Rather than hiring a controller/bookkeeper to do all these things, he turned to Backoffice2 to provide an accounting department on a contract basis. Doing so avoided the time and money required to hire, train, equip and supervise an accounting department on top of his priority for construction operations. Backoffice2 takes the unusual approach of developing their own cloud-based software which allowed them to customize the accounting processes and reports to meet the new owner’s needs. Some of the unique benefits received by Three Palm include:

• Customized accounting reports tracking each pool project with budgets and actual cost variance reports allowing the owner to focus on the problems.

• Technical capability to import the old company’s data on contracts-in-process so that the new owner could see Cloud-based reports on where those contracts stood.

• A Cloud-based system for approving and processing vendor invoices was established which allowed for the two different locations.

• Payroll processes were automated to include direct deposit.

• Salespeople received automated Cloud-based reports showing their commission calculations in real time.

• Initial year tax planning was put into place to take advantage of the losses on the incomplete projects inherited from the seller.

• Workers’ Comp and Commercial Insurance contracts were negotiated and set up.

• Initial setup of accounts with various taxing authorities were completed.

 

The immediate result was that in a few weeks, the client had a fully operational accounting department processing his accounting records daily using the Cloud. The old projects are mostly completed and cash flow has turned positive.