Financial systems for businesses where the same accounting problem keeps coming back

I have a client whose sales reps do in-home consultations every day, seven days a week. They close about five sales a day.

Before I came on, the invoicing process was convoluted. This company has partnerships with several major suppliers, and each supplier has its own data entry and reporting standards. A single job often sells items from different suppliers. It could be a bathtub, tile, and blinds, each from a different company, each with its own standard. So the rep would get a signed contract, and then report the sale in a CRM for eachsupplier on that job. It's ridiculous, I know, but it's what they had to do.

That led to delay. The rep would sell the job, call their manager, and give the numbers. The manager would enter the numbers, then send them over to accounting and compliance to double-check. Sometimes legal got involved too, depending on the scope of work. All of those boxes had to be checked before the customer could receive their initial invoice. On a normal sale, the best-case scenario was that the customer got their invoice a whole day later, but in reality, it usually was two or three days after signing. Also, the office staff had at least two hours of work to input and check per sale.

This led to delays in collections, and some invoices never got sent even though the work was being done. Before I took over, residential customers were averaging about 45 days to pay.

What I built

We know what compliance thresholds we're allowed to be within. We know what metrics the job has to be sold at. So why make the business jump through hoops when a job that's inside those thresholds could just be approved automatically? So I built a system that does just that. If the sale needs to be double-checked because something is off, it now immediately gets flagged and goes to the person who needs eyes on it.

I connected their CRMs, so instead of the rep filling out the same data in three or four places, they fill out one simple form I created. That form triggers the financial automations I built, which:

• handle the data entry into each supplier's CRM
• feed the sales tracker for commission payouts
• support job costing for management
• give the accounting team the information they need
• give the compliance team the critical information they need
• ping the owner on Slack whenever a new deal is sold, so they can see right away how every other department is handling it

Now, instead of asking four managers how the business is doing, the owner gets what they need automatically every time a sale closes. No more useless meetings, no more bureaucracy waiting for departments to approve, and no more waiting for money to hit the bank. Sales reps leave happy and ready for the next job, knowing their commission gets paid on time and won't slip a cycle because accounting missed a step again.

What it looks like now

It went from all the corporate slowdown mumbo jumbo to this: a sale gets closed, and before the rep can even put away the iPad from getting the signature, the customer's invoice has landed and they can pay right there on the spot. It's natural. The whole business moves faster because of it.

Every department is happier with this setup because they get to spend their time on more interesting work instead of verifying the right number hit the right box for compliance.

Same thing happened with another client, a commercial contractor working with 26 other companies. Each of those companies has its own AP department and its own compliance requirements, and each has its own process for how invoices need to be sent. If you miss a detail, they won't pay, and you wait until the next payment cycle.

The owner somehow kept all of those SOPs in his brain, and everyone else on the team struggled to keep up.

I sat him down, interviewed him about it, and wrote down everything he said. Then I reached out to all 26 companies, got their AP teams involved, and wrote down each process. I turned that into one master document. Now anyone on the team can pick it up and follow the right process without depending on the owner's memory. I was also able to greatly simplify the workflow for not just them, but some other AP departments. I eliminate redundancy where I can. Now everyone is happier, and money moves on time.

The owner is no longer involved in that side of the business. He's cut the amount of time he spends managing that process in half, spends more time with his family, and is at peace knowing his managers are running the right system.

There's no trademarked method. It usually goes like this.

1. Listen. What do people complain about? What keeps going wrong?
2. Check the accounting underneath it. If the books don't reconcile, or the team isn't following correct procedures, that gets fixed first.
3. Trace the process. Where it starts (a signed contract, a finished job, a payment), every person and system it passes through, and where it breaks or sits and waits.
4. Pick the source of truth. One place is the official answer for each number.
5. Write the rules and the exceptions. What goes through on its own, what needs a person, and what happens when two systems disagree.
6. Simplify what people have to enter. One form instead of four CRMs.
7. Automate the repeatable parts where it's safe, with a person reviewing anything that reaches a customer or your books.
8. Train the team and management.
9. Watch it. Processes drift. I check the logs and correct it.
10. Document it, so one person is no longer the system.