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

Mike Dionne is the CFO of a private equity-backed SaaS company with 350 employees. Their private equity sponsor was regularly evaluating acquisition targets. Mike needed to establish a finance function that could support those new acquisitions.

The Goal

Half of Mike’s time was spent on transactional accounting and closing the books. He was operating more as a Controller rather than a CFO because his time was consumed in the day-to-day back-office. Mike knew he needed more time to focus on strategy to add value to the company. This was compounded when they took on three acquisitions in one year. While taking on new acquisitions, the finance team had to set up a new process with an entirely new chart of accounts. This was time consuming and ineffective. They quickly outgrew their finance & accounting technology and needed to find a new solution that could easily handle acquisitions.

The Challenge

Their private equity sponsor was frequently bringing investment opportunities to the table. The primary challenge that they were trying to resolve was how to manage folding new acquisitions into the finance function. Using QuickBooks for multi-entity structure was not ideal. There was a different chart of accounts for each entity. The lack of multi-entity accounting capabilities within QuickBooks meant they needed to re-evaluate the finance & accounting software. They had taken on three acquisitions in one year and it was a very heavy lift. Furthermore, Mike did not have a team that could burst when they needed the additional support. He looked at Consero and the Finance as a Service model as an opportunity to solve the problem.

Consero’s Impact

Spend More Time on Strategy

After implementing Consero’s Finance as a Service model, Mike was spending less than 5% of his time overseeing the close and reporting process. He now uses 95% of his time to be a strategic partner to the business and private equity sponsor. He now works on key initiatives and looking at acquisition opportunities. It has been a significant change and strong impact on his role.

Accurate and Real-Time Business Insight

Mike’s able to get a complete overview of the business by the information provided by Consero’s SIMPL software stack. There is a standard set of reports that business leaders can easily access from SIMPL. Those include actual operating results vs. plan vs. prior year. The team can evaluate metrics and get a very clear picture of how they are performing in different functional areas vs. how they expected to perform vs. how they performed in the past.

On-Demand Finance Team

Consero’s Finance as a Service solution is unique because it not only provides the skilled finance team that can tackle the back-office transactional work but can also scale as the company experiences a spike.

Better Investor Relations

The relationship with Consero has allowed Mike to move quickly with their private equity investors to evaluate potential acquisitions. If they were to swiftly execute on an opportunity, he is confident that they could fold it in quickly and seamlessly.

Recommending Consero

Mike would recommend Consero to other organizations. If you need to move fast, need flexibility and want your finance team to be a strong strategic partner to the business rather than a transactional partner . . . then you should consider Consero. Consero excels at all of that.