Manual bookkeeping creates major CAS challenges for Woltman Group
Faced with the growing demand for their CAS expertise, Woltman Group found themselves in a bind: In order to provide client advisory services, they needed capacity they just didn’t have. The staff was buried in manual categorizations and transaction reconciliation, making it nearly impossible to meet the monthly close deadlines for their bookkeeping clients. This forced them to waitlist clients for CAS services, and dominated valuable staff time with low-return work.
To overcome these challenges, the company's leaders realized they would need to expand their technology stack. Christa Tusha — Senior Accountant at the firm — stepped up to lead the charge.
“The sword that cut both ways was our desire to provide our clients with the CAS services they wanted. But could we really do it in a high-quality way? And if so, how would we accomplish that?” Christa said. “We didn’t have the capacity to serve them properly because we were still using our staff for data entry work. Plus, we didn't want to miss monthly closes as we had been for many of our bookkeeping clients. Unfortunately, these issues were forcing us to waitlist potential CAS clients. That’s when we decided Botkeeper could help.”
Woltman Group found Botkeeper, thanks to Rootworks
Woltman Group is a Rootworks firm, and is among the top tax and accounting firms in the country. As a Rootworks member, they have access to sales enablement resources, strategy advice, and recommendations for technology. So, when Woltman Group’s leaders learned about Botkeeper during a Rootwork’s event, they trusted it was the right solution to help shift staff capacity away from tedious bookkeeping functions.
“Notwithstanding the number of challenges we were experiencing with CAS, we didn’t actively go out and look for a bookkeeping solution,” Christa explained. “As a Rootworks firm, we attend a number of their events and webinars because they are industry experts. It was at one of these events that Heather Hofer — a partner at the firm — heard about Botkeeper’s automation technology. She liked what she saw, and asked me to learn more about it. I’m glad she did.”
After demoing the platform for themselves, Christa and the firm’s CAS leaders were so impressed, they signed up with Botkeeper right away.
Painless onboarding and automation yields quick results
Getting Woltman Group and their clients onto the Botkeeper platform was a cinch for Christa. As a result, the firm was able to reap the benefits of Botkeeper’s powerful automation technology pretty quickly.
“Getting started with Botkeeper was painless. The Botkeeper team helped with training and answered any implementation questions during what should have been a difficult time,” Christa said. “Later, when it came time to import our clients' data and records onto the platform, it was just a few clicks. Each client only took me 30 minutes! That made it simple to batch 30 of our clients in a short window of time.”
Within just a few short months, 30 of Woltman Group's CAS clients were onboarded and the time savings were rolling in. The partnership with Botkeeper was proving to be a good idea.
Botkeeper provides Woltman Group with time savings
When Christa first did an audit of how Botkeeper was helping the Woltman Group, she found they were getting their clients' financial reporting and transaction categorizing work done in half the time — and with twice as much gusto.
“For our initial batch of clients on Botkeeper, the team was happy to realize that our categorizations were more accurate and timely. This was especially true for our most complex clients. Our staff is experiencing a 50% reduction in the time it takes to complete the bookkeeping for our CAS clients,” Christa said.
Botkeeper’s round-the-clock service has enabled Woltman Group to stay in sync with their clients’ accounting cycles. Christa could breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that their monthly accounting is up-to-date or even closing ahead of deadlines.
“Let’s face it. Unfortunately, bookkeeping had been one of those things we would get to after the fact. When you have payroll to take care of and don’t get bookkeeping done until days or even weeks later, it isn’t a big deal because there are other things to worry about,” Christa said. “Botkeeper is us helping us stay accountable to complete all our clients’ financial statements and get them out. With Botkeeper, there's no more stress at the end of each month. We’re closing on time again!”
Woltman Group is expanding with Botkeeper
It was clear — because Botkeeper had greatly reduced the time required for accounting and bookkeeping work, Woltman Group could add clients and scale even further. Today, Woltman Group has 40 monthly CAS clients on Botkeeper and already has plans to expand. They couldn’t be happier.
“So far, so good. Botkeeper has been a good move for our firm,” Christa said. “Things are going smoothly for the 40 clients we currently have on the platform. It was an easy decision for us to bring more of our CAS clients. By the end of 2022, we’re contracted to 80 clients in ongoing services. We're sure to hit that number!”
Christa is so certain of Woltman Group’s future with Botkeeper, she anticipates that by the end of 2023 100% of their current and future CAS clients will be on the platform.
“Because Botkeeper is giving our firm the gift of time, once we transition all our current CAS clients to QBO we will be able to get all of them onboarded onto the Botkeeper platform,” Christa said. “Then looking ahead, our ultimate decision is that all new clients will be on QBO and they’ll just immediately go on to Botkeeper for transactions. The benefits of this will be amazing for us!”
