KerberRose: Big firm capability, small-town personality

Rich Palzewic

Staff

January 27, 2025

NORTHEAST WISCONSIN – From a single office in Shawano more than 40 years ago, CPA firm KerberRose has grown to serve clients in 13 locations across Northeast and North Central Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Michael Matuszak, the managing shareholder and CEO of KerberRose, said growth over the last four decades is a testament to the types of services the company now offers.

Matuszak said when Dave Kerber started the firm on July 31, 1984, it initially started as a traditional CPA firm.

“It’s definitely evolved over time,” he said. “As the market changes and our clients’ needs have changed, we’ve added value to our clients by offering additional services. From just having a couple of sole proprietors with a few employees to having about 250 team members total across 13 different locations, we’ve definitely grown.”

Matuszak said KerberRose is unique because of the amount of quality services it offers.

“We’re not just out to add services that we might not have the expertise in,” he said. “The services we have offered over time definitely bring value to our clients.”

Above and beyond being a normal CPA firm doing taxes, auditing, bookkeeping and payroll, Matuszak said KerberRose also has a wealth management division.

“That division has about 17 team members spread out across different offices,” he said. “We help clients with 401(k) services, as well as individual wealth management.”

Another area of expertise of the company, Matuszak said, is in HR.

“For example, if a business isn’t quite big enough to have a full-time HR person on staff, they’re able to retain us to be their fractional HR person, where maybe we help them 10 hours a month,” he said. “We are there to help them stay out of trouble and have the owners bounce questions and ideas. If all of a sudden there’s an issue with an employee or something, and they have to do a termination, we’re that backstop from an HR perspective.”

Matuszak said KerberRose also works in recruiting and something called out-placement.

“If a larger organization is doing layoffs, a lot of times, they will try to help those employees find new jobs,” he said. “So they’ll contract with us, and then we help the displaced employees do resume writing, mock interviews, etc., to get them ready for the next steps in their careers.”

Matuszak said KerberRose is almost like a “one-stop CPA firm.”

“We really try to help our clients throughout their entire business needs,” he said. “We’re trying to be advisors for business, versus just their tax person. I think mainly, most people probably still look at us as an accounting firm. I would estimate 80% of our revenue is still traditional CPA services and the other 20% is made up by those other services.”

With tax season fast approaching, Matuszak said many people have a fear of the unknown when it comes to taxes.

“Having an expert like KerberRose that can help navigate those tough situations, can ease their minds,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s people’s money, so it’s very important to them. From a tax standpoint, we want to make sure we’re getting people all of the tax deductions and tax credits they’re entitled to – thinking of that tax return as a puzzle, rather than just plugging the numbers in and they are what they are.”

Matuszak said the company also wants to parlay the tax portion of the business with the client’s wealth management.

“We want to make sure their investments can be more tax efficient as well – maximizing their return on investment, things like that,” he said. “All CPA firms will tell you they want to be a trusted advisor, but we truly try to have a more proactive touch where the client knows we see their overall financial picture.”

With many people doing their taxes online through websites, like TurboTax, Matuszak said those platforms can still serve a purpose.

“TurboTax certainly has its own market,” he said. “At KerberRose, we’re really targeting clients who might have a little more ‘meat’ on their tax returns from the standpoint of maybe they have some investments, rental properties, a business or a farm. People who just have a W-2 and some itemized deductions, there’s only so much we can do to add value for those people because the (tax) returns are more simple – the puzzle is a lot less complicated.”

Growth

Matuszak said KerberRose’s growth has come in two forms.

“A lot of our growth has been organic in nature – new clients who come to us through business development efforts,” he said. “We’ve also done a lot of mergers and acquisitions, at least since I joined KerberRose in 2015. We’ve been able to basically be the succession plan for some smaller firms in our communities where they didn’t have that next generation of person. Maybe the only way the owner was going to be able to retire and get paid for his or her practice was to sell to somebody else.”

In those cases, Matuszak said the employees in the mergers/acquisitions were also safe.

“We’ve done a lot of that where we’re able to onboard the clients and have that owner have a couple-year transition plan so the clients get comfortable with KerberRose, and then all of their employees come and join us,” he said. “It’s worked out well for us to build out our markets that way, too. It not only helps the employees, but their clients are continuing to be taken care of and don’t have to look for a new CPA.”

Matuszak said if the situation is right, KerberRose would consider adding additional services to meet its clients’ needs.

“But, I’d say we are pretty selective in what we offer,” he said. “We don’t want to necessarily be a jack of all trades and put ourselves out there as being experts in something we’re not. We have other referral sources or businesses in the community, and if all of a sudden, the client has a need, we have the ability to recommend someone to the client. We want to serve our clients in some of those niche areas.”

In addition to its Shawano location, KerberRose now has locations in Antigo, Appleton, Clintonville, Eagle River, Green Bay, Marquette (Michigan), Oshkosh, Rhinelander, Sister Bay, Stevens Point, Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids.

Like adding services over the years, Matuszak said KerberRose isn’t opposed to adding more locations in the future.

“We want to stay true to who we are as a firm, which is continuing to serve those smaller communities (in Northeast and North Central Wisconsin),” he said. “If you cut Wisconsin into thirds, we want to be in the top two-thirds of the state. We don’t really have any intentions of being in Madison or Milwaukee, but we want to continue serving those mid-sized communities and being people’s go-to. We don’t have aspirations of being a national firm or anything like that, but we’re also bigger than a mom-and-pop shop. We fit that middle market well.”

Matuszak said he also credits the company’s culture for the firm’s steady growth.

“One of the ways we’ve been able to grow and be successful is by focusing on our culture,” he said. “We’re very much an employee-first culture and making sure we give people the opportunity to grow with the organization. In some other firms, employees might feel like there’s a bit of a glass ceiling on them, whereas we really try to give people the opportunities to make their careers whatever they want them to be – whether that be working part-time and being a mom as your kids are growing up and maybe only working 1,800 hours a year, instead of the normal full-time.”

Matuszak said that means being flexible and keeping that small-town feel.

“I feel we have the resources of a larger firm because of our 13 different offices,” he said. “We have several experts and can collaborate utilizing technology. We can do all the things of those larger firms, but we don’t feel like a larger firm.”

For more on KerberRose, visit kerberrose.com.