Invoice reconciliation and reduced overhead costs were only part of what hugoWREN needed; the ultimate test was finding a provider who actually understood their systems.
Challenge
More than finding a tool, Lee McKeel, Director of Finance at hugoWREN, was determined to unlock "a full system integration" backed by an expert-led support team.
For this New York-based Mac consulting IT company, the idea of expansion alone, would not be feasible without establishing operational efficiency first.
More than simply ensuring customers were paying properly (and on time), Lee needed to ensure they understood where hugoWREN stood from a financial perspective - they needed financial visibility.
hugoWREN felt "in the dark" due to the lack of reconciliation between their systems. A full system integration would result in the complete transparency of accounting data between systems; it would mean that any data received in their accounting package, QuickBooks Online (QBO), would be "truly" traceable back to their PSA, ConnectWise [Manage]. hugoWREN needed the ability to automate their invoice lifecycle.
Solution
When searching for a full system integration, it wasn't about a "pretty interface." Instead, Lee determined functionality and support as hugoWREN's two leading factors -
First, they needed a seamless integration for reconciling their invoices and payments, and second, they would need a solution provider that could support their business.
In a determined bid to find this all-encompassing solution, hugoWREN shopped online for different products on the market when they discovered Wise-Sync.
The solution stack of ConnectWise PSA, QuickBooks Online, Wise-Sync, and WisePay, has enabled hugoWREN to significantly shorten their invoicing process (removing 3/10 steps), along with their newfound ability to email invoices directly out of ConnectWise (instead of QBO) with "no unnecessary workflows." Now, the hugoWREN team no longer checks GL codes and classifications or manually enters item lines.
Results
- Reduced labour cost of $36,000/year
- A one-and-done scalable efficiency with "very low" overheads
- Invoicing process slashed saving finance team 2-3 days/month
- Greater employee incentive program with newly acquired budget
Feature Quote
"We interviewed and tested our different platforms. We felt that WisePay really offered the best option for us. And we really enjoyed working with the WisePay team.
Having a partnership with a vendor that understands all of your systems, we felt, was so important.
When we interviewed your competitors, we didn't have that experience.
The knowledge base really added value in our perspective of that partnership, and why we chose Wise-Sync. We now have a holistic efficiency rather than a single system efficiency."
The Journey
hugoWREN, formally known as hugoWREN Mac Consulting, is a specialized provider of Apple and PC Managed IT Services for all-sized businesses throughout the United States -
For this New York-based Mac consulting IT company, the idea of expansion alone, would not be a feasible pursuit without having both the operational and financial visibility over their business. hugoWREN didn't just need to make sure customers were paying properly, they needed to ensure they had complete invoice and payment automation; they needed to understand where their business stood from a holistic perspective.
"We were using a different connection tool, and we just weren't happy with it. It worked, but it didn't do enough. There wasn't enough there to make it really efficient for us...
We would have recurring invoices, and then, we would have this other set of invoices, and we would just delete them once they got over to our accounting package. There was no ability to reconcile between the two systems that were automated, and the invoices were automatically created, so we were really looking for something that would allow for better reconciliation for payments to agreement invoices -
That was a big thing for us, we wanted the ability to reconcile and really dig deep, to make sure things were billing properly and people were paying properly. We wanted the ability to have a full system integration."
In a determined bid to find this all-encompassing solution, hugoWREN shopped online for different products on the market when they discovered Wise-Sync.
After implementing Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, Lee declares having a "more holistic efficiency rather than a single system efficiency," having witnessed an immense return on investment for their company firsthand, including operating visibility and analysis -
"Reconciliation isn't as much of a time-waster as it once was," says Lee, as her team no longer has to manually assign classes for their different business units, which was "a huge time-waster," particularly when assigning 5-20 lines on 80-100 invoices per month. Now, GL classifications and business unit divisions are placed where needed, and items are assigned to their proper classes -
"It provides so much operating visibility and analysis that we need. It's a huge time-saver for us," says Lee.
From drastically streamlining their invoicing process, hugoWREN revels in a strict cost-saving of $3,000/month on labor alone. hugoWREN's gradually eliminating the need for smaller payments to go through a manual process as clients are encouraged to choose autopay, "it's not a headache anymore."
"We get paid, and it's fantastic! There's transparency between the systems now, and I think that's helped us more than anything.
On the plus side, the fees from Wise-Pay and IntegraPay are lower than the Intuit fees; so while Intuit has made it kind of simple from a QBO-only side, Wise-Pay has made it simple and more cost-effective from a ConnectWise integration into QuickBooks."
Now, hugoWREN anticipates they'll slash another 3-4 days off their bookkeeping process each month after implementing "completely bulletproof" invoicing, payment, and procurement processes with the help of the Wise-Sync team.
On the functionality of Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, Lee says, "They just work!" In the event that there is an error when syncing across, hugoWREN is instantly notified and provided with a clean error report indicating exactly what went wrong so that their team's able to quickly fix it and move on.
It wasn't long after hugoWREN achieved this full system integration, that they felt fully equipped to acquire and merge with another company (with hugoWREN being the surviving entity). Prior to merging, hugoWREN had two separate ConnectWise incidences, which meant they were running two accounting packages and two connector systems. To facilitate a smooth merger, the Wise-Sync team provided hugoWREN with a solution in the interim, before eventually setting up hugoWREN with just one ConnectWise incidence.
"Implementing Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay made our merger much more efficient and successful from a time and energy standpoint - if we didn't have that solution in place, and in advance, then we wouldn't have had such a successful merge.
Of course, these processes can take up to anywhere between 12-18 months, but we wouldn't be as far along in that process had we not had those systems in place with Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay.
We didn't anticipate the time-savings that Wise-Sync and WisePay would save us. There are still some things that we know we're not using the most efficient process for, but they're on our radar to address, and with Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, it's definitely not a matter of how, it's a matter of when we can do it."
Even after their merger and subsequent expansion, hugoWREN hasn't had to hire additional staff within their finance department. Now, their systems are managing the heavy-lifting for them, with complete transparency, where Lee ascertains such ease-of-use to enhanced features like real-time sync and simplified payment collection, which facilitate up-to-the-minute operating visibility, together with the complete streamlined invoice and payment cycle reconciliation.
With this newly acquired revenue, hugoWREN's not only been able to give back to their customers, they've also been able to redirect this revenue toward their marketing budget and staff remuneration.
To-date, hugoWREN revels in the immense benefits of having a scalable "one-and-done efficiency," with very low overheads, $36,000+ cost-savings/year (on labour alone), and saves up to four days of manpower each month. hugoWREN expects "there's more savings to be had" when they implement a procurement and expense functionality; a process the Wise-Sync team's currently working with hugoWREN to achieve.
View the entire interview by tapping here featuring exclusive commentary from Jeremy Sulzmann, Vice President and Business Leader at Intuit, on the profitability of those businesses with a cloud-first mindset.
