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Tritium Partners taps Consero before hiring a full-time portfolio company CFO

The private equity firm Tritium Partners tapped Consero Global before hiring a full-time portfolio company CFO, so when the ideal candidate came along, he could focus on strategic initiatives immediately.

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Private equity investing isn’t for the faint of heart. A lot of firms built their reputation on rescuing enterprises from the brink and leaving those businesses stronger than ever before. Even GPs who target high-growth businesses will focus on those struggling to manage that success. Those fees and carried interest are based on their ability to see untapped potential and execute a plan to realize it.

Tritium Partners saw a lot to like in PELITAS, a rapidly growing, healthcare Saas company that created industry-leading solutions for increasing cash and cultivating patient loyalty at over 200 hospitals and ambulatory locations. It was launched by co-founders that had built a great solution platform, but who eventually realized they needed a partner to build a management team and take the business to the next level. Tritium was a great fit for PELITAS because they focus on high growth businesses where they can collaborate with talented management teams and founders to guide their companies to new heights.

Tritium identified an enormous amount of potential for the company, but some facets of the business needed to be upgraded to match its growth, including its finance and accounting function. They wanted to hire a new CFO, but they also knew any initiative could be hobbled if its books weren’t in order first.

“We hired Consero for its outsourced finance-as-a-service solution, because they provided us leverage to immediately upgrade our finance function without hiring a large back-office team,” said Chris Steiner, Principal of Tritium Partners. “Consero’s capabilities allowed us to focus on the rest of our 100-day plan, with the confidence that our basic finance function would be handled properly.”

PELITAS had a great offering, but its finance and accounting capabilities needed more sophistication to support the anticipated growth. Consero brought scalable systems, teams and processes to the business and began producing GAAP-compliant, audit friendly financials. Consero helped PELITAS through its conversion to accrual-accounting, its first audit and the establishment of its credit facility, all before there was a permanent CFO in place.

McClure explains that PELITAS appreciated his more strategic orientation, and with Consero in place, the company didn’t need to hire a CFO based on their ability to build the finance function from scratch. During his first few months with PELITAS, McClure did some minor customization to the process and procedures, but Consero’s platform was flexible so it was only a matter of refining. “I didn’t need to hire, train and manage the staff. I could just focus on learning the business and our key deliverables without having to be distracted with personnel matters.”

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CFO finds fast and flexible solution with repeatable processes to easily handle acquisitions

The Situation

PE-backed SaaS company generating $48M in revenue with 300 employees quickly outgrew finance and accounting systems after three acquisitions. The goal was to have one streamlined process to quickly onboard and manage all entities.

  • Finance function was stretched after initial acquisitions
  • Internal processes could not scale as the company grew
  • No holistic visibility into all entities
  • CFO was buried with time-consuming daily financial operations

The Consero Solution

Consero Finance as a Service (FaaS) provides:

  • Efficient finance & accounting software and workflows that include one GL for all entities with multidimensional views
  • Experienced and on-demand finance team to address fluctuating needs
  • Accurate, timely audit-ready financial reporting
  • Consistent and reliable back-office services including, transaction processing, closing and reporting, to scale as needed

“The relationship with Consero has allowed me to move quickly with our private equity investors and evaluate potential acquisitions.
If we were to swiftly execute on an opportunity, I’m confident that they would fold it in quickly and seamlessly.” – Mike Dionne (CFO)

The Client’s Results

  • On-Demand Finance Team: Consero’s skilled finance professionals tackle the back-office transactional work and can also scale as the company experiences a spike.
  • New Systems: Updated with best-in-breed systems and proven processes mapped to the business within 30-90 days improves the quality, efficiency, and cost structure of financial operations.
  • Accurate and Real-Time Business Insight: SIMPL’s standardized and accurate financial reporting provides a clear financial picture of all entities and enables sharp decision making.
  • Repeatable Results: An acquisition-ready finance function that can easily onboard and manage new acquisitions onto one General Ledger.
  • Time for Strategy: CFO went from spending 5% of his time on strategy to 95% so he could focus on acquisitions and value-add initiatives.
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Consero helped PE-backed software firm get clean, accurate, audit-ready financials, and streamlined processes

Five Elms Capital’s portfolio company Flywheel was faced with the common dilemma of having accounting practices that didn’t keep up with the company’s growth but took a chance on Consero as an outsourced financial solution. This is what happened next.

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Consero in Action: Flywheel

There was little doubt that Flywheel was a valuable business. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company was a leader in its space of managed WP hosting, having grown to $18 million in revenue and roughly 145 employees. But when Steve Isom arrived at Flywheel as the Company’s first VP of Finance, he found Flywheel’s accounting processes hadn’t evolved since its founding.

“Their accounting department was one person,” says Isom. “And everything was on QuickBooks® . . . for a business with almost 150 people.”

This one person also did payroll and benefits manually, which yielded an enormous amount of variance. To make matters worse, this person had resigned before Isom had started the job, so he was left with a single temp employee who was tapped to keep vendors and employees paid.

Move Fast . . . And Fix Things

“I was overwhelmed from day one, and the stakes couldn’t be higher for me,” says Isom. “This was the first time I’d be owning all the finance & accounting and I didn’t want to spend the first year just on getting the accounting function in order.”

He had started by looking for local talent, ideally a local controller with some experience at a tech enterprise, but Omaha didn’t have a deep pool of candidates. Even if he found the ideal person, it would take 6-12 months to onboard, train, research & architect new systems, implement, optimize, etc.

“The quality of the underlying financials ensures a smooth due diligence process. With Consero, I could focus on the transaction and not worry about getting financials in order. Their professional finance team and processes inspire confidence for everyone involved in due diligence.” Steve Isom – VP of Finance

The Proof is in the Process

“I did my due diligence, and after speaking with several current clients of Consero, I was sold,” says Isom. “Consero’s clients seem genuinely happy and not merely giving some standard issue referral.” But that was still no guarantee that Consero would work as well for Flywheel.

Luckily, he was relieved to find the onboarding process was smooth and well-run.

“I appreciated how informed and determined they were about best practices, when a lot of outsourced service providers simply offer to take over a client’s poorly designed, or non-existent process,” says Isom.

But the speed of the implementation process impressed Isom the most. “Their implementation is a 30- to 60- day process and we finished it in 21,” says Isom. Before, he worked day and night to get his work done. He joined in August, and by October, Consero’s team was in place, running the accounting and finance team. “By then, I was only devoting 30 minutes or so a day on accounting, and that freed me up for the strategic work I was hired to do.” Consero continued to impress him by asking questions once, documenting answers and holding themselves to consistently high standards.

Audit-tested

The first big test was when Consero managed a 2018 audit, despite only having handled the books since October.

“They passed with flying colors, so we knew just how detailed and accurate their work was from day one” says Isom.

By April 2019, the Company was raising additional capital, and the diligence process proved just how much the financial operations had improved.

“Consero handled all the investors’ inquiries as part of the normal course of business, without additional hours and fees, and always responded to questions within 24 hours,” says Isom.

Soon after, WP Engine, the market leading managed WP hosting company, made an unsolicited bid for Flywheel. After the two companies agreed on strategic alignment and a possible price, they dug into the books.

WP Engine tapped one of the big four accounting firms to sign off on the tax, finance and legal elements, and all that diligence work went right to Consero. “This wasn’t just about workload,” says Isom. “We were able to tell a story that we had known our systems and processes weren’t sufficient and we did something about it.”

Keeping Trusted Partners

Consero still serves Flywheel, even as the company is now part of WP Engine, which has its own substantial financial staff and resources.

“They understood that Consero was part of our team, my team, and that we were working well together,” says Isom. “And in this case, I don’t have to handle the HR or career development issues of in-house staff.”

Five Elms Capital was certainly impressed with the results, as they tapped Consero for three of their other portfolio companies since the success at Flywheel. Five Elms adds value to their portfolio companies by providing the resources and expertise to fulfill their potential. They have identified Consero as one of those critical resources, given the importance of clean, accurate, audit-ready financials, and a streamlined process. Consero frees the businesses up to do what they do best.