Davidson Collins Gives Small Business Owners the Freedom to Grow
Tuesday, November 4th, 2014
For years, major corporations have used private networks and expensive IT hardware and software to centralize their accounting and finance functions in order to lower costs and improve efficiencies. Now thanks to advances in telecommunications and IT technology, Davidson Collins, a finance and accounting outsourcing firm, can provide the benefits of centralization to small business owners.
"We provide all the IT solutions and a three-person team that includes a CPA business advisor, controller and accounting analyst for less than the cost of having a full-time bookkeeper on staff," said Al Gray, vice president of Marketing and Recruiting for Davidson Collins.
"For a flat monthly fee, we handle all the accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, budgeting and financial statement production, and we analyze profitability performance to identify opportunities to improve profits. We also can handle capital procurement and cash flow management – really all the back office functions so that the owner and senior staff are free to focus on how to grow sales."
Davidson Collins was founded in 2008 by Rocky Davidson, who has 28 years of experience in public and private accounting as well as in-depth knowledge of IT strategy development. The firm works primarily with businesses that have annual revenues between $300,000 to $20 million, as well as nonprofit and faith-based organizations. Their current client base is located in Georgia and Florida.
How it works
The same type of networked computing platform that makes it possible to store your photos and music in the cloud and access them whenever and wherever you want is behind the financial and accounting outsourcing at Davidson Collins. Source documents such as invoices and service tickets are scanned and transmitted electronically to Davidson Collins where accounting professionals enter the data into the appropriate financial accounts and produce checks for payment to vendors or bills for customers.
"There are so many ways with today's technologies to capture source data – take a picture with your smartphone, for example. And digitizing all source documents creates a great audit trail," Gray said.
With dedicated printers at the client's location, creating a check for a vendor payment can happen within minutes. A client simply calls Davidson Collins with the request and moments later, the check will print in their office.
"Where we really differ from a traditional CPA firm is our profitability performance analysis," Gray said.
"We make sure the client has the information they need to make decisions on how to improve profitability. We capture the right details in accounts and analyze not just expenses but also business income patterns."
Gaining traction
Davidson Collins opened its doors in the middle of the Great Recession, but gained clients because of its ability to lower costs. Although word of mouth helped the firm gain traction, most business owners are still unaware of the ability to outsource their finance and accounting functions, according to Gray.
"When people do learn about what we offer, they are intrigued. Some businesses that have had the same bookkeeper for 25 years are loyal to that employee and we understand that completely," Gray said.
"In that case, I just say call us if your bookkeeper decides to retire or gets over-loaded."
Other business owners are simply wary of doing something new, according to Gray. However as cloud-based services become more widespread in the corporate environment, he believes they will filter into the small business community.
"Small businesses traditionally have not been on this model but it offers so many advantages. There are more redundancies in the system and in data back-ups and there are all the benefits of having true IT, finance and accounting professionals manage your system," Gray said.
More information on Davidson Collins is available at www.dcfao.com.
