Accountant Spotlight: Angela Nowicki at exact_

Our Accounting Spotlights highlight inspirational leaders in the profession who are making a difference for their clients and community. Know someone who deserves to be featured? Submit a nomination.

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In our latest Accountant Spotlight Series, we're thrilled to introduce Angela Nowicki, Partner at exact_. Her story is one defined by family, entrepreneurship, and leadership. 

It runs in the family

For Angela Nowicki, numbers have always made her feel like a kid in a candy shop. As a child, she often accompanied her grandmother, who prepared taxes for a local CPA, to visit business clients, exposing her to a new world. “I loved using the adding machine, helping to fill out the forms in pencil, and of course the chocolate from her candy shop client,” reflects Angela. Sparking an interest in numbers, she began to see that finances could be organized in more ways than one. 

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As Angela grew, so did her curiosity, leading her to a Bachelor of Science and Masters of Business Administration from University of Buffalo. Launching her post-graduate career at PwC, Angela gained years of valuable experience in tax, culminating in the realization of her passion to work with growing businesses. In 2019, Anglea left PWC to start her own firm, simultaneously acquiring the practice of a CPA, and working as a controller for a manufacturing company. While Angela momentarily stepped away from entrepreneurship and into the role of CFO for a private equity (PE) platform—working through eight acquisitions and managing lender relationships—she eventually found her way back, joining her current partners at exact_.

Merging old and new

In January 2024, at the merger of two previous firms, Angela joined exact_. “I previously worked with two partners at PwC, one of which is my husband, and the other two were new relationships, which now feel like old friends,” shares Angela. Quickly integrating into the firm, Angela has come to deeply appreciate the ability to collaborate with all different types of people, both employees and clients, to solve problems. By efficiently providing and analyzing accurate data, while also leveraging decades of industry experience, exact_ provides practical solutions to clients in many forms. From standard reports at various cadences, to one-off projects on purchase accounting, to leading the sale of a client, Angela finds fulfillment in providing expert guidance.  

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Leading her clients to growth, profitability, and employee engagement, Angela has a primary focus on CFO services for PE-sponsored companies. “There tend to be several unique aspects to these types of businesses, including financial reporting and integration of small-to-medium sized businesses into a larger platform,” Angela explains. Requiring experience of both sides of that spectrum, to allow for proper culture and technical integration, Angela offers a unique ability to help clients achieve holistic transformation.

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Adding value by removing inefficiencies  

When it comes to impacting meaningful change, Angela has witnessed a pattern of common challenges among her client base. “Process, accuracy, and retention. Each of these goes hand in hand,” she explains. “A faulty process leaves room for inaccuracy and monotonous data-entry processes don’t allow staff to grow.” By tackling inefficient processes, the opportunity for error is significantly reduced, while also allowing for quicker access to information, freeing up employees' time for more value-added and growth-oriented tasks.

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Central to achieving efficiencies such as these is the application of technology. For exact_, Ramp is a core part of the software strategy, offering ease of use for everyone, including cardholders that wouldn’t otherwise interact with accounting software.  “Personally, Ramp allows me to submit receipts much easier without having to worry about maintaining a paper copy,” Angela shares. “For my clients, Ramp creates control and visibility on employee spending while also providing a critical role in managing accounts payable (AP).” As one example, for a client with over 100 franchise quick-service restaurants, for which exact_ manages the entire accounting function, Ramp Bill Pay allows the team to seamlessly manage AP for each and every store. 

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One moment in particular stands out to Angela, jumping into an interim CFO role for a client when the previous CFO gave two weeks’ notice. Because the CFO directly controlled everything relating to cash, financial reporting, billing, and more, support was needed immediately to ensure the business was running successfully. In addition to keeping the lights on, Angela and her team were able to automate the monthly billing process, bringing the time commitment from 2–3 weeks down to 2–3 days at month-end. This not only saved a massive amount of time, but it also got invoices into customers’ hands much faster. They worked with the client to clean up their operating ERP so source data was accurate, then created an excel-based billing template to organize and summarize the data, using Saasant to import the monthly billing file into QBO (about 13,000 lines of data each month), which also automatically emails each invoice to their customer. As Angela shared, “The biggest tip here to continually brainstorm new approaches rather than accepting the status quo.”

Embracing the tangible and the abstract 

Angela’s ability to be both detail-oriented and visionary is a unique trait that's pervasive to both her personal and professional life. “My family would describe me as being Type A with the ability to take a step back to smell the roses,” she exclaims. Balancing both qualities, Angela has succeeded as an inspiring leader in her field, while staying true to her roots of entrepreneurship. 

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After initially meeting at PwC, Angela and her husband Chris built a strong working relationship. They are part of the leadership team at exact_, providing exceptional service while identifying new strategies to help their clients excel. We also have great respect for the work the other person performs - which comes through in joint meetings and deliverables. Balancing professional milestones with personal adventures, Angela and her husband go on a dedicated scuba dive trip once a year, with an upcoming trip planned for Curacao and the Red Sea. She shared, “While we sometimes talk about work during off-hours, we make an effort to unplug for our family and ourselves.” They are also parents to two amazing sons, Noah and Logan. 

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Her role as a nurturing leader extends beyond family, as Angela recently joined the board of Red Barn Therapy, a non-profit providing hippotherapy for children with special needs. At Ramp, we celebrate Angela’s capacity to connect and inspire, with her clients, family, friends, and community.  

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