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How Chaney & Associates doubled its revenue within two years of moving to the Cloud

“ When engaging a new client, I like to share with them the

4 R’s of Cloud Computing – having the ability to get the

right information to the right people at the right time

to make the right decisions.” – Steve Chaney, CPA and Managing Partner, Chaney & Associates

AICPA Trusted Business AdvisorSM Solutions Brought to you by

How Chaney & Associates doubled its revenue within two years

of moving to the Cloud.

2

Firm Profile:Steve Chaney is a CPA and managing partner of Chaney & Associates, headquartered in Roseville, California. This progressive, 9-year-old firm specializes in the not-for-profit niche, providing financial and tax services, including financial reporting, payroll, bill management and controllership services to churches and other faith-based organizations all along the West Coast. He has a staff of 13: one CPA, four working to become CPAs, and eight clerks/bookkeepers.

After starting his career as a Tax Manager at Arthur Anderson, Steve left the firm to start his own practice in 2002. Steve had volunteered as a treasurer at his local church helping them with their accounting procedures. Having a passion for faith-based organizations, Steve decided to build his practice around this niche and used Shelby Systems, a legacy/SQL-based, church management software program, as the firm’s core accounting application.

In less than 6 years, Steve grew his client base to 75 churches and experienced 32%+ growth in revenue, year over year, from 2002 to 2008. However, he wasn't running a very efficient practice and optimizing the firm's profitability.

Challenges/Goals: The firm was using a legacy fund accounting system that was too cumbersome for its clients to use and required the firm’s staff to spend countless hours producing special manual reports for each client

Firm was spending $5,000 to $6,000 a month in staff hours and courier fees to exchange paper files/invoices and to have their clients sign checks. The firm’s fees were based on value billing, so they had to absorb these costs, which affected the firm’s bottom line

Clients had limited visibility into cash flow

Wanted to establish the firm as a provider of strategic outsourced controllership services

Had a goal to expand from 75 churches to 200 church clients

Results with an integrated online accounting and bill management solution: Realized 89% growth in revenue after 2 years of implementing the Intacct accounting/GL system

and Bill.com’s bill management solution, available through the AICPA Trusted Business Advisor Program

Eliminated $5,000 to $6,000 a month in staff hours and courier fees

Created standardized, repeatable processes that could be quickly adapted for current and new clients alike

Provided clients with comprehensive, real-time dashboards of business performance – which have become the firm's core marketing asset in attracting new clients

Gained better visibility into clients’ financials to provide more strategic and profitable controllership services

In 2 years, expanded from 75 to 314 church clients without having to expand firm staff

Successfully increased effective rate without having to increase billable rate

Steve Chaney, CPA, Managing Partner Chaney & Associates

AICPA Trusted Business AdvisorSM Solutions Brought to you by

How Chaney & Associates doubled its revenue within two years

of moving to the Cloud.

3

It’s time for a better workflow solution…Although Steve used a legacy fund accounting system as the standard platform for all his client engagements, it was too cumbersome for his clients to use and required his staff to spend countless hours producing special manual reports for each client, creating a very inefficient and costly business process [see Table 1].

The firm had created a Citrix-based server for clients to get into the system, but they had to go through 5-6 steps to access the monthly report and select the funds or departments that they needed to view. It was not user-friendly for clients; they were not able to drill down to the details and they began to question why they had to go through so much trouble to obtain the information they needed for services that were supposed to be provided by the firm.

On-boarding new clients was also time consuming, taking approximately 2 weeks to transition them from QuickBooks to the Shelby System. It required Steve to go to his client’s office to create a SQL database to set up the chart of accounts, because the Shelby software could not import the information from QuickBooks. It was a long process and, as a result, limited the firm to selecting new clients that were within the Sacramento area.

Steve’s practice was also heavily paper-based, having to print and mail invoices and checks for his clients’ payroll and monthly vendor bills. Steve was spending an average of $5,000 to $6,000 a month in staff hours and courier fees to exchange files and invoices and have his clients sign checks. His firm’s fees are based on value billing, so he had to absorb these costs, which negatively affected his bottom line.

Steve could clearly see that his current business model was costly and inefficient, consuming his staff’s time and impeding his firm’s growth and profitability. Steve knew he had to make a change if he wanted to achieve his goal of growing his client base to 200 churches within 5 years.

The benefits of cloud-based accounting solutions…In 2008, Steve read an interesting article in the Journal of Accountancy’s technology issue about the benefits of cloud-computing in client accounting – and this served as the impetus to moving his practice to a cloud-based service delivery platform. Steve began to do some research on the featured cloud vendors and learned more about the Trusted Business AdvisorSM Solutions Program from CPA2Biz and its integrated client accounting solutions, including Intacct, a cloud-based accounting/GL platform and Bill.com, an online bill management application.

Steve was convinced that a cloud-based service delivery platform was the solution he was looking for to transform his business model and advance his practice. While many accounting professionals fear the risk of change, Steve says “The risk is going with what you have. Our current system was so far removed, it was time for a change." Being cautious, he decided to take a phased approach to ensure a smooth and successful implementation of these new technology solutions – first implementing Intuit’s online payroll and Bill.com’s online bill management solution in 2008, followed by Intacct’s accounting application to replace the Shelby Systems software in 2009.

Table 1: Chaney & Associates' inefficient workflow prior to implementing a Cloud-Based system

AICPA Trusted Business AdvisorSM Solutions Brought to you by

How Chaney & Associates doubled its revenue within two years

of moving to the Cloud.

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Steve’s decision to go with Intacct was four-fold:

1. A back-office infrastructure for servicing the not-for-profit vertical

2. Reporting and dashboard capabilities and real-time cash management

3. Ability to set up workflow processes and templates up-front

4. Integration with Bill.com’s online bill management solution

Although many non-profit organizations use QuickBooks, it wasn’t a consideration for achieving his firm’s strategic goals and business growth plans. While QuickBooks works well for basic accounting, Steve needed a more robust financial management and accounting system to handle complicated transactions as well as deep financial reporting, dashboard and internal control capabilities.

Chaney & Associates realizes 89% revenue growth in just two years…In just two years, after implementing the cloud-based solutions, Steve realized an 89% growth in revenue and now serves 314 churches and other non-profits – all with the same staff, surpassing his original goal.

Steve attributes this phenomenal growth to having a sophisticated cloud-based accounting and bill management system powered by Intacct and Bill.com, which enables him to offer controllership and CFO services.

Recently, Steve secured a private university as a client, whose accounting was controlled by a church organization that also used the Shelby System. The church was charging the college a steep monthly service fee and provided the college financial statements that were months old and that lacked the financial visibility they needed to understand their budget’s performance. The monthly fee was high because their accounting required four full-time staff members, dedicated to doing the work, but the college VP still had to process the check requests, approve them all, and hand them to the church.

By moving to a cloud-based system, Steve was able to take on this client at a profitable rate, while helping the college save significant money. In short, the cloud-based service delivery platform enabled Steve to do the same work in less time on a fixed fee, while maintaining his desired effective rate. “The point of touches to my clients has been dramatically reduced. We no longer have to process and cut checks manually; billing and reporting are now generated electronically. We’re letting technology do the ‘heavy lifting,’ rather than having people create those efficiencies. That’s how we are able to improve our effective rate.”

“ Our non-profit clients can benefit from a sophisticated

solution like Intacct, and with its fund accounting capabilities,

Intacct offers the best of both worlds, which is a real

competitive advantage for our firm.”

AICPA Trusted Business AdvisorSM Solutions Brought to you by

How Chaney & Associates doubled its revenue within two years

of moving to the Cloud.

5

Intacct and Bill.com integration…the synergy of two online tools working together to maximize productivity…

Leveraging the Intacct and Bill.com cloud-based solutions, Steve has created a consistent, standardized workflow that all his clients follow [see Table 2]. Additionally, when an organization wants to hire Steve’s firm, the new client is required to use the firm’s Intacct accounting system, which enables Steve to maintain control over the accounting process.

With the Bill.com bill management solution, you can select different workflow scenarios, depending on how the firm and client desire to set up its processes. Steve's clients each have a dedicated account and can submit their invoices to the Bill.com system via a dedicated fax or email address. They can also request vendors to send the bills directly to their Bill.com account. The invoices appear in the ‘Inbox’ and the firm’s staff process the bills, entering the bill, invoice #, description and accounting codes. The firm’s manager/supervisor then approves the invoice ensuring proper coding and classification and the invoice then gets processed for payment. The client can then select how to pay the bill, whether through ACH/e-payment, checks or Paypal. Occasionally, a church may need a local check for a charitable offering; Steve can easily create a check PDF and forward it directly to the client from the Intacct accounting system; the church can then print it with its check stock.

Steve’s clients particularly like the “calendar view” in Bill.com, which provides a snapshot of all the invoices that are scheduled to be paid and provides the ability to adjust the payment schedule to better manage their cash flow. (See the "Calendar View" screen below.)

The Bill.com system notifies Steve of the payments and attaches a copy of the invoice with the check for easy reference. Now, when there’s a payment issue with a vendor, Steve no longer has to call the client to contact the bank or verify whether a check has cleared. He can easily verify the information on Bill.com. “The economies of scale with Bill.com and Intacct eliminates that entire research task with vendors and/or clients.”

Table 2: Chaney & Associates' new standardized workflow with staff & clients

Real-time calendar view provides insight into client's projected cash flow

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How Chaney & Associates doubled its revenue within two years

of moving to the Cloud.

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Finally, the accounting transactions synchronize directly to the Intacct accounting system (chart of accounts, departments, etc.), eliminating duplicate data entry and enabling Steve to generate the necessary financial reports. From start to finish everything is done electronically, totally eliminating the courier services and fees that Steve used to incur.

A key reason for selecting Intacct as its core accounting system was to improve cash flow management. Now that Steve’s university client is on the Intacct and Bill.com platform, the university’s VP gets real-time visibility to their cash flow and budgets. With Intacct, Steve can now generate robust financial reports and dashboards, providing his firm and clients deep insights and analyses for better financial decision-making.

The VP can drill down and see budget vs. actual spending and how each department is performing week to week. They can see a consolidated report for a 13-month rolling period or view individual reports for GL, A/P, A/R, etc. [See sample client dashboard and reports above].

With Intacct, Steve can also create tailored reports and role-based dashboards for the business administrators or staff, based on the level of access they’re granted and the information they’re required to see.

Ability to take on new business with the same staff, thanks to improved workflow…Another advantage of the Intacct system is the ability to use its industry-specific, pre-built templates, or customize your own, and use that intellectual property to on-board new clients. Steve can set up a template for a small or large church, or a church with a school, and deploy those templates with similar-type clients, saving his staff time and establishing a repeatable process for all new engagements. The ability to import Quickbooks files to Intacct is another time-saving benefit.

With Intacct and Bill.com, Steve can set up automated and routine processes upfront, creating a standardized and efficient workflow for the firm and his clients. This has enabled Steve to grow his client base with the same staff, while maintaining his effective rate. Now on-boarding a new client is effortless and only takes the firm 2 hours, not 2 weeks.

How to effect change…Change is never easily accepted both among clients and staff. As noted earlier, Steve took a phased approach in rolling out the cloud-based solutions within his practice; he also realized that it was too difficult for him to implement alone, as it required proper planning and preparation. As a result, Steve hired a “champion,” a systems professional in the not-for-profit industry to direct implementation and convert the firm and current clients over to the cloud-based systems.

“ The Intacct Dashboard is my biggest marketing tool; when a client sees this level of reporting, they are instantly sold.”

— Steve Chaney

AICPA Trusted Business AdvisorSM Solutions Brought to you by

How Chaney & Associates doubled its revenue within two years

of moving to the Cloud.

7

Steve and the champion involved the staff in the process and provided the necessary training for a successful transition. Within 6-7 months, the champion had everything running on auto-pilot. The champion now handles on-boarding and transitioning new clients to the Cloud and introducing new procedures, or updating staff on any new product enhancements. Steve’s staff is also reaping the benefits of having a standardized and efficient process, which helps them better collaborate and service the firm’s growing client base.

The firm also makes it a mandatory requirement for all of their current clients and new engagements to be set up on the Intacct platform. Steve’s clients have been very impressed with the Intacct and Bill.com platform and the firm’s overall delivery of service. When engaging a new client, who has been using Quickbooks for many years and is resistant to change, Steve says...

Experience organic growth from the value that you deliver to your clients… Steve’s university church organization has 5 other sister organizations, including seminary and elementary schools, and new business is steadily coming to Steve’s firm and presenting tremendous growth opportunities, which he is now able to handle, thanks to integrated, cloud-based solutions like Intacct and Bill.com from the Trusted Business AdvisorSM Solutions Program from CPA2Biz.

Steve has had tremendous success with his not-for-profit niche practice. Accounting firms that are thinking about moving to the Cloud can apply these same best practices to many other client industry verticals, whose business models and business needs lend themselves to the benefits of Cloud computing, including franchises, healthcare organizations, professional services (medical/legal practices), home owners’ associations, technology companies, and more. Now, any industry vertical that a firm supports can realize similar growth opportunities and workflow efficiencies.

Steve has now set a new goal of expanding to 1,000 churches nationwide and is confident that he will soon reach this new milestone!

To learn more about our Trusted Business AdvisorSM Solutions Program, and our cloud-based offerings, including Intacct and Bill.com, please visit www.CPA.com. Thank you.

“ When a client sees the robust financial reports and dash-boards from Intacct, you’re now showing them what they can’t do with QuickBooks and why they need your services.”