Employee Highlight – Carol Merrill – Bookkeeper

When Carol was young, she did not have a specific childhood career dream job, but her plan was to be very good, if not the best, at it – whatever “it” was. In college, she chose the major of Sociology because she enjoyed the classes, but it was during her Junior year when she took Accounting 101 and, CLICK, the light turned on! Eureka, this was what she wanted to do when she grew up.

Fast forward three decades, and Carol continues to “save the world from bad bookkeeping.” She started working at CPIBN in 2007, where she remains a member of the eclectic Group of Seven. Her part-time employment there has served her well. Working two part days weekly while raising her two children provided the opportunity to have the best of both worlds. As her children grew, she secured additional part-time opportunities and today provides accounting services to ten small businesses in WNY.

Bookkeeping tasks can be tedious but working in different environments for different business owners keeps the day-to-day fresh and interesting. She finds great satisfaction in identifying business owners’ accounting issues and goals and customizing her work to accommodate their needs.

When she’s not plugging away on her clients’ QuickBooks files, she’s either cooking, traveling, attending a local festival or event, or participating in an outside activity regardless of the season. Her days of running marathons and competing in triathlons are possibly behind her, but she is still very active. Hiking has become a newer hobby over the past five years. Her favorite place is the Grand Canyon; there is nothing as spiritually centering as being at the bottom of the Canyon dipping your toes into the freezing cold Colorado River!

Her accounting career has translated to volunteer work as Carol has held the role of PTA Treasurer and was a member of her church’s Budget Committee. Today she enjoys offering her time at ArtPark and Shea’s Theatre.

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