Revolutionize Your HVAC Company’s Operations: The A Team’s Solutions

Accounting Services Case Study Coaches Corner

A New York-based HVAC Company was having challenges related to its accounting and operational systems. These challenges led to inconsistencies between inventory management, order fulfillment, and accounting functions. The Company hired The A Team, a fractional CFO, accounting, and accounting technology firm, to identify and implement solutions for these issues and to provide an operational and accounting roadmap.

Challenges

The HVAC Company faced several discrepancies and inaccuracies within its Accounting and Operational software, leading to inefficiency and inaccuracy:

Operational Systems: The Company’s Inventory Management and Order Fulfillment Systems did not integrate with their accounting system. As a result, the two systems could not reconcile inventory counts and valuations.
Operational Processes: The Company’s operational processes were not aligned with best practices for the software they were using, leading to inconsistent and inefficient processes.
Accounting Reports: Inconsistent accounting reports within the accounting system (QuickBooks) did not reconcile with transaction data.
System Performance Issues: There were system performance issues which negatively impacted productivity and timeliness of reporting. Many reports had to be manually created and maintained.

Solutions

The A Team was initially engaged to analyze the Operational and Accounting issues, identify solutions, implement the identified solutions, and provide operational and accounting documentation. The A Team offered several solutions, including:

Repair the Accounting Database: The accounting database was heavily damaged due to a lack of maintenance. The A Team repaired the data damage and implemented processes to prevent future problems. The A Team also condensed the data file, significantly improving software performance.
Best Practices: The company was not using best practices in the areas of AIA Billing, Retainage management, and Customer Deposits. The A Team implemented best practices that significantly improved the accuracy and timeliness of these and other financial and operational reports.
Optimized QuickBooks: Since the Company factored their inventory to improve cash flow, its lenders were not considering fully loaded costs. The A Team implemented new QuickBooks features to apply fully loaded landed costs to Inventory Items on a SKU level.
Migrate Inventory Management and Order Fulfillment to QuickBooks: Since QuickBooks could support Inventory Management and Order Fulfillment without using an additional software package, The A Team migrated these functions to QuickBooks significantly decreasing software costs and improving the accuracy and timeliness of various financial and operational reports.
Fractional CFO, Controller, and Bookkeeper Services: The A Team provided these services while the HVAC Company interviewed and hired staff to perform these functions.
Documentation and Training: The A Team documented in detail the solutions they implemented and trained the HVAC Company’s Operational and Accounting staff as necessary

Results

By engaging The A Team, the HVAC Company significantly reduced recurring software costs and increased timeliness and accuracy of reports for its Management. Since they were no longer “operating in the dark,” Management was able to efficiently manage and expand the business using appropriate accounting software systems. The A Team’s solutions enabled the HVAC Company to scale and grow by aligning their Operational and Accounting processes, improving their software performance, and increasing the accuracy and timeliness of financial and operational reports.