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Enabling Organizational Growth with Xero

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How we helped a premier coaching platform eliminate manual processes, solidify its accounting foundation, and position itself for future growth.

Client

CoachSelect connects businesses and individuals with tailored coaching solutions, including 1:1 executive coaching, group training, transition coaching, and assessments. By combining a carefully curated network of top-tier coaches with a proprietary matching system, CoachSelect makes sure each client is paired with a coach who aligns with their unique goals and needs. Whether it’s supporting one employee or implementing a company-wide program, CoachSelect collaborates with organizations to create effective, results-driven talent development strategies, making professional growth accessible, straightforward, and impactful for every client.

Challenge

Mike Schmitt and Kate O’Sullivan founded CoachSelect in 2019. Like many founders, the two initially bootstrapped their business without external funding. They weren’t sure if their idea would work, so they intentionally kept costs low and operations simple, including working with a small bookkeeping firm.  

CoachSelect self-implemented Xero from the outset due to its user-friendly interface and the founders’ prior familiarity with the software. Leaders performed most of the business’s work tracking and payments functions on multiple SaaS systems integrated with Xero and some custom calculations in Excel. However, as business grew, some of the SaaS integrations with Xero began to encounter problems, and the bookkeeping firm was unable to scale and provide targeted expertise to resolve this.

Due to the faulty integrations and lack of immediately available expertise, CoachSelect had to revert to reconciling their books of record through manual journal entries to resync the system, a time-consuming process meant to be a stopgap. When the bookkeeping firm unexpectedly went under immediately prior to a year-end close, CoachSelect knew it was time to find an experienced accounting firm that could accommodate their more complex needs as a rapidly growing organization.

The crossover between what we needed for accounting and having tax be completely separate was really stymying us…We were scaling too fast and already exceeding our bookkeeping firm’s ability to meet our needs. At that point, it was an easy internal discussion; we needed a capable firm with depth and expertise.

Mike Schmitt

Founding Partner, CoachSelect

Approach

With a background in audit and accounting, Mike knew that working with one of the Big 4 CPA firms would be too much and too soon for his company to realize value. Mike reached out to an accounting friend for advice, and they recommended EisnerAmper due to the firm’s reputation and specialty cloud accounting practice.

team meeting

Building a Solid Accounting Framework

CoachSelect needed a firm familiar with Xero to help stabilize the existing systems, identify solutions that could scale with expected growth, and add structure to their accounting processes. The EisnerAmper team cleaned up CoachSelect’s financials and identified solutions to integration issues to eliminate manual processes. EisnerAmper also integrated Xero with BILL, an automatic payment platform, to provide a seamless payment management workflow.  

The EisnerAmper team created a monthly schedule so CoachSelect had accounting processes in place on a monthly close cycle, made sure the new automation was working as intended, and worked closely with leadership to use their existing Excel tools. This created a reliable set of reoccurring reports that CoachSelect could use to make business decisions. It also generated a longer-term plan to replace end-user components (such as Excel) with more robust and controlled SaaS platforms and integrations.

When we were reviewing the books, some of the numbers on the balance sheet weren't quite right. I raised this, looked at them a month later, and they were correct…I could relax; it had been dealt with appropriately. I didn't know how to fix it, but I knew the result I should see on the balance sheet, and that’s what EisnerAmper delivered.

Mike Schmitt

Founding Partner, Coach Select

Results

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Seamless Integrations and Peace of Mind

CoachSelect needed a high-level accounting firm that knew Xero and the SaaS ecosystem to integrate their systems and make sure they were working correctly. While Xero is incredibly user-friendly, integrating it with other software properly requires a combination of accounting and technical skills. With their financials in shape and integrations working, CoachSelect leaders have peace of mind in their accounting processes and have the information they need to make better business decisions.

Xero is a great base, depending on the other platforms you use. But if you don't have confidence that the SaaS integrations are actually working, the consequences around that can get out of hand fast, and that's where [EisnerAmper’s] expertise was so essential.

Mike Schmitt

Founding Partner, Coach Select

Proactive Planning

By offloading and digitizing their finance and accounting, CoachSelect leaders can spend more time building the business and less time managing spreadsheets. Leaders now have a dedicated EisnerAmper team to oversee transactions, maintain accurate books, and advise on proper accounting and tax savings techniques.

accounting technology

tax calculator

A Partner in Growth

As CoachSelect continues to grow and reshape its internal procedures, the leadership team relies on EisnerAmper for guidance. Unlike single-stack providers, our team can recommend systems that grow with CoachSelect. For example, CoachSelect is now using Expensify per our suggestion, and whenever they hit a bump, they rely on their EisnerAmper advisors for help.

With reliable, real-time financial insights and professional guidance, CoachSelect is set up for success with a solution and team that can scale with them as they grow.

If I think about what our pipeline looks like for next year and our expected growth trajectory, we could be hitting all kinds of issues regarding the scalability of the platform and processes...Because EisnerAmper is not a single stack platform, and there's depth and different disciplines within EisnerAmper that [we] can tap into, I don't feel the need to think about a future provider to switch to…I don't worry about [EisnerAmper’s] capability set.

Invest in your accounting ahead of need. It's hard to get it right, but if you don't have the [right] partner when something goes wrong, you will waste a lot more time, money, and effort cleaning up the mess.

Mike Schmitt

Founding Partner, Coach Select

Contact

Contact us today for a consultation or demo and discover how our cloud accounting services can help your organization.