Robert Schaefer

The short version

I have spent more than 13 years in public accounting with stellar mentors and a wide range of work: bookkeeping, accounting, tax preparation and tax planning for closely held businesses and the families behind them. Along the way I kept getting pulled into the same side project: helping clients build the systems that fed the numbers, because the numbers were only ever as good as those systems.

Workflow Seams started as a consultancy helping companies integrate cryptocurrency into their accounting, grew into digital products and Notion systems for finance, and settled into what it is now: a fractional CFO practice that treats the data layer as part of the job. Today the roster includes a direct-to-consumer manufacturer shipping six figures of orders a year, a legal services firm with a $3.7M lead budget, production companies, studios, and the families who own them.

What I actually do all day

Less of it is accounting than you would think. A typical week has a bill-pay approval call with a CEO, a biweekly numbers meeting with a production company owner, a cohort model for a marketing diagnostic, a journal-entry import file to review line by line, a tax notice to kill, and a few hours building the integration a vendor's connector was supposed to provide. I write the controls frameworks, build the models and the data bridges, and then sit in the meeting where the owner uses them.

I also work alongside Ballyhoo, a marketing strategy agency, on engagements where the question is "what is our marketing actually buying us?" I bring the data and the finance; they bring the strategy. The answer is usually hiding in the seam between the two.

Two things I've learned

Being extremely busy doesn't create meaningful work for the client or for me. So the practice only takes on clients it can fully support.

Good work requires both sides to be serious about it. To hold up my end, Workflow Seams doesn't take standard after-the-fact bookkeeping or one-off tax prep. For the businesses and families we do work with, I operate as CFO, systems architect and project manager, among other roles. We still do the bookkeeping and the tax returns. They are two pieces of a much larger system.

How I work

• Direct. If the honest answer is "you need a different firm," you'll hear it on the first call. If the honest answer is "your vendor is wrong and here is the change log," you'll hear that too.
• Source data first. I would rather spend a month rebuilding from orders than a year arguing about a report.
• Small roster. You get me, not a rotating team.
• Collaborative on the specialized work. Wealth management, legal, and marketing strategy are handled with trusted partners, or with the professionals you already use.