Trinity Private Equity Group (“TPEG”), a leading private equity firm based in Southlake, TX, recently partnered with Madken Advisors to stream-line and automate their processes and gain greater visibility in their operations by implementing Sage Intacct.
- Website – www.trinitypeg.com
- Industry – Private Equity (Operating Companies and Commercial Real Estate)
- Headquarters – Southlake, TX
- AUM – $3B +
- Benefits – Multi-Entity, Inter-company, Scalability, Automation, Visibility, Controls
The Situation
Prior to partnering with Madken Advisors, TPEG was using a hosted version of QuickBooks to account for 100+ operating and investment entities – and growing. Like many firms on QuickBooks, TPEG found that any effort to improve productivity or automate processes was quite difficult. Most notably, they were spending a large amount of time simply logging in and out of QuickBooks company files, trying to keep data in sync across QuickBooks company files and working around file stability issues. Compounding the problem, QuickBooks was hosted on a Remote Desktop service which made navigating between their local desktops and their QuickBooks company files tedious and frustrating. It was apparent that, as TPEG grew, the only hope of keeping up with their increasing workload was to hire more staff – which is always an expensive and time-consuming strategy.
The Ideal Solution
In discussions with Madken Advisors, the stakeholders expressed that their ideal solution would be one that could simplify and automate their processes, increase staff efficiency, and improve their system controls. After evaluating several options and performing a cost / benefit analysis, TPEG determined that Sage Intacct would be the best path forward to meet these goals. The most impactful features noted in their selection include:
- Multi-company system, offering automated intercompany and reporting visibility without logging in and out of each company
- Unified chart of accounts, vendors and customers across the product reducing maintenance and errors
- Easily available from anywhere you can access an internet browser – eliminating the need to be in the office or to access a Remote Desktop
- Improved user security and internal controls – notably closing periods and audit trails
- The future ability to integrate with other systems – including T&E and AP automation solutions
The Implementation
Another large concern was taking on the workload within their team to complete the migration while still managing their ongoing business. This was another advantage of their partnership with Madken Advisors. Madken has a deep understanding of both Private Equity business processes, Sage Intacct implementations, and data migration. Leveraging this knowledge, Madken managed the data migration and system implementation for TPEG from end-to-end – which allowed TPEGs employees to focus on their day-to-day operations. Additionally, the overall implementation time was quite rapid. For TPEG, the implementation took roughly 3 ½ months with very little effort from the TPEG team, including a full transactional data migration.
The Result
TPEG is now fully migrated onto their new Sage Intacct environment and the team is already feeling the effect of the stream-lined processes and scalability of their new ERP. It is estimated that TPEG can now grow 20-25 investment entities per year with 2-3 less staff over the next 5 years – a significant savings. This one benefit alone would represent a ROI of greater than 100% over a five-year period. Some other notable benefits include:
Reporting and visibility:
- Excel reporting is now automatically produced by Sage Intacct – and their Excel based budget has now been loaded into the system allowing for simple and real-time budget-to-actual reporting updates
- The team now has real time consolidation across all their investment entities allowing them to report on investor activity and balances easily
- Intercompany is automated and always in sync. Balances can easily be analyzed to understand what transactions created the balances
System Maintenance:
- TPEG has already added several new investing entities and each one takes minutes to set up and begin transacting – a major time savings from creating and setting up a new QuickBooks company file each time
- Vendors, Customer, and Investor updates are managed centrally instead of at each individual company – ensuring accuracy across all entities
Controls:
- Users now have the appropriate functions and visibility assigned to them based on their role and responsibilities
- Periods are now closed to posting after completed and appropriate controls are in place to ensure staff are not able to make unapproved edits
In addition to partnering with TPEG on this transformational implementation, Madken Advisors will continue our relationship with TPEG as their first line of support if they were to have any issues. We are excited to see the long-term benefits of this implementation take root at TPEG.
Has your firm outgrown its accounting software? Would you benefit from exploring a technology upgrade at your firm? We are always looking for opportunities to help firms transform their operations and realize operational savings. Please reach out to Madken Advisors to set up a free consultation – email contact@madkenadvisors.com or call David Lear at 817-808-2376.