The CPA Sisters Built Their Firm on a Rule Most Accountants Ignore

14 Apr The CPA Sisters Built Their Firm on a Rule Most Accountants Ignore

Posted at 23:47h in Blog by

Jessica Chompff and Charlene Carpenter — siblings, CPAs, and co-founders of CC Group Advisors — explain why they refuse to see clients only once a year and how that simple change rescues business owners from missed opportunities and IRS trouble.

A Client in Trouble

One of the first clients to walk through the door at CC Group Advisors arrived carrying a stack of IRS notices. The business — a C Corp dating back to the 1970s — had been relying on a family friend for accounting help. "I say helping very lightly," Charlene Carpenter recalled on The Jeff Crilley Show. The previous CPA had been meeting with the owner once a year, the standard arrangement at most firms. By the time the sisters got involved, the damage was already done.

"They started getting IRS notices, they now were afraid things weren't being done right," Carpenter said. "When we came in, we kind of went through everything, started explaining it, and found there were definitely missed opportunities." The sisters dug in, connected the owner with attorneys, overhauled the company's documentation, and started making changes that had been ignored for years. It was exactly the kind of case that proved their thesis: the once-a-year CPA model was failing business owners, and nobody was talking about it.

From Nordstrom to Numbers

Neither sister set out to become an accountant. Charlene loved algebra in high school but had no intention of entering the profession. When she had her daughter and needed more income, she started working at a tax office in California. Jessica, meanwhile, was managing a Nordstrom store. "She was like, I don't wanna do retail anymore," Charlene said. Jessica joined her sister at the same firm, and Charlene taught her the fundamentals.

Jessica went back to school. The two worked at different firms, then at the same firm again, then at separate firms once more — a winding path through the California and later Dallas-Fort Worth accounting worlds. "We did fight a lot when we were kids but I think all that was out of the way," Jessica told Crilley with a laugh. "It was very easy for us to work together and she really did teach me everything she knew when I stepped in at that first accounting firm." Eventually, the sisters decided to stop working for other people. "We started from ground zero," Charlene said.

Breaking the Once-a-Year Model

The firm they built, CC Group Advisors, was designed around a conviction that most of their industry had it backward. "We built our firm with a preface we wanted to be different than tax office, typical tax office, and so we only work with business owners," Charlene explained. The core requirement: monthly meetings. "We can't help them if we're not talking to them constantly," she said.

The logic is straightforward. When a business owner shows up in March with a year's worth of receipts, the books are already closed. "You can't help them with anything — it's all reactive, not proactive," Charlene said. Monthly contact means the sisters catch problems early, answer questions as they arise, and surface issues that owners might be "shoving under the rug." Asked why they go above and beyond when other Dallas CPA firms would just cash the check, Jessica was blunt. "I think the work's more enjoyable that way," she said. "Actually getting to help people reach their goals and watch their business grow over time is really rewarding."

Building a Referral Network

Part of the sisters' model extends well beyond spreadsheets and tax codes. Both are deeply involved in ProVisors, a professional referral network organized around the motto "Know, Like, Trust, Refer." Charlene joined first; Jessica followed almost exactly a year later. The network groups professionals — CPAs, attorneys, insurance specialists — into pods where members get to know one another before sending clients back and forth.

"You're not going to send your largest client to someone that you don't really know, just because they gave you a business card," Charlene said. She described meeting referral partners through what ProVisors calls a Troika — a small lunch where professionals explain how they work, their demeanor, their personality. "Clients, they're all different and not one size fits all," she said. The sisters now lead their own groups, attend socials, and plan events for affinity groups within the organization. "One of our core values is have fun," Charlene said. "So that's what we do."

Complementary Strengths

The sisters are candid about what each brings to the partnership. Jessica described Charlene as a natural connector with decisive instincts. "I'll sit there and I'll do, like, the back and forth, like, well, we could do this or we could do this. And then Charlene's like, nope. We're doing this. Decision made. Like, let's go," Jessica said. "And I'm like, okay, thank you. I was spinning my wheels a little bit there."

Charlene, in turn, credited Jessica's command of tax research. "The Internal Revenue Code can be really hard to go through," she said. "When there is a strategy that we want to implement, she makes sure hand, tooth, and nail, 110%, that it will fit with that client, and that it's legal." Jessica verifies documentation requirements, prepares for potential audits, and ensures every strategy the firm recommends can withstand scrutiny. "She totally nerds out on it," Charlene said.

A Gap Most Owners Feel

The sisters' pitch resonates because the frustration they address is nearly universal among small business owners. As Crilley noted at the top of the interview, even entrepreneurs who like their CPA are quietly wondering whether their firm is doing enough. Charlene said that's exactly where most of their client relationships begin: "They think they need more, they want more, maybe there's missed opportunities and they're really not getting a call back from their current CPA."

"Sometimes they don't even know what they want," she added. "They just know like, there has to be more out there. Maybe it's the numbers, like, yeah, these are probably messy. Maybe I'm not getting the bank loan I wanted — that happens a lot too." The pattern is consistent enough that the sisters have built a practice around it.

What Comes Next

For now, Jessica Chompff and Charlene Carpenter are still doing what they set out to do when they launched CC Group Advisors from scratch — meeting business owners every month, digging into the problems no one else wants to surface, and connecting clients with the right professionals through their expanding network. "It's not just numbers that CPAs can help with," Charlene said. "We see a lot of stuff in businesses — why not share the knowledge?"

Jessica Chompff, CPA, MST, CTP, is co-founder of CC Group Advisors (ccgroupadvisors.com) alongside her sister Charlene Carpenter. This episode was recorded at The Jeff Crilley Show studios in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Key Topics

  • proactive monthly CPA meetings vs. once-a-year tax prep
  • working exclusively with business owners
  • catching missed tax opportunities and IRS notice recovery
  • the ProVisors referral network and Know, Like, Trust, Refer
  • complementary strengths of the CPA Sisters
  • tax research and audit-ready strategy vetting
  • building a professional referral network as a small firm

Episode Timestamps

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Episode Chapters

  • 00:00 – Introduction
  • 01:22 – Meet the CPA Sisters
  • 02:02 – From Retail to Accounting: The Origin Story
  • 03:44 – A Different CPA Model for Business Owners
  • 04:39 – Why Going Above and Beyond Matters
  • 05:02 – Client Success Story: Fixing Missed Opportunities
  • 06:09 – The Power of Provisors Networking
  • 08:22 – Know, Like, Trust, Refer: Building Relationships
  • 09:16 – Each Sister's Unique Brilliance
  • 10:33 – Final Thoughts: Why Switch Your CPA
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