Client

A US based, fast growing CPA firm which is a Leader in Restaurant Accounting.

Background

A CPA firm in US which specializes in restaurant accounting, has developed a unique payroll, bookkeeping and accounting service catering to financial information, and management tools needed by the restaurant industry. This CPA firm chose to utilize SIL as an extended service delivery center in Thailand, giving the CPA firm the scalability to absorb rapid business growth.

The growing business required the client to strengthen resource capabilities to improve and innovate service offerings. The US restaurant industry has specific, time bound requirements to ensure that timely management information about accounting, payroll and tax payables is processed and made available to manage the finances efficiently.

Challenges

Since most of the restaurants follow a weekly payment cycle and with taxes being required to be deposited by the end of each week, the processing of all accounting transactions needs to be done by the end of every week. This results in extreme peaks of processing transactions volume for about three weekdays. With growing clientele, the CPA firm was faced with managing larger number of transactions within the finite window of time available during the week.

One of the options available to the CPA firm was to increase its headcount to cater to the increasing work load. However, this option was not commercially viable due to high break even time period per new employee, which was estimated to be in excess of one year. In addition, the technological and other office infrastructure required to cater to the growth in volume could have resulted in significant negative cash flows for the CPA firm, at least for a period of six months to 12 months.

The CPA firm was convinced that further growth would require much more absorption of technology in its business processes. The need was to have resources which would understand the finer nuances of the specific business processes and develop technological solutions to improve and innovate the processes.

Solution

SIL provided infrastructural and operational support, leveraging its domain expertise in accounting and technology to deliver value by enabling precise and timely data processing along with office productivity software solutions developed specifically to cater to the business process needs.

This empowered the CPA firm to:

		Improve the turnaround timings for providing financial, management and taxation reports.
		Effectively process tax requirements in significantly tight time frames.
		Enhance performance and service its clients better by increased client focus, rather than managing data processing and administrative functions.
		Utilize its own technological infrastructure optimally as the processing is also being done during the US night hours.
		Handle larger business volume in a cost effective manner.

Benefits

		SIL' s solution increased the ability of the CPA firm to tap the phenomenal growth potential of this highly specialized service offering, even at short notice.
		This is resulting in catapulting the organization into the next growth level, by improving the effectiveness of services despite a much larger business volume.
		The influx of fresh business is being absorbed easily, without causing a strain on existing resources or without the need for additional capital investment.
		With enhanced delivery capabilities supported by SIL, the CPA firm has reinforced its customer focus, resulting in referrals to new clients - creating even more opportunities for the organization and its stakeholders.
		Significant cost savings thereby enabling to CPA firm to increase its investment in marketing its services aggressively, fuelling further growth.