When a company is new or young, most of the focus of the operation is in getting product sold and out the door, paying employees and vendors on time, and letting the tax preparer give the books a “once-over” at tax time. But as operations grow and become more sophisticated, it is imperative to secure periodic financial information reported under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. The need can arise from a number of different areas:

• The need to provide the Board of Directors and investors with timely and accurate financial information, not simply receipts and disbursements,
• The need to provide lenders with monthly or quarterly financial statements to support their underwriting or as a borrowing base for secured lending,
• The need as basis for the Company to compare itself competitively on a level playing field to other companies to which it competes for both capital and customers,
• The Company is in a highly regulated (i.e., health care, insurance, banking, defense, etc.) industry or one which carries complicated accounting requirements (i.e., software, construction, multi-national, etc.),
• The Company undertakes deferred or incentive compensation plans for its executives and employees, which carry sophisticated accounting requirements, or,
• The Company decides to enter the public company marketplace, imposing on itself expanded technical reporting requirements, both pre-IPO, and then as a public entity regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Most of our clients come to us with established bookkeeping operations, which adequately invoice customers, collect receivables, process vendor billings, and timely pay its vendors and employees. Yet, at some point in their growth cycle, theyrequire technical accounting expertise. Ourpartners have practiced public accounting in the past, maintain their expertise through continuing education, and apply these skills in real-world environments across many industries. We supply this expertise on a cost-effective, part-time basis, avoiding the need to hire full-time talent. Not only do we meet an organization’s technical accounting needs, we provide strategic direction based on decades of past experience that is often lacking in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s).

Companies requiring outside audits are often overburdened with the planning and preparation aspects of an audit performed by an outside Certified Public Accountant. Generally Accepted Auditing Standards preclude the auditor from auditing the work he or she performs. Increasingly, audit preparation involves more than just supporting schedule preparation, but the requirement for “white papers”, a document which sets forth the technical accounting principle the Company has implemented, and applying the facts and circumstances of specific transactions to the principle employed. Often, SME’s simply do not have the inhouse expertise or bandwidth to address these concerns in a timely or accurate manner.

Our team advises and assists companies on:

• Technical accounting research resulting in whitepapers describing the accounting principle and how it applies to the company’s specific facts and circumstances.
• Specific expertise in revenue recognition under ASC 810, multiple deliverables, stock compensation under ASC 718, inventory valuation (e.g., slow-moving, obsolete, lower-of-cost-or-market, and other cost accounting issues), and goodwill impairment under ASC 350.
• In-house enterprise valuation expertise
• Forensic accounting and financial restatements
• Consolidations of multi-national business entities with foreign currency translation issues and complex equity structures (e.g. Variable Interest Entities [VIE’s]).
• Public company reporting under S.E.C. regulations.

You’ve grown beyond simply paying bills and collecting receivables, and now need financial statements that can be certified by outside CPA’s. Your bank is demanding “GAAP” financial statements to extend or renew credit facilities. You can’t afford to hire a full-time technical accountant, but you can afford a targeted review of your policies and procedures.

Public companies have unique and extensive reporting requirements, all of which must be met within a very narrow time window. Often the company’s finance department cannot handle all aspects of the reporting requirements within the given timeframes. And in the unfortunate circumstance where past financial reporting has been found to be inaccurate or inadequate, we can field a team of financial experts to restate your prior financial statements and put your house in order. Further, we work through a strategic business partner to provide the filing tools which integrate narrative text and informational data, along with built-in XBRL reporting capabilities.

Your finance department is operating smoothly, then, guess what, you encounter a hiccup. Whether it’s a specific accounting problem, pre-audit support, a potential merger due diligence (either as a buyer or seller), or corporate governance issues, we react quickly to solve your immediate needs.

Companies considering an incentive or stock compensation plan for the first time, or expanding an existing plan beyond the founding executives need assistance establishing policies, implementing systems, recording expense under ASC 718, or consulting on alternative compensation plans.