The Situation

PE-backed SaaS company with $48M in revenue was experiencing rapid growth. Future acquisitions were part of their growth strategy and they knew it was necessary to address the finance function. 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
• Controller was buried with inefficient systems and processes with no time to add value to the CFO

The Consero Solution

Consero Finance as a Service (FaaS) provides:

• Efficient finance & accounting software and workflows which 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

“I would recommend Consero to other controllers. You are partnering with an extended team. You can let go of those transactional areas and grow yourself more operationally and strategically. It just opens up more opportunity to strengthen yourself personally and professionally ” – Michele Iovino (Senior Controller)

The Client’s Results

• New Systems: Updated with best-in-breed systems and proven processes mapped to the business within 30-90 days. This improved the quality, efficiency, and cost structure of financial operations.
• Quick & Accurate Reporting: SIMPL’s standardized and accurate financial reporting provides a clear financial picture of all entities and enables sharp decision making.
• Scalable Team: Consero’s finance professionals tackle the routine back-office tasks and become part of the team with everyone working together to achieve the business goals.
• Repeatable Results: An acquisition-ready ready finance function that can easily onboard and manage new acquisitions.
• Professional Growth: Controller’s time freed up to focus on more strategic work such as budgeting, forecasting and more.

The Situation

BV Investment Partners is a middle-market private equity firm that invests in tech-enabled and services companies. When they bring an investment into their portfolio, the biggest pain that they need to address:

• Under-developed finance teams
• Lack of timely, accurate and up-to-date reporting
• CFO’s strategy sidelined for time-consuming daily financial operations

The Traditional Solution:

• Building a finance team with a recruiter was a prolonged process and there was no guarantee that hires would be a success.
• Updating the unsophisticated finance & accounting systems was a time-consuming implementation taking 9-10 months without confidently knowing if they would get a fully optimized finance function at the end.

The Consero Solution

Consero Finance as a Service (FaaS) provides:

• Efficient and scalable finance & accounting software and workflows
• 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 big thing that Consero has helped us with is offloading the back-office administrative workflows for our finance teams. That has allowed them to focus on the more strategic things that help grow the business . We have faster and more impactful insights to add value to our portfolio companies.” – Jason Kustka (Principal BV Investment Partners)

The Client’s Results

New Systems: Updated with best-in-breed systems with proven processes mapped to the business within 30-90 days. This improved the quality, efficiency, and cost structure of financial operations.

Quick & Accurate Reporting: SIMPL’s standardized and accurate financial reporting provides a clear financial picture and sharp decision making.

Scalable Team: Finance professionals quickly scale as the portfolio grows.

Repeatable Results: Consero has seamlessly supported 6 BV portcos

Background

Read Full Case Study

Merging three companies with granular data into a single entity is challenging, especially when there are multiple systems and no single-source-of-truth. Insurity needed better data organization and realigned priorities so they could spend less time on data creation and more time on analysis.
Before Consero, Insurity suffered from:

• NetSuite not optimized and Order to Cash inefficiencies Turnover in accounting team
• Time-consuming data distillation with vaguely defined recurring revenue KPIs
• Lack of analytical views for two distinct functions:
  Corporate (CRO, G&A) and product levels and owners
• Preparing for sale by PE firm

The Consero Solution

Consero’s Finance as a Service (FaaS) provides experienced finance professionals, customized operational processes and robust software needed to support the daily financial operations and strategic decision making.

The Client’s Results

Rollups Made Easy:

Consero developed a systematic, repeatable process to onboard acquisitions quickly and get a clear understanding of the true financial and operational status of the business.

Realigned KPIs: Consero defined KPIs and delivered accurate hardline data with targeted analysis so critical decisions could be made.

Successful Exit: From initial discovery to final exit of the portfolio company, Consero provided readily available financial information for corporate, product owners, and interested buyers. Consero seamlessly supported the sale process of Insurity to GI Partners.

Increased Enterprise Value: The 37% cost reduction over its previous in-house solution maximized returns upon the exit.

“Consero seamlessly supported the sale process of our portfolio company. Financial information was readily available and Consero quickly addressed the buyer’s due diligence requests. This resulted in a smooth process and helped maximize the value of the business.”

Kevin Masse,
Chief Portfolio Officer

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.

Read Full Case Study

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.

The Situation

Read Full Case Study

Sound financials are essential to exits, and with a $400 million transaction at stake, mobile banking company Hyperwallet needed to streamline its financials to attract and hold investor attention to close the deal. Before Consero, Hyperwallet suffered from:

• Frequent turnover in finance function
• Strategy sidelined for time-consuming daily financial operations
• Manual financial reports in Excel that demand more analytics

The Consero Solution

Consero’s Finance as a Service (FaaS) enables:

• Experienced and on-demand finance team
• Accurate, timely audit-ready financial reporting
• Efficient finance & accounting software and workflows
• On-demand back-office services including, transaction processing, closing and reporting, to scale as needed

The Client’s Results

Greater Business Continuity:

Optimized accounting policies, procedures and process flows boost investor confidence in routine hard closes, freeing executive’s time to focus on the impending transaction. This solution can be kept in place after an exit transaction – and at significant cost savings over an in-house solution.

Timely Financials: Accurate and more-informed due diligence reporting means investor confidence and lightning-fast LOI responses.

Successful Exit: Consero seamlessly supported the sale process of Hyperwallet to PayPal.

Savings: 31% over Hyperwallet’s in-house solution

“With Consero, I was able to focus on the transaction and not worry about getting the financials in order. Their professional finance team and processes inspired confidence for everyone involved in the due diligence process.”

– Christian Fadel, CFO

How Consero helped large acquisition-driven business establish a rollup platform and accelerate acquisition returns.

A large provider of systems and applications management software backed by a private equity firm had some significant problems managing the major changes to its business that regularly occurred due to incorporating rollup acquisitions into its business model. With an emphasis on adding smaller operations, a number of issues tied to standardization, visibility and prompt completion of accounting activities arose. The Houston-based business turned to Consero for help streamlining accounting practices and realizing better results – including increasing its valuation – following a series of rollups that pushed its accounting infrastructure to the breaking point.

Understanding the many accounting problems facing the business

The business had recently completed the acquisitions in the legal and functional sense, increasing its value to $300 million, but had not fully integrated accounting processes between all the new entities under its umbrella. It had four more companies in the acquisition pipeline, which only made the problem more severe considering the 6-12 month optimization timeframe. All of the individual organizations had their own systems and workflows that were incompatible with the core company and each other. Generating consistent reporting was difficult, if not impossible.

Accounting relied on an outdated Great Plains system that couldn’t effectively manage various vital tasks.

• Revenue recognition was fractured to the point of needing to use offline Excel sheets to complete this foundational activity, and deferred revenue wasn’t captured correctly.
• The company had freelance accountants dispersed in an inconsistent, unsustainable manner.
• It lacked A/P and expense automation capabilities.

With so many issues that needed to be addressed on a constant basis, the accounting team didn’t have the bandwidth to make substantial improvements. Without bringing on a dedicated acquisition integration team – an especially costly proposition and one that’s difficult to utilize efficiently in the long term – the business had little hope of deploying an efficient and effective rollup play.

With the company’s business strategy built in significant part on rollups bringing a greater number of smaller businesses into the fold over time, and a desire to expand to provide related services alongside their software, the need to make significant, positive change was clear.

Going forward, a Finance-as-a-Service model could provide finance & accounting support that is:

• Flexible
• Consistent
• Scalable

An effective solution that adapts along with the company

An organization focused on rolling up smaller companies will have regular peaks and valleys when it comes to integrating new acquisitions and adjusting and improving accounting processes accordingly. Consero’s provision of Finance as a Service allows for seamless adaptation along with scaling staff and support as needed. The company can operate between acquisitions normally, then capably adjust during periods where a new acquisition needs to be brought up to speed and integrated into the larger operation. Currently, Consero has 17 accounting professionals on staff, split between senior leaders and frontline staff.

Another valuable element that Consero brought involved implementing a new technology stack to align all of the constituent businesses. With Consero’s combined experienced and knowledgeable implementation team, the company saw some major improvements. It can now ensure vital accounting needs like reporting are completed in a consistent, highly visible fashion across all of its constituent entities. That includes all of its rollups, including a recent $100 million acquisition, as well as the $300 million holding company.

The substantial benefits that come with Finance as a Service

With a methodology including: centralize, standardize and automate, the Consero team established a 30-day implementation playbook for adding acquisitions into the new tech stack. This is a transformational change that greatly reduces stress on in-house staff and leaves them free to address the many other M&A concerns that need their attention. With a well-oiled machine in place, future additions will be a simple, standardized process. Consero has staff trained in the necessary processes to quickly and accurately complete this process. With so much of the effort centralized, standardized and automated, costs, reporting and scalability all improve. Phase 1 of the project alone involved savings of 63%.

Similarly, the CFO of the private equity firm backing the business and the company’s own senior accounting staff no longer need to dedicate significant attention to the technical needs of the rollup process. Instead, they can focus on strategy, investment considerations and future rollup targets, which is a key driver of value.

Instead of the internal accounting team trying to manually complete revenue recognition and compile incompatible reporting from across the many constituent companies, the business now enjoys standardized reporting with automated dashboards and real-time visibility via Consero’s financial console, appropriately named SIMPL. This is true now and will remain so into the future, as additional rollups are quickly and reliably added to the tech stack.

Before

• Unreliable finance staff.
• Outdated finance & accounting system.
• Fractured revenue recognition.
• Difficulty closing the books.
• Due diligence was a burden.
• Time to optimize was 6-12 months.

After

• Trained finance team is able to scale as needs change.
• Modern cloud-based software stacked for all financial needs.
• Standardized and automated processes.
• Ability to adhere to standard two-week close.
• New acquisitions have a timely and effective process in place.
• Optimized in 3 months.

With Consero taking the lead on staffing related to integrating rollups and managing core considerations like automated reporting, A/P and expenses, the company enjoys another major benefit: Significantly reduced recruitment, training and management costs. With a well-designed and reliable model, as opposed a fluctuating model, it is much easier to anticipate and budget for accounting needs. The Consero internal team for this client is up to 17 people. If the client chose to staff in-house rather than leverage Consero, it would have cost a significant amount in salaries and benefits for a full complement of employees. Consero offer the same level of expertise and ability at a fraction of the cost (30-40% less than in-house).

How else has Consero helped?

• The books are closed on time, reporting is accurate and consistent and consolidation is an automatic process.
• Due diligence is no longer a burden, it’s easily worked through.
• Along with addressing specific issues tied to incorporating rollups into the parent company and managing staffing concerns, the business now has a more accurate, timely and effective accounting function in place.

The value of Finance as a Service to this large company and many others like it is clear. With a dependable partner providing top-notch, customized finance & accounting support that scales with business needs, executives can be confident their organization is in the best position to realize a number of benefits:

• Improving finance & accounting processes
• Reducing associated costs
• Enhancing operational insight
• Providing enhanced infrastructure
• Shortening the monthly close complexities and timeframe

All of this is possible with the right outsourced partner. To learn more, get in touch with Consero today.

Superstar CFO: Consero Helped Clear the Way

By any measure, Robert Alvarez, CFO of BigCommerce.com, is a superstar.

Robert and his team have helped BigCommerce.com achieve aggressive sales and financing goals. BigCommerce now provides Web storefront services for an amazing 50,000-plus customers. In July 2013, the company raised $75 million–including a big investment from a firm run by former top AOL execs Steve Case and Ted Leonsis. Case told the Sydney Morning Herald that he wouldn’t be surprised if BigCommerce doubled its business the next year.

Robert, who was also named Austin Business Journal’s 2013 CFO of the Year, says that Consero helped him and his team achieve such phenomenal growth. Consero’s professionally managed back office accounting, cloud accounting software, and very close working relationship made the difference.

“Consero cleared the way for us by saving time, providing scalability, and more efficiency in our business processes.” Robert revealed. “As a fast-growth company with investors, one of our biggest issues is: how to move as quickly as possible from where we are, to where we need to be. That’s where Consero shines. They clear away obstacles that would otherwise slow us down and divert my time away from our focus on strategic objectives.”

“Consero helped us improve the timeliness, reliability and insightfulness of our financials. We have the information we need when we need it to make decisions about our quick-moving business.”

“All this lets me focus my time and energy on addressing the higher-level issues that threaten to impede our continued growth,” Robert said.

About BigCommerce:

Bigcommerce provides ecommerce software solutions and shopping cart software for online businesses.

The company, founded in Australia more than four years ago, has collected about $75 million in venture capital till date and is planning to open more offices soon.

Small to medium-sized businesses make up about 20 to 25 percent of BigCommerce’s client base.

Some of the bigger clients using the Bigcommerce platform include: Josie Maran Cosmetics; Austin music icon Willie Nelson; Chapul, an energy bar made with crickets; and Lock Laces, a company that manufactures patented no-tie shoe lace locks.

Preparing for Growth, Investors, and More

Before Robert came aboard and brought in Consero, BigCommerce had a mix of internal personnel and outsourced providers that didn’t provide any scalable infrastructure. “They handled transactions but the quality of our numbers was questionable. I was going to be left alone to figure out how to face the challenges of our unique problems of an internet business as we grew,” Robert said.

Consero quickly moved BigCommerce from cash to accrual basis accounting. That was essential to producing investor friendly financials to gauge the health of the business.

“When we took over BigCommerce,” said Consero’s Zeina Charara, the finance director who works closely with Robert, “they were still on a cash basis accounting and a very basic general ledger accounting system. There wasn’t transparency or timeliness of reporting.”

The Consero team came in and took a look at their business model and determined the systems and processes needed to support their operations.

Scalability: Working Smarter is Crucial

According to Robert, for a fast-growing company like BigCommerce, dealing with scalability problems is crucial to success. In just two years, they added a couple hundred employees and will continue to grow in 2014.

Adding more accounting and finance staff as the company expands is a big pain point. Consero solved that problem for BigCommerce by helping the company work smarter instead. “We’ve been able to keep the finance and accounting expenses much flatter by leveraging the tools and resources that Consero brings to the table instead of adding headcount” Zeina stated.

For rapidly growing firms like BigCommerce, accelerating growth in the number of transactions is also a challenge. Consero has been able to handle it without blinking.

“We continue to serve BigCommerce within the same standard timelines and turnaround so that there is not a delay in the business.” Zeina indicates. “For example, we’ve completely streamlined the Accounts Payable process” she continued. “It’s now automated and electronic – it’s an efficient process. Consero also leveraged credit card reconciliation tools so we can post within its month-end close timeline.”

Part of working smarter is also having critical timely metrics at your fingertips to monitor how the business is doing, and see what changes you have to make.

“As we grow,” explained Robert, “one of the big challenges for companies like us—any subscription revenue business is how to get metrics for things like churn (customer turnover), customer acquisition costs, and things like that. Consero helped us to put mechanisms in place so we could measure critical metrics in a more automated fashion. They helped us with generation of financial statements, automated expense reporting, and looking at revenue in different ways.”

CHALLENGE:

• Saving Time
• Getting Insightful Information
• Having Transparency
• Scalability through Growth

“As a fast-growth company with investors, one of our biggest issues is: how to move as quickly as possible from where we are, to where we need to be. That’s where Consero shines. They clear away obstacles that would otherwise slow us down and divert my time away from our focus on strategic objectives.”
– Robert Alvarez (CFO BigCommerce)

Saving Money and Time

Robert says that relying on Consero has saved BigCommerce an enormous amount of money and time.

“When I came in as CFO,” Robert reflected, “if I had built out my own in-house finance team, and then implemented whatever systems we needed, it would have cost us 40% more than having Consero do it and it would have taken us at least a year. By putting BigCommerce onto Consero’s already established platform, they gave us the scalability we needed and got the job done in only four months.” Robert explained “for companies like ours that are raising a lot of money, we’ve got to get from here to there in the shortest time possible—because that’s what investors want.”

CONSERO SOLUTION:

• Completely outsourced finance solution including standardized processes, a scalable finance application and a dedicated staff
• Fully managed delivery of timely and accurate financials
• Invoicing and reconciliation processes fully transitioned to the Consero team
• Control over complicated cash management

Entrepreneurs turn ideas that can change an industry, market or even the entire world into fully functional companies. But they don’t do it alone: these innovative leaders need funding, from series A and B venture capital to private equity. The heads of these new businesses also need strong accounting support that can scale, grow and change along with their business and consistently provide reliable, dependable information internally and to investors.

For William Hurley (also known as Whurley), a successful serial entrepreneur whose past ventures include creative technology group Chaotic Moon Studios, which exited to Accenture, and Honest Dollar, acquired by Goldman Sachs, working with Consero was an easy decision.

Communications with potential and current investors is vital to the continued existence of a high-growth company. Why is Consero’s Finance as a Service solution so effective for Strangeworks, Whurley’s current quantum computing venture, in this context?

• Dependable support from skilled accountants and financial professionals and the reliability of the effective, customizable SIMPL platform combine the best elements of access, reliability and security.
• Financial information is easily accessed, gathered and reviewed for both internal needs and external communications with investors.
• Because financial information is so important to potential investors, the confidence that Consero provided in terms of accessing and sharing accurate information is invaluable.
• When working with current investors, the ability to quickly and confidently provide whatever financial data or reporting is requested ahead of time or in the moment is similarly crucial.
• The consistent presence of Consero makes all stages of funding more manageable and successful.

Impartiality is a benefit that may not be immediately obvious from a Finance as a Service solution, but is nonetheless a top concern for many investors. By having a trustworthy third party like Consero provide the vetted reporting and financial data, there’s an increased level of acceptance from investors that simply isn’t possible with in-house accounting teams.

Scale is another vital consideration. While outsourced accounting solutions are far from unique in the business world, Whurley found that past experiences with such offerings led to issues with start-and-stop relationships. As his companies grew and changed, he had to change providers to match those shifting accounting financial needs. Those moves from one provider to another inevitably led to complications. By partnering with Consero, Whurley knows he has an effective financial and accounting solution for the long term.

Future visions and core competencies

Consero’s financial planning and analysis team has been critical for projecting important future scenarios and knowing what metrics will need to be gauged. Along with SIMPL platform and the consistent support of Consoro’s team of experts, Whurley is able to leverage the many benefits of Consero’s Finance as a Service model.

Consero team of experts:

• Bookkeeping
• Accounting
• Controller
• VP of Finance
• Financial Planning & Analysis

Benefits:

• Better projections to share with investors.
• More time for company leaders to focus on important, big-picture needs.
• Consistent data that becomes invaluable if and when the company reaches a point where an acquisition is on the table – financial due diligence is one of the most important elements of a sale.

“Consero provides the financial backbone that grows and changes alongside high-growth organizations, all the while offering critical financial planning and analysis support. I recommend getting in touch with them today”.

PE-backed software company meets complex reporting requirements and reduces spend with Consero Global’s Finance-as-a-Service

The Situation

Founded in 2002, Gimmal is a records management company that serves large industries with record-keeping requirements. The company helps organizations of all sizes implement better information governance and manage content effectively.

Gimmal experienced a significant transformation in recent years. In late 2016, a private equity (PE) firm invested in the company and appointed Mark Johnson as President of Gimmal. Gimmal then began the transition from a services-based business to a software company.

When the company became part of a private equity portfolio, it immediately acquired more stringent and complex financial reporting requirements. “When acquiring companies, PE firms often need the portfolio to have new financial systems, so they can get better information on a timelier and more consistent basis,” said Mark.

Private Equity Investment Drives the Need for Stringent Financial Reporting

The existing finance team at Gimmal lacked the training and tools to meet the new reporting requirements, and Gimmal needed to achieve compliance quickly. Mark was faced with a decision: “Do I re-staff the entire accounting organization, or start a relationship with a finance & accounting outsourcing partner like Consero?”

To hire and train new employees and onboard new tools, Mark was looking at a timeline of roughly 18 months. With Consero, he could expect a much shorter turnaround time of 30-90 days—all without the worries of staffing, attrition, and systems implementation.

In addition, Mark could evaluate the pool of skills at Consero during implementation and delivery. He also had a longstanding relationship with the leaders of Consero that ensured a high level of trust.

During the implementation, Gimmal opted for access to Consero’s Finance as a Service and financial planning and analysis (FP&A) teams to support their in-house Controller and CFO. The Consero team conducted a needs assessment to best understand Gimmal’s requirements and configured access to the following:

• Sage Intacct for general ledger purposes
• Nexonia for time-keeping
• Bill.com for AP automation
• Consero’s SIMPL® console which brought all the software together
  under one financial console with integrated reporting.

“Consero quickly built the reports and systems we were lacking, allowing me to focus my efforts where they need to be,” said Mark.

Consero Extends Gimmal’s Internal Team with Strategic Tools and Expertise

Today, Consero’s reach extends to every employee at Gimmal. “It’s not just a back-office relationship—it’s across the entire business,” said Mark.

Project managers at Gimmal frequently interact with Consero’s accounting team to set up projects, time tracking, and billing approvals. Sales & Marketing staff work directly with Consero’s FP&A team to gather budget and forecasting information. And for Mark and other executives at Gimmal, Consero’s SIMPL console provides easy access to real-time reporting.

“Our finance group used to create reports for individual departments,” said Mark. “With Consero, each department can check its own financials in SIMPL. Each month, we get emails telling us our reports are ready to retrieve.”

“We’re better able to communicate our financial position to private equity investors by using Consero’s transparent SIMPL portal.”
Mark Johnson, President, Gimmal

Consero has been able to support Gimmal as its business needs have evolved, taking on the ASC 606 migration at one-third of the cost of a third-party vendor. And Consero’s FP&A team can expand and contract as Gimmal’s needs change.

“What I like about Consero is that it has a lot of breadth and depth,” said Mark. “The Consero team can evaluate our systems and processes and review the financial model as well. And the Consero FP&A team is great at understanding issues and tackling them efficiently.”

Consero also brings a level of stability and consistency to the audit process, including the monthly reconciliation of every balance sheet account and proof of cash. “All the detail is there at our fingertips,” said Mark.

Gimmal Gains Transparency, Scalability, Savings, and Predictability with Consero

Gimmal has achieved many benefits from the Consero relationship, including financial visibility, increased efficiency and scalability, time and cost savings, and increased confidence.

“We’re better able to communicate our financial position to investors using the transparent SIMPL portal,” said Mark. “There’s no month-to-month fluctuation in terms of accruals or accrual reversals. Everything is reliable.”

Cost savings is significant as well: If Mark were to hire his own people and implement systems and processes, Gimmal would spend approximately 25 percent more annually on finance operations.

In addition, Consero makes Gimmal’s finance function predictable. On the tenth workday of every month, the books are closed. Every Friday, bills are paid. “This level of predictability and stability in the organization is not something all PE portfolio companies have,” said Mark.

Given the standardized PE reporting requirements, Gimmal’s relationship with Consero makes it easier if the company changes ownership. And the variable pricing model is predictable based on the growth of the business.

“Consero is able to scale with the business as our needs grow,” said Mark. “They’re always there for us.”

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25% reduction in cost to manage finance operations

OVERVIEW
Gimmal is a records management company that helps organizations of all sizes implement better information governance and manage content effectively.

CHALLENGE
Achieve compliance with PE reporting requirements quickly while scaling to meet the needs of a changing finance operation.

SOLUTION
Gimmal uses Consero’s Finance as a Service and Financial Planning & Analysis teams to support their in-house Controller and CFO. Consero also configured Sage Intacct, Nexonia, Bill.com, and the Consero SIMPL console to deliver Gimmal’s required reporting and functionality.

RESULT
With Consero, Gimmal saves 25% annually on finance operations. They’ve also achieved financial transparency, increased efficiency, scalability, and predictability.

HEADQUARTERS
Houston, Texas

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National not-for-profit gets experienced financial leadership and 80% reduction in debt with outsourcing

THE SITUATION

The Association of Latino Professionals For America (ALPFA) is a nationwide organization with more than 81,000 student and professional members, along with many local chapters. ALPFA’s mission, “to empower and develop Latino men and women as leaders of character for the nation, in every sector of the global economy,” means there’s plenty of work to be done to support students and active professionals alike. Although ALPFA is a nonprofit organization, it still needs to operate as a business – with goals of avoiding substantial ongoing debt and maximizing its use of available resources – to succeed in its mission.

Before contacting Consero, ALPFA faced a number of significant financial and accounting challenges, some of which developed over time and were seen as difficult to control or mitigate. Those issues included:

• Significant, long-term debt in the seven-figure range.
• A lack of a strategic CFO to manage financial needs.
• A small group – just a controller and three staff members – that didn’t have all the qualifications to handle accounting needs.
• Recurring mistakes and errors in accounting activities.
• No budgeting nor profit and loss statements made on the individual chapter level.
• An inability to regularly close their books.
• An overall negative cash flow situation.
• No stable financials to show potential donors through IRS form 990.
• A tradition of in-house accounting that required a major change in mindset to overcome

CONSERO OFFERS A CLEAR PATHWAY TO BETTER OUTCOMES THROUGH FINANCE AS A SERVICE

Smart decision making and conscientious action by the ALPFA board were the triggers the organization needed to identify ways to substantially improve accounting and other financial responsibilities. In an effort to advance the organization and modernize its finance and accounting functions, the ALPFA board began a search for a competitive, cost-effective Finance as a Service partner. Chief among their requirements for this new relationship were that the partnership provide strong value and enable the organization to succeed in building a more sustainable financial future.

“It’s a big shift in mindset to be comfortable with people doing work offsite, but the way we are today with technology, it makes a lot of sense to consider outsourcing components, especially related to financing and accounting.”
Gabe Rodriguez – TREASURER AND FINANCE COMMITTEE CHAIR FOR ALPFA’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS; GLOBAL FINANCE DIRECTOR AND U.S. FIRM ASSISTANT CONTROLLER AT ERNST & YOUNG LLP

Rodriguez and Ixchell Duarte, a fellow finance committee board member, sought approval from the board to seek out an accounting outsourcing partner. The clear benefits of outsourcing with a Finance as a Service model made it an easy decision for the board. Those benefits included:

• Improved financial and accounting leadership.
• More timely and accurate financial reporting.
• Additional industry connections.
• Enhanced operational expertise for not-for-profits.
• Modern and efficient software to support operations.
• Cost savings.

With Selene Benavides, ALPFA’s CFO and interim COO, finding a top-notch partner was a relatively simple affair; she’s also the Client Finance Director at Consero.

“The whole board has been incredibly grateful to Consero and Selene for helping to bring the organization to a much better place than it had been before,” Rodriguez said.

A SMOOTH HANDOVER OF DATA AND THE START OF MORE SUCCESSFUL OPERATIONS

Consero did the heavy lifting to go through all relevant financial documentation, engaging in necessary data mining efforts and establishing a proper and complete transfer of information. Aided by the in-house finance team, Consero executed a complete, successful transition in a short amount of time – under four months. The immediate changes realized included, but weren’t limited to:

• Improved daily bookkeeping.
• A stable, secure digital platform for more quickly handling tasks like:
  • Approving invoices.
  • Reviewing bank reconciliations.
  • Tracking current data related to P&L, cash flow and much more.
• Real-time insight into financial standing.
• A wealth of current and accurate data.
• Controls in place to manage and monitor cash flow.
• Improved historical perspective.

“It’s a one-stop shop,” Rodriguez said. “It’s incredibly beneficial to us. It’s why we’ve been able to improve the financial condition of the organization over the last three years.“

As a small nonprofit, it was difficult in the past for ALPFA to consistently recruit and retain toplevel talent. That issue contributed to a number of other financial and accounting problems. With the Consero partnership in place, consistency, accuracy and insight all improved.

“It’s a fraction of the cost and you get top talent,” Rodriguez said. “Folks who have the experience and expertise can serve as a trusted business advisor.“

Additionally, ALPFA knows Consero can scale along with them as the nonprofit grows, providing consistency and stability for a core business function.

THE BENEFITS OF WORKING WITH CONSERO

With Benavides taking an active role in helping ALPFA with on a number of complicated financial tasks, from initial negotiations with debt-holders to developing non-interest-bearing payment plans, the nonprofit quickly saw how working with Consero improved their financial stability and long-term outlook for profitability. There were a host of other notable advantages, including:

• Cash in the bank.
• A 80 percent reduction in debt.
• An IRS form 990 that demonstrates the organization’s fiscal health and responsibility, which is invaluable in attracting outside donations and supporters.
• Real-time cash forecast capabilities.
• Faster vendor payments and expense reporting.
• Collecting on outstanding receivables far more quickly, with vital assistance from Benavides in this regard.
• Improved age of payables.
• Expense reimbursements for individual chapter volunteers in 2-3 weeks or less, instead of 2-3 months.
• Improved interactions and relationships with outside auditors.
• A monthly finance cadence that includes complete reporting, as well as quarterly board reporting.
• Enhanced cash management.
• Improved containment and reduction of expenses.
• Three years in the black after many spent in the red.
• Debt steadily paid down in an organized way, clearing a path to profitability.

“The change from in-house to accounting outsourcing has transformed the current financial reality and future outlook for ALPFA,” Rodriguez said. “With increased visibility into accounting information and financial changes that led to increased revenue, we are finally on sure footing.” Today, the organization is moving toward a position of profitability that will allow for improved operations, increased scholarships and many other benefits for members, volunteers and the organization as a whole.

“We’re excited about where we are and where we’ll be in a year from now,” Rodriguez said.