Financial visibility results in massive profits

For this business, the powerful results of seeing profits go from $500k to $6.7 in a period of 18 months were primarily the result of implementing a financial dashboard, and holding monthly meetings.

It sounds simple, but these two solutions are based on what we know works for businesses of this type. First, it’s critical for you as the business owner to have full visibility on the financial results of your day to day business decisions. Second, we know that it’s not your accountants who are the ones to make changes in the business: that’s your role, and you do it very well. What we do – and what we did for this company – is to provide the dashboards, graphs, numbers, and indicators, and then help to interpret what these mean, enabling you the owner to make better decisions.

For this business, we didn’t save the day, but we enabled the owner to do that. We’ll help you uncover what you need to do, and then the actions you take will have powerful results similar to this company.

True financial picture solves long-standing issues

This company had an opportunity for his business to be acquired, and asked us to be a sounding board throughout this process. We held a meeting with the owner and his management team.

“I was able to state my specific vision for each team member in a way I was never able to before,” he says. We showed them that there were three sets of numbers: tax returns, financials, and the internal accounting records. We got everything to match and balance, which helped display the company’s true financial picture. “As a result,” the owner said, “we could then address – and solve – many of the long-standing issues that had frustrated me for a long time.”

Now this company’s books are in a place where we can help with benchmarking and Key Performance Indicators. “They were there to address our concerns – big and small – and fix them as they came up. On the tax strategy side, we now know what we can and can’t do!”

IRS audit and tax return filings taken care of

This company came to us in the middle of an IRS audit. “Everything was a disaster,” they recalled later, “and we didn’t even realize it.”

Whittaker worked together with the company’s highly qualified team to put the pieces together, stabilize the accounting records, provide guidance, and work with the team on how to move forward.

“They didn’t just come in and solve the problem,” the company says. “They gave each qualified person on the team a platform from which to voice their concerns and get confirmation that what they wanted to do was indeed the correct action.”

One of the issues that came to light was the fact that the company wasn’t filing tax returns in all the states required, so Whittaker filed those in order to get the company up to date and compliant. In addition, their Quickbooks accounting file was corrupted, so we provided guidance and talked through solutions for what needed to be done so that the company could continue to operate.

“This all was completed over a longer period of 16-24 months. We couldn’t have done it without Whittaker.”

Streamlining of accounting records

Streamlining of financial records was key for this business, who came to us with so many records, tax issues and strategic questions they weren’t sure where to start.

They had three separate sets of financial records and we worked with them to come up with one. Because we did that, their property taxes were properly prepared and filed. On the accounting side, we provided guidance on how to book certain types of transactions and empowered them to streamline their own accounting environment.  As a result, we gave them a consolidated picture of what their business looks like and how it is performing. We continue to provide guidance for special types of transactions that need to be properly recorded.

On an ongoing basis, we provide tax strategies for the company including a decision on changing the legal entity, and we hold quarterly management meetings to assist with accounting, business strategy & tax planning.