This blog was originally posted on Intacct.com
We recently sat down with Bill Klein, President at Consero Global, and spoke about what it’s like being an Intacct Accountant Program (IAP) partner.
Intacct: Tell us about Consero Global.
Bill Klein: Consero Global is based in Austin, TX and offers small and midsize companies finance accounting services that provide them better insights and operational scalability for them to be able to drive their businesses forward and make informed decisions.
Intacct: Why did you decide to partner with Intacct and join the Intacct Accountants Program?
Bill Klein: The Intacct Accountant’s Program was a choice for us because it offered us a platform through which we could build our outsourced accounting practice that would scale from lower, earlier stage customers to later stage bigger businesses.
The accountant’s program gives us not only a cloud-based technology platform from which to deliver our services but also gives us great support when we run into issues, challenges, new things that we face with a prospect or a customer.
We get great support and expertise we need to help guide us along and develop and expand our practice. Intacct allows us to work efficiently and allows us to scale our operations to support our clients in different stages of their growth.
Intacct: Can you talk about a recent success with Intacct?
Bill Klein: We have a client in Austin, a software business, who was facing a lot of difficulties with getting good information, reliable information to be able to make decisions on and to be able to report to their board on. And when we came in, the combination of our practice using the Intacct platform, we were able to streamline a lot of things that were causing difficulties. For example, compiling information from different systems and getting it into management views that were digestible and could express how the business was doing. We were able to streamline all that and make it easier for them to not only have that information to make decisions on it but report up to their investors on progress in the business.
Intacct: What can customers expect from Consero Global?
Bill Klein: The combination of the expertise we can bring and guidance we can bring them with respect to financial issues, technical accounting, allows them to be confident in that they’ll have the support they need. They’ll be informed in the decisions they make but also know that their information will be correct.
Intacct: Why did you decide to work with Intacct?
Bill Klein: When we were developing a platform from which to deliver services to our clients we went through a pretty robust process of evaluating different accounting systems and seeing which one we thought would be the best fit for our business and the types of customers we were working with and the stages they were at. Intacct really met the biggest requirements we had which was, one, being a cloud-based platform to minimize IT, infrastructure costs and headaches. And number two, being scalable enough to bring on customers who are at an earlier stage of their life of business but being – and that from there, being able to be modular enough and scalable enough for them to be able to go all the way through an initial public offering if that’s the path they wanted to go down without doing another systems conversion.
Intacct: Why was cloud-based important to Consero Global?
Bill Klein: Intacct, being a cloud-based solution, was important not only to us but to our customers, a lot of whom are software and technology businesses themselves. Most of the other applications and most of the other things they have to support their business operations are cloud-based as well. And it fit very well into their whole IT approach and philosophy.
Intacct: What is it like working with Intacct’s IAP team?
Bill Klein: Where Intacct and the IAP program have been most helpful for us is in terms of offering expertise when we need it, either in our sales cycle or in the delivery of our services to clients. And also the opportunity to interface with and learn from other outsourced partners who are going through similar things, working through similar problems with their clients and being able to really make sure we are implementing best practices and solving problems the best way we can. The Intacct IAP team is always there and available and responsive to be able to help answer questions, bring in expertise to help us work through problems as they come up.
Intacct: We recently rolled out the Eight Keys to Success for our IAP partners. What are your thoughts on it?
Bill Klein: I think the Eight Keys to Success were really well identified in terms of what foundational things you need to have in place and then build upon to have a complete solution and delivery process to growing your outsourced practice. I believe that one of the things that’s really driven – allowed us to drive the growth we have and the expansion of our business – is having the dedicated focus on outsourced services. Not treating that as a side business or something that you’re dabbling in but really being committed to it.
Intacct: What advice would you give to a prospective Intacct IAP partner?
Bill Klein: If I were talking to a prospective Intacct IAP partner who was considering joining the program, I would tell them that, for Consero it’s really helped us grow our business. Intacct has been a great partner, fostered a good community and has been responsive to partner needs to enable everybody to succeed.
Find out more about Consero Global and the Intacct Accountants Program.
