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Accounting Challenges -

Many businesses keep books primarily to satisfy the IRS and they run their businesses with check registers and spreadsheets or quite often, a completely separate accounting system. Here are a few examples where I've been able to help clients substantially improve their bottom line:

Client #1 -

This is a profitable, 22 year old business with stores and annual sales of over $18 million dollars. The store computer system has a built-in accounting system which tracks sales and purchases but it doesn't produce good management reports.

Management had been creating spreadsheets in order to the information they needed. Then at tax time, their CPA was having to enter the figures again, this time into his computer so he could prepare tax returns. Financial reports were typically six months old when they were finally generated... OK to learn "...what happened when" but useless as a management tool.

I created one single accounting system that eliminated the huge expenditure of time and the inevitable errors of manual posting:

  1. QuickBooks accounting software is now configured to accept downloaded transactional information from the stores' computer so that nothing has to be entered manually;
  2. Financial reports have been customized to present information the way that management needs it; and
  3. The CPA now gets accountant copies of QuickBooks data that he uses to file tax returns. Financial reports are now available at a moments notice and are an invaluable tool for managing the business.

Client #2 -

A chain of restaurants had been keeping their books on a monthly basis for years. That fits the need to file monthly, quarterly and annual tax reports but it doesn't fit their business.

Restaurants operate on a weekly cycle and have to track performance weekly. Every important aspect of the business was being managed with spreadsheets because standard, monthly or quarterly financial reports are worthless in that business.

  1. QuickBooks software was customized to generate both weekly and monthly reports: Weekly to track performance and monthly to file tax returns;
  2. The chart of accounts was radically modified to enable detailed labor and material cost analysis;
  3. Sales and labor figures can now be downloaded from each store's computer to QuickBooks at corporate headquarters; and
  4. Payroll for over 150 employees can be generated in a matter of a couple of hours.

Money Saving Technology -

A small business was moving into a new building where they would need their computers networked and four or five phones. I suggested using digital phones that connect to the telephone company via the Internet and operate in the office one the same network as the computers.

The client had me install the network and supervise the installation of equipment and infrastructure.

Pros:

  1. The digital phones are far better than the system they had planned to use;
  2. The digital phones cost about $4,000 less than the conventional system;
  3. They got a dedicated telephone number for every phone in the office;
  4. They will save several hundred dollars a month on their phone bill; and
  5. Their Internet data connection is much faster and more stable than the one they had planned to use.

Cons: None.