Kōkua means help, given freely. When we started Kōkua Financial in Kailua-Kona, we wanted it to stand for more than bookkeeping. Three words capture what we are after: passion, balance and purpose.
Passion
We love small businesses, and especially the ones that make island life work: the restaurant everybody goes to on Friday, the vacation rental a family has run for years, the contractor who shows up when the roof leaks, the shop on Aliʻi Drive that has outlasted three landlords.
Those owners pour everything into what they do. They deserve a bookkeeper who cares about their business as much as they do, not one who just processes transactions.
Balance
Most owners we meet are out of balance, and the books are part of the reason. Evenings go to receipts. Weekends go to payroll. GET deadlines sneak up. There is no time left for family, the ocean or the reason they moved here in the first place.
Our job is to give some of that time back. When the books are current, payroll runs on schedule and GET and TAT are filed on time, an owner can see the whole picture and make better choices: when to hire, when to save, when to take a day off.
In Hawaiian, that sense of balance and rightness is pono. It is one of the seven values we try to bring to every client.
Purpose
Our purpose is simple: help Hawaiʻi small businesses stay healthy, honest and independent. That means fixed fees quoted in writing, so nobody is afraid to call. It means CPA review every month, so the numbers can be trusted. And it means telling owners the truth kindly, even when it is not what they hoped to hear.
When a small business does well, its employees, suppliers and neighbors do well too. Helping that happen is the most meaningful work we know.
A little magic
Anyone who lives here knows the magic: a sunset over the water, the smell of coffee in the mauka air, a humpback breaching offshore. We think a business can have a little magic too: the first month the books are finally current, a loan approved, an owner who sleeps through the night before tax season.
So our wish for every client, and for everyone reading this, is simple. May there always be magic in your life.
The adventure awaits; go out and find yours. We will take care of the books.
Read about all seven of our values on the Kōkua Financial home page.