Maximizing Business Value with Xero
How we helped an executive architectural services firm stabilize its accounting infrastructure, automate tedious tasks, and regain clear visibility into business performance, setting future owners up for success and helping secure the firm’s legacy.
Client
Founded in 1996 by Doug Robertson and Jim House, House & Robertson Architects is a Los Angeles-based firm specializing exclusively in executive architectural services, working collaboratively with various noted design firms. The unique sole focus approach allows House & Robertson to operate more efficiently and take a flexible approach to unusual challenges. By combining their technical expertise and experience with the capabilities of top design offices, House & Robertson Architects excels at providing high-quality buildings and effective project delivery to their clients.
We were focused on getting new clients and doing new types of work in different cities, and accounting and bookkeeping were the last things we wanted to take care of. That happened on weekends and holidays when the principals had time to focus.
Challenge
In 2015, House & Robertson Architects (HRA) established an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), a strategy Jim and Doug had long considered in their succession planning. HRA was growing rapidly and expanding its physical locations to different cities, particularly the San Fransico Bay area, which had a burdensome regulatory environment.
HRA was working with a small, two-person bookkeeping company that used outdated desktop accounting software to perform monthly accounting and data entry. The software could not be used outside the physical office and lacked the robust reporting capabilities HRA leaders needed to produce insightful business data. HRA had no automatic bill payment system and often wrote paper checks. Additionally, the leadership team performed monthly bank reconciliations manually, a tedious and time-consuming process.
While HRA’s current accounting services were adequate for smaller organizations, HRA required more complex accounting as a growing professional services firm operating as a partnership. Jim and Doug knew they needed a solid accounting infrastructure and better financial insights to set future HRA leaders up for success.
Approach
HRA initially engaged EisnerAmper to reconstruct their previous years' books and get the firm back on sound footing for the conversion to the ESOP. During the cleanup it became obvious that HRA also needed to revamp their accounting function to efficiently maintain the books going forward. Their EisnerAmper partner suggested that HRA consider an EisnerAmper cloud accounting solution, which essentially outsources the entire back-office accounting function
We first worked with HRA to determine their needs and understand their current processes. We had an assessment period where we looked at HRA’s books, introduced them to our team, and spoke with HRA leaders to understand and agree upon a solution. Then, we reviewed our engagement letter with HRA to make sure everyone on the team was on the same page and that it addressed all issues in the assessment.
HRA leaders wanted to be hands-on with their accounting system, understand what was happening, and potentially take it in-house. The system also needed to be intuitive for the architects to use. With its user-friendly interface, scalability, integration capabilities, and built-in automation, we found that Xero would be an optimal solution for HRA. Our team integrated Xero and BILL (formerly Bill.com), an automatic bill payment system, to provide a seamless workflow for managing bills and payments and trained HRA’s team on usage. Our cloud accounting team also assisted by:
- Remapping HRA's chart of accounts to avoid overlaps and elicit better reports for management.
- Turning HRA financial reports into auditable financial statements.
Xero is user-friendly enough that, with [EisnerAmper’s] help, we can enter complicated client invoices and consultant payables directly and do our own bank reconciliation weekly. [EisnerAmper] teaches us to fish (to use the old analogy), and that's been very successful. I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the whole EisnerAmper team.
Results
EisnerAmper is allowing 50 architects to chart their own course and have an independently owned business for as long as they want. [EisnerAmper is] helping small companies fight and compete with an entrepreneurial spirit in a world of behemoths, and it's a beautiful thing.
With their new accounting software and integrated bill payment system, HRA leaders can track when invoices are sent and paid in real-time, allowing for better cash-flow management. They also have full visibility over their financials and can easily make and receive payments from vendors and clients sans paper checks.
Our team meets with HRA leaders monthly to review their financial reports, discuss what’s happening behind the numbers, and determine how we can help them improve. By organizing accounts and adding details, HRA’s P&L and balance sheets contain all the information leaders need to make informed business decisions. Now, the team views their P&L monthly instead of once a year when tax returns are due.
We continuously work closely with HRA at the strategic level and are there for them whenever a new need arises. For example, our team is helping HRA leaders find a solution to more closely integrate their project activity into the general ledger. This will allow HRA to recognize business sectors on a project basis and track project-level performance, not just office-level performance, without stepping out of the system into manual spreadsheets. The solution may involve working with additional features within Xero, finding third party application solutions from Xero’s partner network, or perhaps even moving to a different and larger accounting solution.
With its accounting infrastructure stabilized, HRA leaders now have all the information they need to make informed business decisions, setting future owners up for success and helping secure the firm’s legacy.
Contact Us
Contact us today for a consultation or demo and discover how our cloud accounting services can help your organization.