Solutions

SBS clients range in size from new businesses with no revenue to larger companies at the $20M level. We propose a set of solutions and budget tailor-made for each prospective client.

Below are several client success stories.

Non-Profit

Challenge

A non-profit company encounters delays and frustration when completing an annual audit essential to procuring grants. Daily bookkeeping includes charges for five staff credit cards, periodic reimbursed expenses, facility payables, restricted grants, and donor thank you letters. One staff member combines bookkeeping with another full-time responsibility. The Board of Directors receives inaccurate, late reports. Bank balances and cash requirements are not readily available.

Solution

SBS cleaned up the existing data and tie all Balance Sheet accounts to source documents. A Senior Consultant:

worked with the auditors to provide detailed reports and answer inquiries
improved the accounting system to achieve efficiency and timely reporting.

After the reorganization, the Board of Directors elected to use SBS as its virtual accounting office. A Small Business Management Consultant now manages all bookkeeping, cash-flow control, and donation letters. Payroll Plus, handles payroll processing for the staff of ten. As the outsourced CFO, the SBS Senior Consultant reviews the accounting system, works with the auditors, creates specialized cost reports, and assures accurate, timely reporting to the Board of Directors.

Design & Creative

Challenge

A design group works on a project basis, often with large clients with limited loyalty to their vendors. Cash-flow is a persisting concern. The client struggles to set goals and implement planning.

Solution

SBS now ensures that data is produced accurately for financial statements used for projections. An SBS Consultant implements both accrual and cash-basis cash-flow statements with actual and projected updated reports as part of the monthly closing process. The owner can now engage in active planning and has alternatives in place if projections not meet their expectations.

Sales & Service

Challenge

A sales rep company pays a base salary plus commissions to its sales staff. A commission split and data collection process is not in place causing sales staff to complain.

Solution

After an SBS consultant worked with the owner to evaluate various scenarios for the commission split, a logical process was defined with a split favorable to owner and staff. The well-designed system guarantees an unbiased approach to commissions which keeps morale high and allows consistent quarterly payouts.

Real Estate

Challenge

A restaurant corporation owns the real estate for each of their locations. The owners want to branch out and acquire non-related properties for rental purposes. They are unsure how to proceed with entity formation and their new tax and accounting structure.

Solution

After researching to determine the best strategy, an SBS Consultant proposed forming an LLC and transferring all owned properties to the new LLC. New properties are purchased by the LLC and kept separate from the restaurant business. This solution centralizes passive income activity and makes for easier tax planning as the restaurants lease property from the LLC. (An LLC is a preferred entity to hold residential or commercial real estate.)

The SBS Consultant set up a QuickBooks file with reports formatted to show income and expenses for each location. Reporting to lenders for loan purposes and to tax accountants is now an easy task.

Retail & Wholesale

Challenge

An SBS client is showing poor margins with conflicting reports from other sources. Cost of Goods line items are inconsistent and show a roller coaster profit margin.

Solution

After reviewing the POS system setup and analyzing the data export tracking, an SBS Consultant realized that the tracking had not been set up – the data was flowing into the Profit and Loss statement in a haphazard manner. The Consultant implemented proper tracking that matched line items with their sales counterparts. Now, COG margins are accurate. Food sales, wine, and beer are easily displayed on the P&L. Newly customized reports help the owner monitor inventory levels.