What is cloud accounting?

Cloud Accounting provides the same functionality as on-premises accounting software — with a crucial difference: cloud accounting software connects through the Internet to run on remote, vendor-managed servers. The user works from a web-based interface and data is sent into the cloud (i.e. the Internet), where it is processed and stored on a remote infrastructure. The results are then sent back to the user. All accounting functions take place off-site, not on the user’s computer. Cloud accounting eliminates the need for the customer to install, manage, and maintain software and hardware devoted to accounting or perform data backups. All of those functions are managed by MAT. That frees IT personnel to devote their resources to other initiatives. What’s more, cloud accounting facilitates easier, secure information sharing by employees in other departments, branch offices, subsidiaries, auditors, and regulators as needed. Users can access the software from any location and from most any connected device, including smartphones and tablets.

What is outsourced accounting?

Outsourced Accounting is simply shifting the functions and tasks of basic and critical business processes, traditionally managed inside your company, to an external provider, like MAT. Outsourced accounting takes advantage of the power of secure cloud-based technologies, bringing a comprehensive range of business services, from A/P and A/R to controllership and virtual CFO services. Many people believe outsourcing implies sending business functions overseas to reduce labor costs. Outsourced accounting does not imply sending business functions overseas. All resources whether human or systems can always be in the USA. And at MAT we are committed to keeping all of our operations in America.

The American Institute of CPAs is the world’s largest association representing the accounting profession, with more than 400,000 members in 145 countries, and a history of serving the public interest since 1887. AICPA members represent many areas of practice, including business and industry, public practice, government, education, and consulting. The AICPA sets ethical standards for the profession and U.S. auditing standards for private companies, nonprofit organizations, federal, state, and local governments. It develops and grades the Uniform CPA Examination, and offers specialty credentials for CPAs who concentrate on personal financial planning, forensic accounting, business valuation, and information management and technology assurance.

Why outsource my accounting department?

By outsourcing your accounting position(s), your company doesn’t have to endure the hiring process and lose valuable time and money training bookkeepers, accountants or financial controllers. If you have been doing the bookkeeping yourself, you finally free up your time to focus on other aspects of growing your business. You’ll be able to make informed decisions based on more than just your cash balance at the bank.

I already have an external bookkeeper, why would I want to outsource?

A bookkeeper posts transactions to the accounting records. MAT works to improve cashflow and takes a proactive role in operating an entire process like accounts payable or accounts receivable. As one part of that process we provide bookkeeping.

How does outsourcing help grow my business?

Growth is necessary for business success, but along with growth comes complexity. Oftentimes companies cannot scale fast enough and end up coping with growth rather than driving it. MAT provides your company accurate financial data so you can determine what customers and/or products are the most profitable. You can concentrate more time on the most successful aspects of your company. This capability allows a business owner to become truly savvy in investing energy and resources in the right places. The door is left open for you to do the tasks that are most important to your company’s financial success As a growing business, efficiency and performance are keys to success and it takes a well organized system to achieve them. Partner with MAT and make your business run better every day, every week and every month.

Will I “lose control”?

Absolutely Not. Our customers vastly improve their control. Examples include: Setting up different levels of approval — say you want to approve transactions over a certain amount and allow an employee to approve lower amounts or setting up payments to vendors so they only happen when you release them. It is your business and you make the decisions. MAT provides the information you need in order to make informed decisions and keep “you” in control.

What about the risk of fraud or embezzlement?

We can’t ensure your employees won’t try and steal, but we make it much, much more difficult. Ask any expert and they’ll tell you that the single most important security measure for any company, from a small store to a major bank, is segregation of duties. If one person can access the accounting software and has access to incoming checks, or approves outgoing funds, there’s a hole in security big enough to drive a Mack truck through. MAT reconciles the bank accounts but we have no approval rights — segregation of duties. We can even ramp your game up a notch by establishing a lockbox so incoming checks go directly to the bank. Having check stock is another major risk — most of embezzlement is still old school — and fraudulent checks are still a big exposure. Checks you issued via MAT are not on your check stock although the funds come from your company. In short, if someone forges a check it’s not against your bank account.

What about all the bills and checks in the mail?

Different customers require different solutions. Some like to scan/fax bills to us. Other customers prefer the convenience of having all bills sent to a dedicated PO box that we manage. The PO box is unique for each customer. Our solution allows our customers to drill down when approving a bill and see the image of the scanned document. So, you have no loss of transparency or visibility. Just the reverse. You always have access to the bill exactly where you want it to be — right next to the entry that shows the bill being paid. Some customers want to continue depositing their own checks. We typically have read only access to reconcile the bank accounts. Other customers prefer the additional security of a lockbox, which just means that checks are sent directly to the bank, and the bank deposits them for you.

MAT’s services are very affordable. In general, our costs have proven to be less than our clients were paying for their accounting staff. Typical cost savings range from 25-50% and you’ll find the value you’re receiving to be much greater than you would get with an in-house bookkeeper. You save hiring and training costs, and will no longer have to pay for office space, phone lines, PTO or other employee benefits associated with in-house bookkeeping staff. Our fees are based on the volume and complexity of each client. We determine the scope of services and establish a fixed monthly amount so you can manage you budget.

Let’s chat. Right now if you are like most of us, your accounting records are in an unlocked file cabinet or worse, sitting on someone’s desk. Your data is most likely accessible via an unsecure computer that may or may not be backed-up and only has one person who has access and controls everything. This is what we at MAT call “bad” security. When you partner with MAT, you entrust us with your company’s highly confidential business information. We take that seriously. We have security covered from all angles: physical, network, application and data. Our systems guarantee 99.8 % uptime, airtight data security, and comprehensive disaster recovery. SSAE 16 SOC1 Type II audits and certifications by Trustwave, Digicert, and more, ensure that your financial information will be protected. MAT understands that you’re entrusting us with the most private, most critical data in your business. Quite simply, we value your trust in us — and will do everything to protect it

Does MAT replace my CPA?

MAT does not provide Tax or Audit services. We value your relationship with your CPA and look to enhance the day-to-day record keeping so your CPA can make informed decisions. MAT helps eliminate the frustration and costs that can arise between the CPA and the clients due to inadequate bookkeeping. Your current accountant will be grateful for accurate data that he or she can use to help you build more wealth and grow your business. This in turn will save your company money. As tax law is constantly changing, we recommend utilizing experts in the industry for income tax advisory services. We are happy to serve as a liaison between you and your income tax preparer. We gather the documents needed to file your tax returns and send them to your tax accountant so that you won’t have to deal with the stress of getting critical paperwork in on time.

Why not just use our existing CPA?

You probably already outsource processes like financial statement preparation and preparation of tax returns to your CPA. However, if a CPA firm provides bookkeeping services to a client, it can’t review or audit the financial statements of that client. Many CPA firms decline to provide services that might later put them in a conflict-of-interest situation. At MAT we work closely with CPA firms. If we provide the bookkeeping services that are the starting point for the CPA’s work, the CPA’s charges will likely be lower than if they have to do “write-up” work to get the records in order.

Why not just use our existing CPA?

You probably already outsource processes like financial statement preparation and preparation of tax returns to your CPA. However, if a CPA firm provides bookkeeping services to a client, it can’t review or audit the financial statements of that client. Many CPA firms decline to provide services that might later put them in a conflict-of-interest situation. At MAT we work closely with CPA firms. If we provide the bookkeeping services that are the starting point for the CPA’s work, the CPA’s charges will likely be lower than if they have to do “write-up” work to get the records in order.

How MAT Provided Support During COVID

We’re proud to say that we team up with our customers. We’re not a Time and Materials partner with our finger on the time clock; one fixed fee and we’re there with support. COVID is a case in point. Learn how MAT provided support during COVID.

First, MAT’s belief and investment in the best cloud-based systems, Intacct, Salesforce, Bill.com, Dropbox, GoToMeeting, and Expensify meant that we could seamlessly support MAT’s customers remotely. That’s not just because the nuts and bolts are off-site, but also MAT’s employees can work as easily in remote environments as from a centralized office. MAT has employees in multiple states, with no need for central office support.

Second, it’s odd to say, but beyond the economic disaster and personal tragedy of COVID, MAT has smoothly handled the massive amount of extra work needed by our customers, for which we have not charged a penny more. Here are just some of the additional tasks:

Guidance

MAT’s CFO was there for our customers to rely on when thinking about support for their businesses, be it PPP, EIDL or additional grants. I think we all understand that the Government’s response to COVID-19 focused on providing aid quickly, not on getting the details right. Congress passed bills and gave Treasury just ten days to write the instruction. Unsurprisingly, the guidance was clear as mud. Further, a lot of the interpretation was kicked downhill to the banks and lenders. Just one example was MAT has a customer who reviewed the Treasury Guidelines for PPP loans, which directed the applicant to ask their bank. When they asked their bank they were directed to review the Treasury Guidelines. Not very helpful! All this came at a time when small business owners were stressed as they struggled to keep their businesses afloat. MAT was a voice of calm in the storm.

“Hi, Bruce – I just wanted you to know that we successfully submitted our second PPP loan request; jumped through all the hoops; and we were approved very fast – within a couple of weeks. We also submitted for loan forgiveness for our first PPP loan, and we’re in the cue at SBA for their decision. Our financial lender said it usually takes 60 days to go through their system to move on to SBA. We got through in less than a week. I was still nervous as heck as I worked on both items, but I had the notes from our conversation and great help from MAT with a couple of specific reports for us. So THANK YOU for talking with me about what the documentation requirements meant for us as an LLC with no employees and for generally helping me see a path forward. Your level-headedness was exactly what I needed. “

Katherine (Kate) Robinette, CPSM Go Strategies LLC

Planning Cash Flow During a Crisis

MAT understands the detail of our client’s outflows the strategic impact of the government’s programs and how to marry them together. One of MAT’s first responses to COVID-19 was to work with our customers to get a handle on what the future looked like and what to do about it. Whether the customer’s need was sophisticated modeling, detailed analytics, the ability to see the “forest for the trees”, or in many cases simply keeping calm and providing an accurate assessment, MAT was up to the task.

“MAT knew that many of our customers were unsure how the different stimulus packages applied to them. Where necessary we reached out to them.

One funder has pledged a large donation, and I know that person’s confidence in our viability is based on the revised forecast Bruce presented at the Board meeting that incorporated the second PPP loan MAT helped us with, so thank you for that presentation and for all your help along the way.

How’s that? I mean there are so many testimonials, it probably sounds like all the others. There are only so many ways to say thank you, especially in written form, but I want you to know that my feelings are sincere — I could not do this without you.”

– Leisha Wharfield, Executive Director, Decision Science Research Institute b.d.a Decision Research

Specialized Reporting

Many of MAT’s clients needed multiple reports using proscribed reporting periods to either demonstrate economic hardship, justify loan application amounts or apply for loan forgiveness. Despite the fact that everyone was under a lot of time pressure, our capabilities using sophisticated systems meant we could meet every request. There was no scrambling for printed reports, digging through file cabinets or wasting time as systems failed. These were industrial-strength systems like Intacct, not QuickBooks and paper files. Whether it was Federal programs like PPP, requests from regional banks like Columbia Bank in the Pacific Northwest, or local grant programs in Oregon, MAT was there for our customers.

Accurate and Consistent Records

MAT’s monthly workbooks ensure that tracking into the numbers to justify loan or loan forgiveness applications. This means that when challenges occur – and they will – there’s not a mad scramble for the numbers. MAT has everything at our fingertips.

Third-Party Verification

Lenders and the government know that some less than scrupulous companies will “fudge” the numbers, and I promise that some heads will roll as the government audits applications, a third-party provider, like MAT, means our customers will have an easier time than in-house bookkeepers. While this is working in our client’s favor during Covid, there’s a broader point that applies to a much wider set of issues – partners can rest assured that MAT is an “honest broker”; bankers or potential investors know MAT is independent; the chance of fraud is far less.

Online Documents

MAT securely stores all our customer’s records online using the highest standards of backup to ensure when our customers needed a copy of their lease to justify loan forgiveness, or backup to prove payment of forgivable expenses, there was easy and reliable access.

The Future

If you’ve been listening to the news you’ve undoubtedly heard experts like Fauci state that a sad fact of the modern world is that even when COVID is defeated, there will be other pandemics. The inter-connectedness of our global economy guarantees it. The beauty of relying on a system like MAT is that it doesn’t rely on a single person. During last year a couple of our employees contracted COVID, but their customers could sleep easy in the knowledge that we employ sophisticated task management systems complete with detailed instructions to re-assign tasks. Companies with individual bookkeepers were not so lucky. Of course, while COVID was a tragedy that highlighted the flaws of relying on a single person, it applies just as much to many more mundane transitions.

COVID Business Strategies Summary

These are just a few of the specific ways MAT helped our customers during COVID, but we hope you get the picture. It also highlights the benefits of a robust process in any time of change, crisis, or challenge. That could be the need for financing, the sale of your business, succession planning, the addition of a partner, or an IRS audit. Having your financials in order with MAT eases the burden. Unfortunately waiting for an event often means it’s either too late, or it’s a fire drill. COVID was a tragedy, but at least MAT’s customers were prepared.