Cannabis Bookkeeping

Sarah Schiewe has been an accountant since the age of eight. And no, this wasn't forced child labor, but rather a natural inclination and interest that started with tracking her allowance, which turned into reading personal finance books which turned into an accounting degree, a CPA license and a fulfilling career.

The aspect of her career she finds most fulfilling is working with small business owners to help them understand their finances, taxes and business performance. She then empowers them to use that knowledge to make more money and keep more from Uncle Sam. Seeing these business owners go from a state of fear and overwhelm to one of confident sophistication is what makes her day.

When she's not balancing the books, you might find her referencing a cookbook (not to be confused with "cooking the books") while fixin' up something tasty. Or, you might find her on a hike with the hubby and their dog (an 8-year-old Borador) in tow, dutifully herding squirrels along the way.

Joe tends to extend patience to the degree that some (including his wife) would deem a bit excessive. It is through this patience, however, that he's discovered a genuine love for helping people. Born and raised in Southeast Arkansas, Joe grew up in what is colloquially termed "The Delta." It is in this land that he attained his BBA in Accounting from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. After college, Joe cut his teeth in professional accounting at a multi-state home décor operation, working officially as a staff accountant and unofficially as a utility man that assisted any fires that needed tending. Describing this time as trial by chaos, Joe got a healthy dose of daily accounting tasks (sales reports, journal entries, monotony…you get it). It was also during this time that he began co-parenting a rescue dog that turned up outside his office with a co-worker whom he'd eventually marry. Although the adventures at this home décor company were never boring, they also afforded limitations in further growth in the accounting field. With puppy and partner in tow, Joe decided it was time for a new challenge.

Thus, at the end of December 2015, he left and jumped straight into his first tax season at The Montgomery Firm, a local accounting office in McGehee, AR. It was here that his skills were truly refined, working under two of the finest CPAs he's known to date. From helping retail clients start from scratch to assisting with generational farmers' year-end planning, Joe realized he truly enjoyed the relationships formed with small business clients and realized they were more than reports and numbers. Despite the ideal nature of this period, Joe's long-term vision for his family included relocation to a more metropolitan area. After numerous heartfelt goodbyes to his colleagues, clients and friends, the Proffitt crew headed north.

Many would think that uprooting one's stable life during a once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully) pandemic is ill-advised. But to paraphrase John Heywood, "nothing ventured, nothing gained." After arriving in Little Rock, Joe soon found employment with the largest cultivator of medicinal cannabis in Arkansas. Rising quickly to the rank of Controller, the daily roller-coaster of meetings, software implementations and inter-departmental communications felt less like accounting and more like a corporate rat race, for which he'd never had much taste. Furthermore, work-life balance was constantly becoming more elusive at a time when he and his partner had decided to expand their family. Once again, Joe found himself at an inconvenient crossroads.

Upon reflection, both professionally and personally, Joe realized he missed the connections he'd once felt working in public accounting with small business clients. With this vision in mind, he came across Dark Horse. With this new endeavor, Joe's goal and passion are to assist clients by advancing their understanding of their financials, plan for the most advantageous tax positions available, and move toward lifestyles more conducive to holistic living. Essentially, he believes work should support life, not the other way around.

In his spare time (when he's not writing wordy bio's), Joe enjoys meandering around downtown Little Rock with his furry companion, reading a spectrum of non-accounting related works, cooking, and plotting trips in the perpetual hope that the pandemic will permit their fruition.

Colleen Bingley and John Warner grew up together. More specifically, they are brother and sister. Not only did they grow up together, but they chose the same vocation, live in the same neighborhood, and now work at the same accounting firm. More specifically, Colleen works closely with big brother John, supporting their clients on all things accounting and tax.

She also owns her own bakery called Gingersnap. One might look at her picture to understand where the name came from. However, she is quick to point out that no gingersnaps have ever been baked or served. So rest assured, her bakery is not some sort of crematorium for the mob but rather a haven for croissants and macarons, which she learned to make on a "baking vacation" (this is a real thing, apparently) bed and breakfast in France. The fact that she is a small business owner lends itself to a deep understanding of the needs of her small business clients.

She earned her CPA license in 2017 and cut her teeth in external audits over a 5-year period for a regional firm in St. Louis. Colleen is recently married and is quick to point out the ceremony was Covid-conscious and involved just her immediate family. She and her husband, Jake, have a cat named Pumpkin and aspirations to adopt a dog from the Humane Society. When not baking, accounting or renovating their new home in John's neighborhood, Colleen is likely to be hiking, playing cards, sipping wine outside, traveling or simply falling asleep to the movies her husband puts on.

John Warner is a principal at Dark Horse CPAs. His career began working for the “Dark Side” – the (gasp) Internal Revenue Service. After a year of enduring the painfully terrible jokes about the IRS that came about conversationally when John mentioned his employer (example: “You better be careful about what you say to John because he’ll turn you in”), John decided to put the jokes to rest by entering public accounting at a large national CPA firm, where he spent seven years growing a national tax real estate practice which served large, international real estate investment and management firms.

Throughout his tenure at the large firm, he couldn’t shake the idea that he could be doing more to help small businesses in his own community. This desire to work with small businesses led him to start his own practice catered to the “little guy” – going so far as to set up a firm and start advertising around town. But as usually happens with the best-laid plans, they went out the window when he serendipitously came across a job posting for Dark Horse CPAs. After talking to Chase and Max, the founders of Dark Horse, John realized he had met two guys who were already practicing what he was hoping to preach. Things moved fast – three weeks, some phone calls, and a job offer later, he was on a plane to San Diego to meet the team (his wife being legitimately concerned it might be a “Taken/Hostel/Saw/other scary movie here,” situation. Fortunately, it was not). Since then, John has been living his professional dream, assisting small businesses and individuals to improve their tax and financial position.

John grew up in St. Louis, MO, and still lives there. He went to college at Truman State University, where, within the first hour on campus, he met his future wife, Kendra. John and Kendra have three kids; Will, Annalise, and Patrick – and (usually) they are great kids. John (and Will) are fans of the St. Louis Cardinals and Blues (Stanley Cup Champs!), and since Kendra is a diehard Chiefs fan (she’s from Kansas City), John is more than willing to jump on that winning bandwagon.

When he’s not working or hanging out with the family, John pretends to train for marathons or finds projects to complete around the house on the family’s “fixer-upper.”

Sometimes you discover your calling in life far from home. For Riana, that calling was accounting, and that place was Eugene, Oregon. Riana grew up in Phoenix and, like many folks at that age, felt the calling to leave home and explore. A year in LA, six months in Atlanta, and then…Eugene. Maybe because the rain forces you to find indoor interests, Riana discovered her interest in (and eventual love for) accounting. Thus, Riana got her degree in Accounting from the University of Oregon. After a 16-year stint in the Beaver State (don’t tell that to an Oregon Ducks fan), she decided the state she left wasn’t so bad after all and the dry heat made her feel a lot better than the gloomy cold of the Pacific Northwest.

The Accounting Equation is Assets = Liabilities + Equity. Not many folks get excited about that, but Riana does. Even fewer would express love for an equation, but Riana does. The equation represents a form of order and structure absent in much of the world. Her accounting career has led her to firms small and large, each of which left her with a desire to start a firm of her own. When she found Dark Horse, she knew her new accounting equation would be Riana + Her Own Practice = Dark Horse CPAs.

Riana loves helping small business owners dial in their financial forecasting to make strategic business decisions and deploy tax-saving maneuvers to increase their global bottom line. She’s also passionate about sustainability and the triple bottom line. Riana’s bottom line is that she loves her work. Outside of work, she loves seeing as much live music as she can, chasing waterfalls (sorry, TLC), and spending time with her family: her partner, Robert, and her cat and dog, Spike and Lea, respectively.