67: Unraveling Manufacturing's Accounting Challenges- with Pam Buckley

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[00:00:45] Kris Harrington: Clean the cat box.

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[00:00:54] Lori Highby: I feel like there's bits and pieces of that automation that's happening, but not the whole start to finish process.

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[00:01:16] Lori Highby: I don't know. I haven't invested.

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Can I do, is all of it an answer? Is that fair? Yeah. Every.

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I was, I was saying wash the dishes, but I mean, I know there's a dishwasher, but it's like doing the laborious part of it, like rinsing them and whatever.

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[00:02:00] Erin Courtenay: Okay.

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She started her career at Chortek 26 years ago as an auditor and business process consultant. She left public accounting for 17 years and worked as a controller and CFO at various manufacturing firms. This experience gave her valuable firsthand knowledge of the day to day challenges manufacturers face.

In: 2021

[00:03:03] Pam Buckley: Hello. Thank you.

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[00:03:16] Pam Buckley: So we work with quite a few small businesses in the Midwest here and family owned businesses. And like other companies, they are dealing with turnover at, in all departments, but as well as accounting. So sometimes they get a little tired of retraining and training and the information isn't correct or they can't find people with the proper skills that it would make sense to at least have a conversation with us about what we might be able to do for them on a regular basis, whether it be day to day, weekly for some clients, we only do sort of month end work. But the key is that our team, even if we do have some turnover, we have written process instructions, we have training, and it should be fairly invisible to the client if we have turnover.

So they, they just keep moving along versus when they maybe lose a person or can't find the right person.

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[00:04:37] Pam Buckley: There's usually a main contact. I'm the manager of the department, so I'm heavily involved with onboarding, so they already know me. And then there's usually a main contact that they deal with, but we use a lot of shared tools as well for when people are on vacation, or some of the processing that maybe the main contact doesn't need to actually do. And so we use shared mailboxes. We use Microsoft Teams to share files. And so for the client, of course, they're, they become familiar with, with one or two specific people that they probably interact with via email or on the phone. But in general, a lot of work's going on in the background and they probably don't even know who's doing it.

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[00:05:25] Lori Highby: So I know oftentimes outsourcing this type of work is something you think of like larger organizations and manufacturers. How does Chortek leverage technology to help the smaller manufacturers improve their day to day accounting and really get access to those critical, sophisticated reports?

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So we let them do their production inventory receiving and that kind of work in the inventory system and then it sends everything to QuickBooks so that we can do the rest of the accounting or sometimes the client is doing some of the accounting, you know, sending out customer invoices, things like that.

And then we sort of come in at month end and take care of things. But we found that QuickBooks isn't great at inventory management. So, sometimes clients who start out there end up needing something like Job Boss, for example, that, that tightly integrates with QuickBooks. So, and then on the other side, there are quite a few apps that integrate with QuickBooks Online for reporting and forecasting automated bill pay solutions, which allow us to enter, for example, all of the clients AP.

We get everything ready. It uses a little bit of AI to recognize the invoices and then the client has the final say, which is like the check signing part of the bill pay process. And so they actually go onto the app. They can do it on their phone. They can do it on their PC and, authorize the invoice for payment.

But we do a lot of that stuff in the background.

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[00:07:36] Pam Buckley: That's the goal. We like to be part of their team. And I was at a client meeting yesterday. The most fun part of my job is being able to, to actually interact with, with the folks who either own the businesses or are running them and give them some valuable information.

You know, AP is a necessary evil. It's difficult in manufacturing because you have to match up P. O. receipts where pricing is wrong, quantity is wrong, all different things like that. But at the end of the day, the goal is to get the underlying accounting information to be accurate so that we can turn that data into information that they're using to run the business.

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[00:08:54] Pam Buckley: Sure, sure. Well, a lot of times when clients come to us, maybe they are the entrepreneur or the spouse of an entrepreneur who started the business and so they don't have accounting background, but it's a necessary evil, you know, compliance and all that has to be done, but also if they're trying to form a relationship with the lender, or keep that relationship with the lender, their financial statements have to be consistent and accurate. And so what we do, or what we see, I guess, is cost accounting is one area. I'm not a cost accountant by any means, but we notice that it means a variety of different things to different people. So if you don't know what the cost of your product is, or you have a false sense of maybe what the cost of your product is, it can lead to quoting that doesn't make sense, or you know, high quotes that you're not going to win or maybe quotes that you're winning everything, but you're also losing money.

So that's one of the main things. And inventory is really key in that inventory and wages. I mean, those are the biggest expenses most manufacturers have.

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And I was worried when I asked the question, you have to know something about accounting. That makes a ton of sense.

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So there's things like, you know, reserves for obsolete inventory, things like that, that have to be taken into account as well. It's hard sometimes for owners to part with that stuff that they've paid money for.

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And to your point, what is the cost of actually creating, you know, the product or the deliverable at the end of the day to ensure there's profitability, because oftentimes that's something that you're just thinking like, Oh, what is the value? You're kind of putting your finger in the air going, Oh, I think this, this is what it's worth.

And that's not the reality of let's make sure that we're setting ourselves up for success in the long run. So it sounds like, yeah, again, you're that's a great area for manufacturers to be partnering with you on knowing that they're really good at what they do, not necessarily understanding the numbers that involved in how to do that.

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[00:12:07] Pam Buckley: I do a lot of our, a lot of our clients do have audits. More typically it's reviews or compilations of required by a bank, but also just tax preparation in general. What we were seeing is a lot of clients, our tax department, or even with the assistance of someone else in the firm, we're having these giant cleanup projects at year end because things hadn't been dealt with or kept tidy all throughout the year.

And so December, you know, you get to December and you think your financials are one thing. And then the accountants come in and just blow it up to make all these corrections. So, what we typically operate on a subscription model. So our services, we have a, an agreed scope of services for X price per month.

And sometimes it's a little bit tricky at first to get that concept across, but clients end up loving it because they know exactly what their costs are going to be, and then when their tax prep or year end financials are due, it's very easy because we've pretty much maintained throughout the year, fixed assets, all the tricky stuff.

And so it's, it's not this huge bill for tax and accounting work at month end. It's just correct. And then you've been relying on better information.

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Yeah, that's the, the, the magic potion right there. Make it feel easy. Yeah, cause you're gonna, you're going to have to pay the piper on one end or the other if you're, if you're just, yeah, you're just winging it sort of, yeah.

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I'm curious how outsourcing accounting and advisory can help manufacturers in uncertain times, because we've certainly experienced some of that as of late. And, and can you just talk to us a little bit about that as well?

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A lot of our clients are not in a position where it makes sense for them to have a full time controller or CFO. It's too costly and they just maybe don't have quite enough for someone in that position to do. So once the accounting and the numbers are correct, we also prepare a variety of reports using different tools.

Some are a little more sophisticated. Some are extremely inventory and manufacturing centric. And you know, to the point of showing clients with, with more visual graphics, charts, things like that, than just looking at a whole table of numbers. So we can do a lot of really good things with you know, here's your highest margin job yesterday down to your lowest, or we can do it not daily, but weekly.

We can look at and slice up clients in different ways you know, into, ABC customer buckets for our clients. This is who's contributing the most. This is who you have the most volume with, but they're maybe a lower margin client. And then we can do a lot of forecasting because, especially with QuickBooks, we have all the history in QuickBooks, but there are some very good apps that attach to that, that then can take the history and you can just do a straight projection into the future.

But you can also say, well, what if I buy this piece of $500,000 equipment? What's going to happen to my cash? What's going to happen to my balance sheet, my loan. And it's pretty automated. So you can literally say, well, if I buy it in May, this is what's going to happen. If I slide it forward to December, this maybe is more more achievable, or maybe we can cashflow it better.

So we do a lot of work with clients to get ready for relationships with lenders.

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[00:16:36] Pam Buckley: And just meeting with them and, and really having a client meeting where I don't talk very much and I listen a whole lot. And I find out so many things doing that. Just the things you never, you know, if you can get them to relax and just talk to you about what keeps them awake at night.

And it's like that you can really, if you're listening, you can really make an impact.

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[00:17:16] Lori Highby: Goes a long way, that's for sure.

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So Erin, could you please tell us what you just learned?

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[00:17:36] Lori Highby: Oh, no.

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And so I was like to give a little tidbit, a little trivia if I can Willie Mays hit, first of his career, 660 home runs.

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[00:18:12] Erin Courtenay: I wish I would have been there to see one of those in the ballpark. That would have been amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lori.

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And I learned this, that MIT has a pirate certificate that you can get. However the pirate certificate. I'm going to read this to you. Cause I looked it up. Okay.

Wait, I want

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[00:18:47] Lori Highby: Students. Let's see. It's only available to MIT students. So you can't just like take this certificate, right?

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[00:18:57] Lori Highby: But it's an incentive for undergraduate students to complete their Physical Education and Wellness General Institute requirement of four physical ed and wellness courses. And it also says on their website, it is for entertainment purposes only, and does not give the recipient license to engage in piracy or any pirate activities. But I don't know. I just, it was, I want to get a pirate certificate.

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[00:19:38] Lori Highby: Sailing, fencing, pistols, rifle shooting.

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[00:19:58] Lori Highby: Oh, that's funny. All right, Kris, what about you?

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Yeah. So, eight years ago we bought two service berry trees and you know, something that we've done here since we bought the farm is that we filled it with a lot of plants and native to Wisconsin, which service berries are.

And a lot of perennials things that will come back every year and we've started to get service berries. They're also called June berries, but they look like a blueberry, but they're a little bit larger and they're very sweet. And usually they're, they're very tasty and they're red on a tree, but when they turn ripe, they're like purple, very like velvet.

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[00:20:53] Kris Harrington: Our trees are full of them. I'll send you a picture. Maybe Becky can put a picture into a link.

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[00:21:03] Kris Harrington: So I was looking for jam recipes this morning because I have to do, I mean, they're all ripe right now, and I have to do something with them. So, you know, very simple recipes out there.

So I'll make some jam and if I have enough, I'll make sure you two ladies get it. It says two cups will give you one pint, you know, with the sugar and the lemon juice. And, and we have at least 10 cups out there within reach of me picking them. So, it'll be fun, but they're very good for you. They have antioxidants. They're full of vitamins and fiber. So. hey!

It's our first year harvesting, like truly harvesting, not just picking one and.

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[00:21:56] Pam Buckley: Well, this is such a Wisconsin thing to say. But my friends and I sometimes go to Door County and on our way up there, you can get the best cheese curds, right? They're fresh that day. But my disappointment with that is always like the next day or two when you put them in the fridge, there's not the same ever. So my friend told me the other day that one of those cheese companies out there said, if you microwave them literally for like five to 10 seconds, they go right back to being that squeaky cheese.

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[00:22:33] Erin Courtenay: So much value right there. Oh my God. We just gained like 20 followers and this is what I need ladies.

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[00:22:44] Pam Buckley: Oh, that was too good. And if you microwave them too long, then they're just like cheese curds without breading.

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[00:22:52] Kris Harrington: You really can't go wrong here, right?

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[00:23:00] Kris Harrington: Probably. Well, Pam, this was wonderful. Can you please tell our audience how they could reach out to you if they wanted to get in touch?

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com, and my email address is pbuckley at Chortek. com. So, we welcome people to come and take a look and see all the offerings of the firm, but especially in that area where we're focusing on accounting for manufacturing.

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