Certifications
Jeff received his Enrolled Agent certification in 2014 and became a CPA in the fall of 2016. He is currently working on his Certified Financial Planner license to further be able to assist his clients and pursue another original passion of his: Finance.
Professional Experience
Having worked for himself for the majority of his professional career, Jeff is an entrepreneur at heart which is why he loves to help other entrepreneur’s manage their finances and build their business as a mentor and friend. He rekindled his original bookkeeping romance as a website developer and online poker coach by learning QuickBooks; he took that passion to start helping others around him before eventually turning it into a primary business.
He started Jeff Lipsey Bookkeeping, LLC (dba Lipsey and Associates) at the end of 2013 to assist clients with their bookkeeping needs first before adding tax services in 2015. Jeff can count several CPAs as mentors over the years and all of them have helped him grow not only his business but also his personal well-being to become the best executive and father he can be today. Among those he counts as close mentors is William G Beale, CPA and John Forch, CPA – without which Jeff would not have been able to grow and succeed.
Through the years of business, he has successfully built his team up from a single person with a laptop to a full team and explosive growth. He has done so by remaining true to the people that matter most to him: His family, his employees and his clients.
College Experience and Life Before Lipsey and Associates
Jeff graduated from the University of Illinois in 2006 with dual bachelor’s degrees in Accounting and Finance. Like so many other accounting students today, he lost his passion for accounting due to the lack of variety in the coursework and bad reputation that accounting firms have for treating their staff. It is common to hear that Jeff quit his accounting internship working as a franchise accountant at Jimmy Johns corporate headquarters to play online poker full time. He continued playing poker full time for 5 years after graduation before eventually moving on to other ventures including: General manager at a restaurant, website management and design and online poker training instructor and coach.
In 2012 he started to work with Robert Half and Accountemps to work on temp jobs in the area – even being offered a full time position as a staff accountant that he turned down due to salary concerns combined with his first child on the way. His next temp job later became his first client and that is where he met Elizabeth Quist, CPA, EA who influenced Jeff to start his own business to assist others in Bookkeeping and later taxation.
Hobbies
Outside of his business, he enjoys the outdoors and loves to dig in his garden at his house. He enjoys spending a lot of time with his family and cooking in the kitchen. In 2023, Jeff developed a new appreciation for the game of Chess due to its many similarities and competitiveness with the online poker he once had.
Early Life
Since Jeff was 15, when he first took accounting taught by his high school teacher Charles Gilmore, Jeff Lipsey knew he wanted to be an accountant. Jeff’s high school offered honors accounting courses which he took as a Sophomore and Junior in school. His teacher recommended Jeff compete in the accounting nationwide testing circuit as part of the “Business Professionals of America” after school program.
As a sophomore, Jeff competed against hundreds of other future accountants and placed first in his hometown Aurora and second in the state of Illinois which earned him a spot to compete at Nationals in Anaheim, California where he finished tenth. In addition, he won a two-year scholarship to the local community college to which he turned down to attend the University of Illinois – the top rated accounting program in the country.