Caitlin Clow
Contributor
It was the mountains that called Christina Chong away from the skyscrapers of her hometown Toronto when she settled in Alberta’s Bow Valley in 2013. But before the decade was out, she laid her roots in Revelstoke.
Christina opened Sync Accounting with her husband and partner Steven Klinger to serve businesses in her new mountain town in February 2019.
“I really want to go skiing,” she said. “And then I realized I’m an accountant who wants to go skiing in the winter…”
“Not exactly compatible,” she said with a laugh.
Tax and ski season are nearly synced with accountants working long hours to meet tight deadlines typically from January through to April.
Christina’s time working as a certified public accountant (CPA) in larger firms motivated her to try to go on her own.
“My parents are both entrepreneurs, so I grew up with that entrepreneurial spirit.”
She shared that she really looks up to her parents because they always made running a business and raising children seem easy.
“Why didn’t you tell us the truth,” she said with a laugh. “I admire them so much. Props to parents who are also entrepreneurs.”
COVID-19 threw a wrench in Christina and Steve’s February opening in Revelstoke.
The pandemic pushed all of Sync’s full-cycle accounting services online in its inaugural tax season, but Christina said it also offered an opportunity for the company to grow in sync with the lifting restrictions.
“It was a challenge that turned into a bit of a blessing,” she said.
“We were so excited to meet our tax clients,” Christina said, noting the team rushed through renovations and got everything organized, hired one staff member, and bam! Lockdown.
Now, their team is growing. Christina gave thanks to Okanagan College in part.
She shared that two members of her team joined up after completing their practicum at Sync.
“I didn’t realize how much I appreciated that three-week practicum,” she said. “We’ve taken it as a part of our hiring process and we always try to hire locally first.”
Before Sync, Christina said: “I didn’t feel like I was helping.
“Now I get to see businesses grow. I get to help people get to where they want to be.”
Part of this sees Christina developing a new course that will teach business owners how to utilize QuickBooks, an accounting software geared toward small and mid-sized businesses.This, she said, will be very useful for clients.
Christina’s passion for helping the local business community extends past her regular work hours. She was sworn in again on March 15 as the Revelstoke Chamber of Commerce’s Treasurer.
She was drawn to the chamber as a new business owner to keep her finger on the pulse.
“I wanted to know what was going on in the community and meet other businesses,” she said. “It really nice to meet more business owners who are facing some of the same challenges.”
Many people she’s met through the chamber, she said, have actually gone on to become clients of Sync.
In her role, she represents the chamber on the board of Community Futures as an observer.
“It’s nice to see how they’re [Community Futures] impacting the community with their lending,” Christina said, admitting she’s “really tempted to join to see more of the innerworkings.”
But first, she is aiming to one day find some semblance of work-life balance.
This balance, she said, is not so achievable on a daily or weekly basis, but it could be over the course of her lifetime.
“It’s a lot of work to get sorted and organized,” she said of starting a new business. “We do put in a lot of hours. But if you work hard now and set things up correctly, we can see the benefits later.”
At least this summer, Christina is hoping to find some time to take off – maybe even full weekends where hopefully she’ll be paddleboarding more.
“We just got a new kitten last October and we’re going to try to get her paddleboarding this summer too.”
The new kitten’s name is Lola and you can follow along on her journey @adventuresoflolacat on Instagram.
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josh.piercey@revelstokereview.com
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