About FinElevate

How We Work

FinElevate is a different kind of accounting company. We’re founded by MBAs, not CPAs. We won’t bore you with technical jargon that requires a background in finance to understand. We demystify the accounting process with a focus on giving you clarity and helping you make more money. Typical accounting and bookkeeping services process payments, make sure expenses are categorized properly, send your standard financial reports at the end of the month (balance sheet, profit & loss, cash flow statement), and call it a job well done.

FinElevate goes further. In addition to entering your transactions and closing your books, we help your business make more money, through an objective and measurable three-step process for success:

Goal + FinScore + Playbook = Elevation

We first ask each client about their business goals. We then prioritize our work based on your goal, like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ story. Most of our clients are looking for one of four potential improvements: growth, profitability, cash flow, or preparing to exit.

With knowledge of your goal in hand, we establish your FinScore, our own proprietary method of simplifying your finances into a scorecard that can get everyone on the same page. Your FinScore will cover 20 different categories and create a baseline financial health of the business.

Once the FinScore is established, it’s time to get to work on the Playbook. Our Playbook is the culmination of dozens of books, courses, and best practices from our careers and extensive research. From over 450 total plays, we pluck the handful that will most dramatically impact the FinScore toward your goal. Our team works the Playbook while completing your day-to-day accounting tasks.

Our Why

Our Founder, Colin, learned from developing many entrepreneur friendships that the vast majority of owner/operators are sales or product-focused. Typically, the financial side of the business is an afterthought and a necessary evil. Adding value through accounting is a problem Colin struggled to solve in his own businesses, even though he’s a very financially focused entrepreneur.

Colin tried every different method: himself, another employee, 1099, small business bookkeeping service, and big firms. In each scenario he ran into the same problem: they added no value. That’s why he created FinElevate, to build the resources needed to add value through strategic accounting.

FinElevate Values

Head on a swivel

We ask “what does this mean?” and “what if?” like other people ask about the weather. Never satisfied with the status quo, we are always looking for ways to improve. Whether it’s getting to the bottom of an issue instead of applying a band-aid, or reimagining our entire client onboarding process, we see potential where others see problems.

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Elevate with tech

The accounting space is typically filled with manual work and outdated processes, but we’re not like that. We employ the latest tools and automation to elevate our team, allowing them to focus on what humans do best – human relationships, strategy, and creative thought.

Extreme ownership

Each team member is an expert in their role, and is trusted with that role. We believe that decisions should be made by the ones closest to the action. Team members own their decisions, results, attitude, communication with colleagues, and HOW things get done.

Good with numbers

We’re numbers nerds. The kind of people that look at a math problem and think “that looks kinda fun.” Drawn to the quantifiable, we use our energy for numerical reasoning, calculating, and strategy to reveal opportunities for our clients.

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Servant leadership

We believe that true leaders are driven not by personal gain, but by the impact they have on others. Our goal is to help our colleagues, customers, and company achieve more. Through them, we find fulfillment.

Learn and grow every day

Curious. Life-long learners. Our team is proactive in seeking out new opportunities to learn and continuously improve their skills. We cultivate an environment that supports experimentation, fosters creativity, and encourages our team members to take smart risks.

Meet the Team

Colin Sanburg, Founder

Colin started at 21 in a family business and quickly realized the business was a financial house of cards. Over several ugly years, he developed a passion for solving those profitability and cash flow problems and later scaled that business as owner and CEO. He reinvested profits from that first business to buy several other businesses and real estate. Along the way, Colin realized that no middle market or large business survives without mastering its finances, yet very few small business owners are financially focused. That realization led him to study every small business finance book he could find, complete several small business finance courses, including Strategic Finance at Harvard, and earn his Executive MBA from The University of Texas at Dallas.

Colin’s passion for connecting with and helping other entrepreneurs came from starting several mastermind groups and spending hundreds of sessions giving advice and support. Through it all, he became the go-to person in his circles for financial strategy and advice.

Those combined experiences led to the founding of FinElevate to deliver on his passion for helping small businesses elevate their finances. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with his wife, Alison, a licensed social worker, and their three children.

Rachel Lundeen, Director of Operations

Rachel brings structure, data, and automation to the FinElevate team. A certified Integrator/Director of Operations through Spyglass Academy, she specializes in creating efficient systems, data-driven decision-making, and team accountability. Prior to joining FinElevate, Rachel worked at a national TV advertising agency as the head of the media analytics department. There, she developed and automated a proprietary method of forecasting agency revenue. Before that, Rachel worked in nonprofit developing operating budgets and tracking success metrics.

A self-proclaimed finance nerd, Rachel has always been the person friends go to for financial advice and goal setting. She relishes being the translator between finance-speak and non-finance people. Rachel lives in Minnesota with her husband and their rambunctious toddler.