A Note from jason
Our experiences shape the people we become.
Mine starts with a paper route.
Delivering the morning edition on a bicycle before school taught me two things at an early age: first, you have to ask people to pay you, second, the work had to get done, whether you felt like it or not.
I would continue to work part-time jobs through high school (including summers in my uncle’s meat packing business), then in college I took a year off from studies and went to work for a local bicycle shop. I was in my early twenties and spent every day around bikes.
I thought I'd found the perfect job.
One year turned into four, and importantly, I learned how a small business actually works, and I was offered a partnership in a mail-order business. I designed catalogs, created product numbers in our DOS inventory system, managed shipping, selected product lines, and handled customer service. I essentially ran the operation.
I’ve also worked with very large businesses. When I was with a regional CPA firm in the Permian Basin, I worked with the state's largest independent oil and gas exploration and development company. What surprised me was how companies generating enormous amounts of revenue were not that different from the small businesses where I got my start.
Whether a company earns $500,000 or $500 million, they wrestle with many of the same questions:
Cash flow? Hiring? Pricing? Growth? Planning?
The numbers get bigger, but the challenges don't disappear.
When my wife and I started our family, we moved back home to Gallup, New Mexico. I spent the next seventeen years back in the Native American art industry before I opened Arsenault CPA Firm in 2023.
I know what it’s like seeing business from both sides of the desk.
I know what it's like to worry about payroll.
I know what it's like to wonder if a new idea will work.
I know what it's like to build something that depends on the decisions you make every day.
Now I get to sit down with business owners every day and talk about what's working, what's not, where they want to go, and how we can help them get there. It's why I love what I do.
Yes, we prepare tax returns.
But our real work is helping people build better businesses.
We're always hoping to earn the opportunity to help one more client. I hope that next client is you.
Jason Arsenault, CPA, Founder
How We Think About Our Work
The core of what we do for small businesses is bookkeeping, tax planning and preparation, and payroll. Here's what that process looks like.
Your books should serve your business, not the other way around.
Your books should be legible to you and useful for decisions, not records that only satisfy the accounting function.
Your business should be something you own, not just something you do.
Even a very small business needs an owner's mindset, and the shift pays most when it starts early.
Your time is the most valuable resource in your business.
Maturing as a business means doing only the work that genuinely requires you and deliberately offloading the rest.
You deserve to hear what you need to hear, not just what's comfortable.
When something in your books or your structure isn't working, we will tell you, and help you find a solution.
Where We Work
Arsenault CPA is based in Gallup and serves businesses across New Mexico.
The firm is built for this state: New Mexico gross receipts is a core part of how we serve every client, not an exception we handle on the side.
Ready to make your business easier to run?
Whether you're running crews, seeing patients, or selling your work, you get one firm handling the books, payroll, taxes, and New Mexico gross receipts, and the peace of mind that it's actually handled.