Custom Software Needs a Tailored Accounting Solution
As a custom-tailored SaaS tool that’s disrupting the education industry, JumpRope has the need for many customizations to keep their back office running smoothly as they scale and take on more clients. Meyer and the team knew they wanted one-platform, fully integrated, to run their business so the team could focus on implementations and onboarding their clients.
“In the early days we were on QuickBooks and Zoho CRM and I knew I wanted something integrated because I was tired of sending spreadsheets around and the data being separated. I knew we needed one platform that we could build on that had the sales and finance sides together,” said Meyer.
JumpRope is a small team doing big things in the education industry and needed a solution that would be easy to tailor to their unique processes while increasing efficiency of day-to-day accounting tasks and the month-end close. When JumpRope moved onto Salesforce and Accounting Seed (at the same time) they saw the power in not only being able to house data in one place, but also to automate tasks that were taking too much time to perform in QuickBooks.
“Having Accounting Seed on the Salesforce Platform has allowed us to stay efficient as a small team. We can automate almost anything, like amortizations for example. We have automated most of our accounting processes with Accounting Seed,” said Meyer.
In fact, Meyer created a dashboard in Accounting Seed that recognizes and pulls any data entry mistakes, streamlining the entire process and ensuring that all data is accurate. Using Accounting Seed’s custom reporting tool, Meyer has created numerous reports based on custom-fields and enjoys the ease-of-use in pulling reports for any data point needed.
“If I need to report on a particular aspect, I can go into Accounting Seed, add the custom field, build the report, and see what I need to see. Truthfully with QuickBooks I was blind as to what was happening—now, I have real visibility and it’s made everything so much easier,” said Meyer.
Salesforce-Native Accounting Makes Revenue Recognition Easy
JumpRope’s sale cycle is closely aligned to the school year. Business starts to rev-up in July as educators are preparing for the new school year in September. During this “crunch-time” it’s key for the billing process, specifically revenue recognition, to run smoothly, without error, so the team can focus on getting educators through the sales process and onto their software.
There can be a lot of risk when revenue recognition is done manually, such as:
- Fraud and/or human error.
- Recognizing revenue incorrectly and reporting incorrect figures.
- Recognizing revenue at the wrong trigger point in accordance with accounting standards.
As a solution built using accounting principles and standards, Accounting Seed helps eliminate these risks through automation and configuration—so much so that Meyer doesn’t even need to think about the process.
“When we close a billing, all the information from the opportunity in Salesforce goes to Accounting Seed to know when and how the revenue should be scheduled so there is no room for error. As soon as a billing is closed and posted, all the revenue is immediately scheduled without any manual creation. It just happens and is a huge time-saver.”
Data Visibility: Solving Problems Before They Become Problems
In addition to revenue recognition, there are other aspects of JumpRope’s period close process that happen quickly and easily through automation, such as the balance sheet report. Within Accounting Seed, the team adds the necessary configurations to create month-end close reports. This streamlined process has also made year-end reporting much easier for JumpRope to complete.
“It’s funny to think about now—before Accounting Seed we’d get to the year-end reporting, and it would take us an unquantifiable amount of time to do. It’s hard to even think about. But now, I sit down with my Operations Manager once a month for about an hour and review everything together, including our Budget vs Actuals and the other custom financial reports we’ve created in Accounting Seed, it’s made both of our lives easier,” said Meyer.
Meyer and team not only have used Accounting Seed to make the month-end process smoother, but they have constant, real-time visibility into the business through a custom dashboard they’ve created using Accounting Seed reporting tools. With this dashboard, they can quickly see if something with the data is amiss.
“That’s the beauty [of Accounting Seed]. If we run into an issue, we only need to address it once. We fix it using the tools already available on the platform and then our team has everything they need to keep processes moving. In fact, with the data visibility, we often find problems before they become a problem,” said Meyer.
JumpRope no longer worries about making mistakes or data accuracy. Through Accounting Seed’s automation tools, the system not only does it for them but is also flexible in ways that many standard accounting solutions aren’t. The ability to reverse journal entries and not have everything “locked” down has provided the team with assurance that the data will always be accurate at the end of the month.
“We’re not perfect and the system gets that.”
More Efficient and Poised for Growth with Accounting Seed
Since JumpRope’s start in 2009, the business is now over four times its original size. Typically, as companies grow in complexity and uniqueness, they spend more time and put more energy into the financial aspects of their business, often requiring a move to a new accounting system. Accounting Seed’s powerful platform has enabled JumpRope to continue to scale and grow efficiently—spending less time in the books every step of the way.
Meyer noted that JumpRope has seen their financial management efficiency increase by 400% since using Accounting Seed, much of which is due to data quality. The team spends less time doing and more time analyzing data. Before Accounting Seed, the team would question the data quality and cash flow on a regular basis: “Where did that money go?” and “Where is this data supposed to be?” Those questions are now eliminated due to the rules JumpRope has set on various GL account variables in Accounting Seed, enforcing data quality on all transactions and records.
“The data quality has improved tremendously, truly because of the visibility we have. Being able to run sophisticated reports and get access to any data that I need…it’s not something I even think about or inspect anymore because I trust it’s there,” says Meyer.
More Time to Focus on What Matters Most—Customers
JumpRope is on a very ambitious mission to change the face of the education system and help students take ownership over their learning. It’s no easy undertaking, but with solutions like Accounting Seed and Salesforce, the team at JumpRope can spend their energy on growing their business, serving educators, and reinventing education for schools across the country.
In reflecting on the simplicity of their accounting processes now, Meyer states, “Accounting Seed gives us so much visibility into what’s happening in our business to the point where we don’t need to worry anymore. We have customized our accounting to our business and done so easily.”
To learn more about JumpRope’s product and mission, visit them at JumpRope.
