Introduction
Our readers have asked for more ‘practical’ solutions to real world problems, and so we are implementing a new series titled “Case Study Solutions using 3rd Party Products”. Intuitive Accountant will be working with a variety of 3rd Party Solutions in documenting true-to-fact cases from their files to find typical examples of what you might encounter as a ProAdvisor, Accountant, Bookkeeper or Business Consultant. We then look at how that vendor’s product resolved the particular problems, and give you feedback from the actual users regarding the implemented solution. These case studies are not ‘infomercials’, ‘paid advertising’ or ‘endorsements’ of any specific product, rather these articles are intended for educational and information purposes to give you our readers a variety of solutions to situations or client issues you may encounter.
Prologue
I wonder how many of us think at times that we have changed rolls from ProAdvisor to ‘Bill Collector’. I call clients about past due amounts, I send little pink 2nd invoices with my trademark ‘Cowboy’ Shoot us a Check stamp at the bottom of them. My assistant calls and asks when can we expect your payment, heck it seems I do almost everything except send out ‘Guido the enforcer’ to collect.
Almost without exception it seems that the vast majority of these collections represent my ‘little clients’, you know the ones you send an Invoice to every month or two, $95 here, $190 there, and they always have at least one or two open invoices when it’s time to send the next. It’s a collection nightmare, hard to keep track of, and in many ways what seems like a waste of time, but the reality is that a lot of ‘little amounts’ add up over time.
Well I am sure there are not only a lot of other ProAdvisors like me, with AR problems of their own, but there are a lot of ProAdvisors who are also trying to help their clients deal with their own AR messes.
Case Study – The Iconis Group, LLC
One such ProAdvisor is Cathy Iconis, CEO and Client Finance Director for the Iconis Group, LLC.1 Cathy founded Iconis Group in 2009 with the desire to help small business owners better understand their numbers and thus make better decisions about their businesses.
As it happens Cathy has a client who she describes as “having a large (hundreds) of invoices each month, so many that they can hardly keep up with the payment status.”
In response to her client’s needs Cathy went looking for a solution that could easily organize their invoices and provide a structure to manage collections.
Cathy turned to Funding Gates2 and their FG Receivables Manager3 to meet the needs of her client. She said, “the FG Receivables Manager organizes all the invoices in one place in an easy to use format, it also makes it super easy to track collection history including communications and provides email templates to streamline follow-up with clients.”
Cathy’s Iconis Group brings a strong foundation in both private and public accounting to benefit her clients. As such she quickly realized that the FG Receivables Manager was not only a great solutions for do-it-yourself clients, but was a great tool that practices like hers could use help provide a solution for clients that need assistance managing their Accounts Receivable. The tool makes it possible to do all of the AR work for the client in-house, or simply track AR and then either advise the client when it is time to write-off an invoice or send a specific outstanding invoice to a collections agency.
Solution found, problem solved, opportunity discovered. That's a perfect endorsement for a 3rd party product.
Epilogue
Who knows, I might just farm out all those little client invoices to Cathy, they probably would do a better job than Guido.
Footnotes:
1-Cathy Iconis also founded a weekly tweet chat about QuickBooks Online, #QBOchat, in 2013. She wanted to bring together all QuickBooks Online users, small businesses, accountants, and developers, in a weekly discussion related to QuickBooks Online and running small businesses. www.qbochat.com
2-Case study facts supplied by Funding Gates, 333 W 39th St. Suite 1101, New York, NY 10018
3-The FG Receivables Manager is an AR Management Platform that enables you take receivables management actions like emailing and calling as well as actually sending accounts to collections. I functions like a CRM displaying all of the details of your communication history with each client. For more information visit the Funding Gates website.
Notice: If you are a ProAdvisor or Business Consultant and you have identified a 3rd party solution that has significant improved some aspect of your practice, feel free to submit to us a case study of how the produce has benefited your business. Or if you have assisted one of your clients in implementing the perfect solution to resolve some operational requirement we will be happy to entertain a case story regarding your client just as long as you submit permission from your client for publication of their details.
If you are a 3rd Party Solution Provider that works with QuickBooks (Desktop or Online), feel free to submit one or more case-studies for our preliminary review.
We will be happy to consider any of these case studies for potential publication and/or contact you regarding our re-writes and other editorial requirements prior to publication.