Short Bio
Joanne Leasure is the founder and owner of Day One Accounting and Financial Services LLC. She has over 20 years of experience in financial reporting, analysis, forecasting, budgeting, cash management, and controls in a variety of industries such as manufacturing, real estate sales, real estate development, property management, travel, healthcare organizations and non-profit. She is an effective project, program and change manager instrumental in a number of accounting system conversions, upgrades and rollouts, while integrating them with adjustments in financial reporting requirements.
Excited to bring her broad range of knowledge to small businesses, Joanne realized she could give a level of expertise that most bookkeeping service could not. She has said, “Small businesses deserve professional, reliable and responsive accounting services, and I have a proven record in the corporate environment that I strive to bring to my clients everyday”. She has managed high net worth portfolios for principals of companies and has extensive knowledge of supply chain financial functions, treasury, accounts payable, billing, collections, payroll, project costing, and department leadership and management. Through hands-on involvement she focuses on creative problem-solving and increasing efficiencies with the technical aspects of accounting. By collaborating and building strong relationships with vendors, clients and employees she maps out a pathway to discerning the forest from the trees in businesses and organizations.
As the controller of Via of the Lehigh Valley, a non-profit, Joanne lead her team of Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Payroll through monthly closings, annual audits, and a payroll system implementation and upgrade. As the accounting supervisor for Essroc Cement, Inc., a leading North American Cement Manufacturer with over 6.5 million tons of capacity, Joanne directed an accounting team in a shared services department through completion of over 20,000 monthly transactions using an ERP system, and eliminated the need for overtime by successfully integrating outsourced scanning and indexing of invoices and reducing expenses by 10% after analyzing accounts along with her procurement team. Joanne also collected over $24K in refund checks from inactive vendors who retained credits on their trial balance.
Working with public companies Joanne had the opportunity to analyze client contracts, assisted in preparation of financials such as 10-Q and 10-K. She wrote and implemented accounting procedures for several corporations that are still in use today and she has worked on several software platforms such as SAP, Yardi, Kronos, MDS, Sage, MAS 90, SBT, QuickBooks and Peachtree, just to name a few.
Joanne worked eight years for Macklowe Management Inc., a New York developer that managed a diverse array of real estate investments, covering more than 10 million square feet in nearly every commercial and residential submarket of Manhattan. She has recently worked for City Center Allentown, a high-profile real estate developer in downtown Allentown, utilizing Neighborhood Improvement Zone capital for their development projects. She currently serves on the board of Women’s Business Council as well as the African American Business Leader’s Council for the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, served as Treasurer for her local BNI chapter, and previously served on the board of directors of TEACH Rwanda, and has volunteered at Monroe County Children and Youth as a foster parent to young adults. Joanne received her bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University and is working on her MBA at DeSales University. She lives in North East Pennsylvania with her husband George, where they enjoy their blended family of four adult children and dogs and cat.
7th Avenue Express
My first subway ride by myself in New York City had a lesson I must remind myself from time to time. When I entered college, my friends used to call where I grew up, East Bubble Fu** Long Island. They had never heard of my small town. Shortly after high school graduation, my parents packed me up in their black Lincoln Continental on a hot July afternoon and we headed west on the 495 and off to New York University. They then just left me on 8th Avenue in front of a building called Brittany Residence Hall. It was always that type of relationship. My dad would pull up to a curb somewhere and yell, “Bail out!” and off I would go.
From green grass and fresh air to blacktop and concrete, I had arrived. I grabbed what looked like a laundry cart, threw my bags in, got on the service elevator up to my assigned room, and met my roommates. We all picked our beds (I settled for the bottom bunk on the far side of the dorm) and then I got bored quick. I headed down to the lobby stood in line for the payphone and put a couple of quarters in to call home. My dad laughed when he picked up the phone and realized it was me. He said, “You’re on your own kid. You can do this.” I was so out of my comfort zone of home and the familiarity of privacy. I was anxious to do something recognizable like a walk through the woods that encapsulated the stillness of my neighborhood.
The surrounding brick buildings seemed to function like an oven. I remember my first night in New York City. No air circulated in the room despite the windows being open. At around 2am, the garbage trucks whistled as they backed up and slammed as they loaded. It seemed never ending, I woke up wanting to go someplace, any place but there. So, in the morning, I waited my turn for the shower, threw on a one-piece, no brand-named short set and headed up the block.
There it was. The number 2 train, 7th Avenue Express. I had been on a train the year before on my senior class trip. So, I understood I needed a token to put in a turnstile and I would jump on a train when it came. I had no concept of what side of the street I needed to be on and what direction I needed to go to get uptown or head further downtown. The 2 came to a screeching halt and I watched people parade off. I followed behind the group that moments before, waited on the platform, onto the train. Slightly above the noise and before the doors closed, I heard a man’s voice say something that sounded like he had rapidly given a description of where we were headed, but I could not make it out.
I surveyed the walls flashing by, and then the people who stood or sat blank faced and quiet. I finally got off when I recognized I made it somewhere I had heard of before… Times Square. The car doors opened, and it was a mad dash it seemed for people to impatiently hustle off. I moved with the crowd, ran upstairs with them, as if there was a fire behind us. Until like a flood, we let out on the street. I remember not wanting to look like I did not belong. Afraid it would make me look vulnerable, I continued to step fast with most of the crowd who seemed to all scatter in several deviations. I must have walked 3 blocks before I finally stopped to admit to myself, I had no idea where I truly was, what direction I had walked, or why I had even been there in the first place.
Fast forward to the feeling I had when I started my 1st failed business. I knew what I was good at, but I had no idea about business or how to make money at it. I just followed the crowd to nowhere and when it failed, I continued working my job in accounting (which by the way, had nothing to do with my major but that is another story). I was good at the technical end of accounting, but I was great when I used my gifts along with it. I wrote procedures for organizations and narratives for auditors. I supervised and trained teams, collaborated with department heads in organizations on how to sync their system flow with the accounting structure. I enjoyed researching out of the box features of business and teaching my colleagues the behind the scenes reasons why services operated a certain way. People appreciated my knowledge and experience, and I felt great sharing it.
Through the years I learned many people are on a journey to nowhere because like me on my subway, there is no plan, no guidance, and no strategy. By the third time I decided to go at business, I had recognized the gap between having a talent and having a plan that makes it a business. I wanted to hit a target that allows businesses to analyze their gross margins and know the performance of their product or service.
And although money is not everything, understanding it, knowing where it is and where it went, keeps their vision focused as a business and not a hobby or a “willy nilly” adventure to nowhere.
My name is Joanne Leasure and I help small business owners understand their revenue, their expenses and their cash flow and utilize it to strategically move in the direction of growth and sustainability.
Before progress can happen, we need to put a pin in where their numbers are. You heard it before, “If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business”. Once clarity is accomplished, I formulate a financial system for that business going forward to stay on track with their numbers, be ready for tax time, loan applications, and creditors and then we leverage the system we’ve built to move the business on a path that is intentional and successful. I tell all my clients, “You gotta start somewhere!”
For me it started on the 7th Avenue Express on a journey to nowhere in particular. For you and your business you can start at Day One Accounting and Financial Services. We have an itinerary for you, your numbers, and your business.
Let’s go!