Julie Riess, Director, Foster Results
Originally from Virginia, Julie Riess moved to Indiana in 1996. She has three daughters, a step-daughter and a stepson. In her spare time, when she has some in her busy schedule of work and school, she enjoys spending it with her 6 grandchildren, going to soccer games and watching dance practice. She and her family enjoy camping, watching NASCAR races and the Indianapolis Colts.
“I love my Colts!” Julie said. “During football season, every Sunday is Colts Day; the football lovers in the family get together to watch the game. The other ones aren’t allowed in the house because they won’t take it seriously.”
Julie got started in bookkeeping when she, her husband and her brother worked in the family tee shirt graphic design business in Virginia, where she managed the store and did the books. As her children were growing up she took a number of different odd jobs where she found that she really liked bookkeeping and accounting.
When she and her family moved to Indy, she worked for the Indy Star newspaper, then took a job with Terminex, which she refers to as the “Termite Bookkeeper.” Next, she took a position with a logistics company, then got a job as the comptroller for a multi-location storage company.
After taking a job with a local CPA firm, Julie saw college graduates with much less experience being hired in executive-level positions with real offices with doors, while she was stuck in a cubicle. She would be the one that all these “experts” would come to with a problem. “I had the experience and had done the work, and they’d come in and get the office with the door and the window, and I had a cubicle. I wanted the door and window, too.”
This was when she decided to go back to school. She attended Indiana Wesleyan University, and received a BA in Accounting She will graduate from her Masters Program at IWU in August, 2011.
Julie went to work for Jennifer Foster at Foster Results when she was recruited by a headhunter. “I liked what Jennifer did and and the way she modeled her business. With the firm’s innovative iFi system there’s no downtime; both the client and I have real-time access to the books. There’s no running around at the end of the month to get all your back-ups, like we had to do at the CPA firm.”
Julie has been with Foster Results for almost five years. “I took the position because in large CPA firms like the ones I was working for, you were either going to go “audit” or “tax,” and I didn’t want to go either way. I prefer to be a Managerial Accountant vs. just dealing with the ‘bottom line’.”
“I enjoy helping my clients make their companies grow, analyzing and figuring out what’s going on with the company versus just looking at it at the end of the year, doing their taxes, and being done with it. I knew that a CPA firm was not the way for me to go.
“At Foster Results no two clients are the same; everybody has their own needs and I enjoy the diversity of filling their different needs. That’s why our services are customized for each client.”
“For one client, I have a weekly email conversation where he gives me everything he’s done for the week, and we go from there. For another client, a large business that has grown tremendously, even during the bad economy, I do all their bookkeeping. I go there two or three times a week to pick up all their invoicing and Payables, and run and print checks for them.”
“For many of our clients, we will even handle online checking accounts. Our clients range from the smallest accounts, where we just house their books on our servers, all the way to full-service bookkeeping.”
“One of the great things about working for Jennifer is the team atmosphere she’s developed. If I need to take time off, or if I’m ill for a few days, the team will jump in to fill the gap and help out. And because of the way the company is set up, when I do go on vacation or visit family in Virginia I can take my job with me and work remotely if I need to. I can handle my client’s needs and take care of my family at the same time.”
