Small firm personality. Big firm thinking.

Spara's origin story

Spara grew out of a simple belief held by Chris Rawlings, CPA: small and growing businesses deserved access to the same level of financial insight and support that larger organizations had.

After years working in corporate accounting and finance, and while also teaching accounting at the college level, Chris saw a recurring challenge. Many business owners had someone helping them keep the books, but they did not always have someone helping them understand what the numbers meant, what questions they should be asking, or how financial information could help them make better decisions.

Chris began providing fractional CFO services to local businesses, helping owners move beyond simply producing financial statements to actually using them as a tool to manage and grow their companies.

Along the way, Chris partnered with one of his accounting students who was providing bookkeeping and payroll services to small businesses. Their complementary skill sets created an opportunity to bring accounting, payroll, and higher-level financial guidance together under one firm.

That became the foundation for Spara.

The vision was never simply to build a bookkeeping or accounting firm. It was to build a firm that could grow alongside its clients—handling the day-to-day accounting while also helping leadership teams understand their businesses, improve financial processes, communicate more effectively with banks and investors, and make better decisions.

Seven years later, Chris's son, Christopher Rawlings, CPA, joined the firm, beginning Spara's second generation and strengthening its ability to provide both accounting and advisory services.

Today, Spara continues to operate around the same idea that shaped its beginning: business owners should have financial information they understand, people they trust, and the insight they need to move their businesses forward with confidence.