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The title of this page is HISTORY, but really, it is Herstory. The reason Accounting for Jewelers, the company, exists is because of a family history. 
My name is Mariel. I’m a GIA graduate gemologist, German-trained gemstone carver, and second generation classically-trained metalsmith.
I educate jewelry artists on the financials of their businesses and help them love the tech advances in accounting while establishing efficient internal operations.
As an artist myself, this isn’t where I thought I would be and didn’t think of it until 2008.
If I had paid attention on the day of my birth to those that welcomed me to this world, then I would have known long before, as it was crystal clear, even then.
Let me introduce you to the 3 people that shaped me: my father, my mother, and my grandmother.
My dad’s name was Rock Hard. I’m not kidding.
As a child, I thought he was biggest and brightest. Then, I began to know him as the tortured, adventurous, and persistent human he was. It turns out he was bigger and brighter than I had imagined.
Lloyd Herman, Director Emeritus of Fine Arts for the Smithsonian Institute, once judged my dad’s work and said:
[quote ]“In this day and age it is rare to find any fine art in precious metal and gemstones. This is the rare exception.”[/quote]
My dad wanted that quote on his tombstone, but I think I did something even better in his memory. He was a caretaker of history and the Smithsonian museums were his favorite. Among his museum collection of world artifacts and ancient jewels organized by era in what he titled the Gallery of Ornamentation, was a Pterosaur with 24 foot wings spread in flight. I hand wrote the Curator of Dinosauria at the Smithsonian, and now my dad’s Pterosaur soars in the national collection in DC. Having a specimen he adored rest in the best hands can’t be beat.
My dad was much more than the jeweler and Indiana Jones character so many knew him to be. He was a gentle, loving father, a careless drunk, and a ferocious teacher. “Don’t think,” he would say, “know, and if you don’t know, look it up. No excuses.”
One of the many possible reasons I got to have him as a dad, was because he fell in love with my mom.
She was his muse with a great and lasting impact. She passed away only a week before my 3rd birthday, but my dad celebrated her life for the rest of his.
Unlike the severed bond experienced when I lost my father, whom I knew, this loss was a void.
Throughout my life, I have missed the thought of a mom I never knew, but I know her from the work she left behind.
See, I’m not a 2nd generation jeweler by just one parent. Both of my parents were jewelers. In my mom’s short career, she created some of the most beautiful and fluid designs in metal I have ever seen. I have been more influenced by her work, than my dad’s world renowned designs. And yet, I still discover depths to his work I didn’t previously understand or know.
Artists are known and paid for their creative designs and quality craftsmanship. Over time, I’ve been able to compile what my parents taught me by example into the following formula:
There’s only one woman I know that felt naked without her jewelry and had post-it notes of who gave it to her, for what occasion and on what date in each slot where her jewelry was stored. My grandmother.
She outlived 3 of her 4 children, served in WWII as one of the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service), and was the retired head bookkeeper for a hospital when she came to work for my parents as their bookkeeper. She witnessed 94.5 years of World History, but the best thing she did was be present for her family.
If it weren’t for this woman, then I wouldn’t have manners.
I was raised by a maniacal visionary, the image of beauty and a tedious bookkeeper and I wouldn’t have it any other way. What I learned from these three people has placed me where I am today.
As a kindergartner, I was methodically affixing bails to pendants on my dad’s wholesale gold plated nautical line and organizing checks by check number for my grandmother.
Because of the mix of my dad’s artistry and entrepreneurship and my grandmother’s problem solving, I was always trying to find a balance between my obsession with the business side of my artistic endeavors and the actual creative escapes themselves.
My dad was a badass with design and his master metalsmith one of the best I’ve seen at the bench. Due to my exposure to what is possible, my own metal-smithing rarely met my quality-control standards. I’ve hand fabricated some cool things, often fall in love with what I make, and sometimes surprise myself, but I always excitedly returned to the books.
For all the time I’ve spent over the years doing bookkeeping, I never loved the actual programs.
At every job I took during my travels as a jeweler over the past 20 years, I saw the need for organization and the understanding of numbers. I had the organization down, but I still didn’t understand what it all meant and the programs left something to be desired.
This led me to a degree in Accounting and work in corporate accounting. Yet small business accounting still had some mysteries to me.
The two driving forces behind me are
It wasn’t until I took the time to self-educate myself in small business bookkeeping that I found Xero. Xero Accounting Software changed my world. It was the missing key that made everything understandable for me. I had been using Quickbooks for 15 years. Moving to Xero in 2013 was the turning point that allowed me to feel comfortable helping jewelers understand their numbers and help them be successful with less stress than what I experienced with my father.
As the founder of Accounting for Jewelers, I know these three people, my dad, mom and grandmother would be proud to know that it was their lives that have allowed me to be helpful to others.
If you want to know the reason I prefer Xero over Quickbooks, then click here to read Why We Use Xero.