It is the beginning of the 1970’s and within a few small and growing communities (Salt Lake City – Utah, Phoenix – AZ and San Diego – CA) we find several hard-working business owners doing what it takes to keep their businesses alive and hopefully thriving. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Despite all the blood, sweat, and tears, a business owner faces almost certain doom as he looks to file bankruptcy. As a last resort, the business owner invites a man named Alf Bostrom into his office who claims he can turn his business around and bring it back to life.

 

Alf is a middle-aged man, a father, husband and Navy veteran of WWII. He has created a reputation for himself as the “Turn-Around King.” A business whisperer of sorts, he seems to know how to communicate directly with any business, finding out its ailments, understanding its strengths, and turning it into a vehicle for wealth and accomplishment.

Speaking the Universal Language of Business

As Mr. Alf Bostrom sits down with this business owner on the brink of bankruptcy, he asks to see his books. “What does your accounting information look like?” Pouring over the mess of numbers he begins to organize what the business is saying to him and realizes she still has life in her. There is a way to bring this business back to health. The accounting data has been done diligently and honestly. The information doesn’t lie, and Alf begins to help this business owner effectively communicate with his business so they can immediately begin to nurse it back to health.

 

This routine has become all too familiar for Alf. He sees this happening all the time as business owners consistently come to him asking for help to save their dying business. They all have varying degrees of understanding when it comes to business. Some have their spouse running the finances, others have a certified or degreed accountant working for them. No matter what level of business acumen these failing businessmen have, there’s one thing they have in common, they don’t know how to effectively communicate with their business. This is what Alf is doing for them. He takes great joy in getting to understand a business’s accounting information and then using it to bring the business out of turmoil and into order.

Teaching the Principles of Universal Accounting

Though it is rewarding work, it is also scary to put in order a business’s accounting and then hand back the control. Alf recognizes he must do more than just put things in order. These owners lack the ability to communicate with and understand their business. For them to have any lasting chance in the world they need to be taught, and taught well, the universal principles of accounting, the Universal Business Model. How do you teach and instill the universal principles of accounting into a business, with non-accounting types? Alf takes on this challenge for a good portion of the 1970’s. He works on a business training program that gives his clients just what they need for continued success beyond his direct help.

The Birth of the Universal Accounting Center

In 1979, Alf begins to see his training program turn into a stand-alone service. Word of mouth spreads and many of his consulting clients are telling others about this amazing program that taught them the universal language of accounting and saved their businesses. With excitement and a desire to help more businesses successfully navigate themselves towards success, he creates the Universal Accounting Center.

 

Now there is a resource to empower the small business community with the accounting information they need to be profitable! Not only are they taught how to create the Chart of Accounts, record their data, and generate reports- they are taught how to communicate and understand that information so intelligent decisions can be made within the company.

A Legacy of Knowledge and Wisdom About to be Lost

Alf Bostrom couldn’t keep educating the Salt Lake small business community forever. As age and a desire to move towards retirement came, Alf gradually brings his son Allen into the business. Groomed and taught by one of the small business greats, Allen now has the task of growing Alf’s legacy. No small task to be achieved.

 

Allen takes Universal Accounting to new heights receiving the following accolades: the 100 Fastest Growing Businesses in Utah (for 5 years running) and makes it to Inc. 500’s list of America’s fastest growing private companies (Inc 5000 for 5 years running).

 

Despite the success, there’s still one goal that Allen has not yet accomplished- to ensure his Father’s knowledge and wisdom lives on. The lifetime knowledge of helping save and grow small businesses has been kept in Alf’s mind and his son is determined to translate that strategy into a format that every generation can benefit from.

Alf’s Legacy Saved

Allen takes the challenge of defining the timeless principles his father learned over a lifetime and places them into two books. In his first book, In the Black, Allen distills his father’s work into nine powerful principles to make any small business profitable. With this accomplishment, he realizes another significant part of his father’s legacy that needs to be preserved. Alf’s beginnings were bringing failing businesses from a place of near death to a place of security and growth.

 

Allen then wrote his second book, Red to Black, and designed it in a “how-to” fashion using the principles his father began implementing as “The Turn-Around King.”

 

With the two books complete and a thriving education business beneath him, Allen is grateful for his accomplishments. A Father’s legacy is secured and a son’s duty and desire to memorialize that legacy is fulfilled, he has truly honored his father.

 

A New World of Information

 

Like any remarkable story, there persists and ebb and flow of struggle and triumph and the growing story of Universal Accounting is no different. In these recent years there has been rapid and constant change in the way we consume information. Allen began to face this as he started writing his books and now faces the challenges of teaching accounting principles to small businesses all over the world via the web. He doesn’t face this alone as the weight of responsibility has been transferred to a new leader who has risen from the tutelage of now two small-business greats.

 

Roger Knecht is that leader and his charge is to test the timelessness of Universal Accounting’s principles. Post-secondary education is a whole new world compared to when Alf first started The Universal Accounting Center. The brick and mortar classroom Alf taught in has morphed into wall-less online courses and programs with a mixture of everything in between. The transition is not easy and change only seems to move faster as Roger works to keep up with a constantly expanding e-learning industry.

Principles Are Timeless

Throughout the last few decades, many things have changed. Economic stability, disruptive technologies and developments in communication have led to momentous change in business. However, Universal Accounting has found that despite the changing times, the accounting principles that Alf founded this company on remain true and pertinent to businesses of any age or decade. Roger teaches The Keys to Success that accountants and businessmen need to enhance the nine principles that Alf first identified to help business owners as well as Universal Accounting Center today. Though Universal Accounting continues to evolve since its creation, the fundamental business principles have largely stayed the same. This truth has caused sustained growth and prosperity for them and for those businesses Alf saved decades ago. With each business it is the same, helping the business owner:

 

• Understand Accounting
• Increase Revenue
• Improve Profits
• Build Value

 

Each using tried and proven processes, procedures and strategies.

 

Universal Accounting Is the Authority
One great revelation the Universal Accounting team now realizes is this: they are the authority for small businesses looking to survive and flourish. With decades of experience beneath their belt, Universal Accounting has proven they can stand the test of time. But more importantly, Universal Accounting can employ its timeless principles to help your small business prosper and stand the test of time.

 

Universal Accounting now challenges you to learn and implement timeless business principles into your business. The first step is easy and free, request your business score now: