 and 11, comes down to priorities.

“That’s what it takes, and for me it’s faith first and family second, before business,” he explained. “If you have that, you’re going to do exceptional things.”

As a small-business owner, Allard has taken an active role in several local organizations. He is a past treasurer for the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Benton County and a past president of the Rogers Early Risers Rotary Club.

Allard said he also plays golf frequently, and he is a past member of the men’s golf association at Shadow Valley Country Club in Rogers.

Boating at Beaver Lake and traveling are also favorite family hobbies.

“I think our best [family trip] was taking our sons and doing the rapids at Grand Canyon for a week,” Allard recalled. “It was a rough experience, but it was an awesome experience.”