Russ:  this is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook.  I’m Russ Capper, this week’s guest host, and I’m here once again with Brian Baumler, a Senior Vice President with Joint Ventures Strategic Advisors and an audit Director with PKF Texas; Brian good to have you back again.

Brian:  Absolutely, thanks so much Russ.

Russ:  You bet.  So this Joint Venture Services that you guys offer here at PKF is kind of interesting to me because I think you’re most often, as you said, brought in for the non-operating partner.

Brian:  Yep, that’s correct.

Russ:  Because they’re looking at the other direction and wanting to make sure everything is okay, so do you just focus on their side and not pay attention to the other partner in the deal?

Brian:  That’s a great question because a lot of times there’s more than just the operator and a single non-operator, it’s really all parties can benefit from the result of our work.  We have a real example, this actually benefitted all parties to the arrangement, and we represented a company where when we actually did the audit we discovered that there were sales and use taxes being charged in a jurisdiction that didn’t allow for sales tax.  And because of that example all parties were recipients of the benefit of a credit back to the services that were provided by those vendors.  So a great, great example where we do oftentimes looking out for the best interest of the non-operating who engages us but in many cases it can benefit all parts.

Russ:  Okay, that’s interesting.  Sometimes do you come in and you’re representing the non-operating partner and the operating partner goes and hires representation as well?

Brian:  Well typically we’re executing under our rights of joint audit, so because of that typically they have their own team of people that are in place to help with that service.  And the reason I bring that up is because they have to cooperate; there isn’t a reason that they would have to engage anybody, they typically have teams of people in place that help if they’re the operator.  All non-ops have this right so it’s in their best interest to have those people in place.

Russ:  Okay, great.  Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Brian:  Thank you very much too.

Russ:  You bet.  For more about Joint Venture Services visit JVSA.com.  This has been another Thought Leader Production brought to you by PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook.