Client Background:

Our client is a fast growing SaaS/Technology Start up located in Boston. They started the organization few years ago with minimum staff and do not have an Accounting department or staff. One of the founders is handling day to day Accounting and mostly focusing on Sales, they were using Cloud based Accounting system.

Problem:

Their CPA filed for tax extension due to lack of proper Accounting information and they were facing fines and charges when they were referred to us.

They were unable to produce detailed transactional history and Bank Statements were not clear enough for tax filings. They did not have bookkeeping practices and their expense management was non-existent.

We were asked to provide an assessment and implement solutions in a short time frame to help file for taxes and comply with funding requirements.

Assessment:

During Assessment, we identified multiple issues and areas of improvement, some of them are listed below:

They have not reconciled their books for over 18 months
They had multiple transactions, missing transactions, bank accounts that were not included and overall no standard transaction management process
They were using application-recommended standard Chart of Accounts (COA) and continuously kept adding new accounts without any governance resulting in hundreds of accounts with multiple duplicates. For example, they had 4 different accounts for Rent:
- Expense: Rent
- Expense: Lease
- Expense: Office Rental
- Liability: Rent
They did not set up parent-child Account strings so none of the Accounts rolled up
Their data was not clean with information missing from vendor database, multiple client and vendor entries.
They did not have any expense tracking process and application that would minimize human error

CAS Solutions:

Process Improvement,

Financial Data Clean up and Chart of Account (COA) Optimization

Boston Based SaaS Start-up

BraunWeiss Approach:

Implement standard data practices across the board
Implement standard Accounting practices complying with GAAP
Review current COA and merge duplicate accounts, inactivate unused/non-applicable accounts
Build Parent-Child Account relationship to assure

Account roll up

Build reporting structure and hierarchy
Reconcile all accounts
Implement expense tracking application and

approval process

BraunWeiss Solution Implementation:

Financial Data Management:

BraunWeiss cleaned up all databases and assured the information is accurate and unique accross the board
Identified and resolved issues that was causing multiple data entries
Provided training on best practices in data management

Reconciliation:

Set up all bank and credit card accounts
Resolve all synch issues
Uploaded all historical bank and credit card transactions
Deleted multiple transactions
Reconciled historical cash on a monthly basis (debit/credit level)

Chart of Accounts:

Build a new COA structure with parent-child relationship
Merge duplicate accounts in QBO and inactivate unused accounts
Create new accounts as needed
Implement Account numbering structure
Map all historical transactions to new COA
Set up GAAP processes to assure compliance
Provide financial statements for CPA tax filings

Expense Management:

Implement Cloud based expense management application
Set up all users
Integrate with QBO and assure only approved expense categories are available
Set up approval work stream
Provide training for all users
Map all historical expense payments to correct categories and employees