"It All Adds Up" According to Michael G. Horsey, CPA

By Thera Martin

This National Black Business Month, which is the month of August, VIZIONS Newspaper is shining a spotlight on Michael Horsey and his accounting firm, Horsey, Buckner & Heffler (HBH). Michael G. Horsey, a certified public accountant (CPA), is chairman and CEO of Horsey, Buckner & Heffler, LL. The managing partner is Kia D. Buckner, CPA.

Horsey, Buckner, and Heffler, one of the larger minority- controlled certified public accounting firms in the Delaware Valley, offers audit, assurance, and tax services, accounting and business advisory services, and banking relationships. HBH was officially established in June 2017 and is affiliated with Heffler, Radetich & Saitta LLP (Heffler), a full-service accounting and advisory firm serving a nationwide client base of small to medium-sized businesses, law firms, governmental agencies, and not-for-profit organizations.

Michael Horsey has more than 40 years of experience in audit, taxation, and financial analysis, with a focus on serving not-for-profit organizations, state and local government agencies, and private clients. Prior to joining Mitchell & Titus, Michael spent several years at Coopers & Lybrand, now PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and Johnson & Johnson Co.

Michael attended Roman Catholic High School and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance and Commerce. According to Michael, while in college, he paid attention to who was getting the jobs and making excellent money. It was accountants. His next move was to enroll in the CPA program. “I managed to get hired by a firm called Coopers and Lybrand (C& L). I worked for C&L, one of the big eight accounting firms. During that time, we had such firms as Price Waterhouse, Arthur Anderson, and you had Arthur Young and all those firms. Coopers and Lybrand was one of the more progressive firms that hired minorities and women back in 1978. I was there for six years. I knew I wasn’t going to make a partner because of the ole boys network.”

That didn’t matter, according to Horsey, who said he always knew he wanted to own his own business one day.

“I eventually went to work for Leevy Redcross,” he said. “They were purchased by Mitchell and Titus. Mitchell and Titus was the largest minority-owned CPA firm in the country at the time. I worked with Mitchell and Titus for 32 years and ascended to partner and was the managing partner for the Philadelphia office for sixteen years before I retired. During the time I was working with Mitchell and Titus, the firm grew to a $40 million firm, and we became a member of Ernst and Young. We did that for six years. They had a mandatory retirement age of 60. I retired seven years ago and created this regional firm, Horsey, Buckner, and Heffler. This allowed us to jumpstart our organization quickly.

“We’ve grown the firm very substantially since our inception,” said Horsey. “The key for us, aside from offering top-quality professional CPA services, we also want to be another option for minorities and women to have a CPA career. We’ve got Mitchell Titus, CPA firm. We’ve got John Milligan CPA firm, and you have our firm on the scene to help provide opportunities for young minority CPAs. We develop intern relationships with colleges in the area.”

Horsey added, “A year after we created our firm, we made national news. We’re the firm that was responsible for finding the $32 million dollars that the city couldn’t find. We’re the firm that found the money. That helped jumpstart our CPA firm for sure.”

The Pandemic Shined a Light on Small Businesses

It was during the COVID-19 crisis that Michael Horsey said he and his colleagues were reminded that too many small Black-owned businesses are not where they should be with their financial reports, business plans, and tax reporting.

“During the pandemic what we learned was that a lot of our small Black-owned businesses in Philadelphia didn’t have records to show proof to support the staff that they were paying, etc., which made a lot of them miss out on a lot of opportunities that were being offered by the government,” Horsey commented. 

“That mentality is systemic, and it goes all the way back to slavery where we had to hide everything,” he said. “We had to hide our ability to read and learn. We had to develop secret societies and fraternities because of the white aggression. People didn’t realize it until now, but when you talk about Tulsa, Oklahoma, and what happened there, the venom we were fighting against then, and even now, makes it a part of our history, to not show all our information.”

Michael Horsey said he and his colleagues are determined to educate African-American business owners, sports figures, families, and others as to how to get their finances in order using a certified public accountant. As Horsey put it, “People do better when they know better.”

“There’s money out here to help small businesses,” said Horsey. “There's grant opportunities, there’s financing mechanisms, trust me there’s help out here for small business owners.

HBH Sports Division

Now, in 2023, Horsey, Buckner & Heffler is expanding. Michael Horsey shared, “On August 8, 2023, “We announced that we’ve launched our sports division. I’ve been involved over the last 25 years with sports figures, providing thought leadership and strategic business and tax advice to athletes across the nation. I was doing it quietly. People in the industry knew I was doing that. But in light of the name, image, and likeness (NIL) concept, where now high school students and college students can get endorsement money around their name, image, and likeness, these student-athletes are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars and there’s a need for them to get financial tax advice at these early stages. We want to make sure people know that we exist in the marketplace to support those kinds of initiatives and educational pieces. We’ve got a lot of rep and play nationally. We want local people to know about our services.”

Certified Public Accountants

Concerned that young people study to be certified public accountants, Michael Horsey offered the following advice. “First, don’t believe the historical hype about the impediments of the industry. There are impediments to the industry. One of them is, in order to earn a CPA, you have to have 150 hours of credits. Period. That’s like five years of going to school. That means you have to get a master’s degree. I would say don’t be discouraged by the impediments.'

“Accounting is the basis and foundation of any business. The move is too major in accounting and have a minor in something else. When you have accounting as your major and a minor, whether you ultimately want to be a CPA or not, it leverages your opportunities in the marketplace to get hired, generally speaking. Now our industry is moving in such a way that you don’t need to have an accounting degree per se, to have an entrée into the industry because of the new tools and the new way of life in our environment. I’m referring to A.I. (artificial intelligence) and the ability for you as a human being to write, think, and speak. For example, the percentage of the CPAs, the total for Blacks, is no different than it was 35 years ago. You can succeed as we have if you are motivated to pursue opportunities in this industry.

Horsey continued, “Our job is to make sure that we are available for those who want that CPA career. It’s our responsibility to get out to these colleges and universities and share with students what the opportunities are. For example, you don’t have to be a CPA to do what we’re doing with these athletes. You can be what is called an “Enroll Agent.” An Enroll Agent allows individuals to get in front of the IRS and represent people with the IRS. You don’t have to be a CPA to be reasonably successful in this industry.” My advice is don’t believe the hype or the impediments to getting involved with a career in the accounting industry.”

Michael Horsey is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA), and the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants. He is also a member of the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) and the Union League of Philadelphia. Michael currently serves on the board of the African American Museum of Philadelphia and the Avenue of the Arts, Inc. He is a member of the Mu Omega Foundation, the Black Women in Sport Foundation, and the Ivy Legacy Foundation. He previously served on the board of the Police Athletic League, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, and the African American Chamber of Commerce. 

If you want to learn more about Horsey, Buckner & Heffler, CPA firm, the phone number is 267-570-8550. They are located at 4548 Market Street in Philadelphia and their website is www.hbheffler.com.