Lavoie CPA & Jirav Launch Strategic Partnership

Lavoie CPA & Jirav Launch Strategic Partnership

Lavoie CPA & Jirav Launch Strategic Partnership

Lavoie CPA has added Jirav, an all-in-one business planning software for small and medium companies, to its lineup of preferred cloud solutions for the accounting profession.

At Lavoie CPA, we leverage accounting as a service and cloud-based accounting technology to streamline clients’ accounting, payroll, and analytical processes. Implementing software solutions is critical for improving financial reporting and making businesses scalable over the long term. We work closely with clients to identify the right software solution that supports strategic objectives while making operations more efficient and effective.

Through this partnership, Lavoie CPA and Jirav aim to give clients a competitive edge in their accounting and administrative processes.

Jirav is an all-in-one financial planning and analysis solution that maximizes the collaborative value of forecasting, budgeting, reporting, and analytics so leaders can drive their businesses forward with confidence and speed.

Jirav integrates natively with leading accounting or ERP platforms such as Xero, Quickbooks, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct. With Jirav, you are up and running your forecasts using templates in minutes.

This powerful business planning software helps companies:

  • Maximize Growth: Model the outcomes of investing in sales, marketing, or other areas. Scenario test to optimize your growth strategy and track results to plan.
  • Operate With Financial Excellence: A key to growth is having a plan and measuring against it. Manage detailed KPIs and collaborate with owners to keep the business on track.
  • Focus on Strategy: Finance teams at growth companies lose too much time to spreadsheets and generating reports. Automate the tasks and focus on being strategic.

Contact slavoie@lavoiepllc.com to request a demo today. To learn more about the platform, please visit https://www.jirav.com/.

About Lavoie CPA

Founded in 2009, Lavoie has served as a reliable Charlotte CPA firm that specializes in strategic financial and operational planning for businesses of all sizes. By delivering state-of-the-art strategic support, Lavoie’s clients can focus on growing their business and soar to the next level of greatness. In addition to providing customized solutions for clients, Lavoie prioritizes social justice issues and is extremely involved in the local Charlotte community.

About Jirav

Jirav is a comprehensive business planning solution for small and medium companies that maximizes the collaborative value of forecasting, budgeting, reporting, and analytics so leaders can drive their businesses forward with confidence and speed. The all-in-one financial planning and analysis software offers faster implementation and a more intuitive interface, allowing finance leaders to build financial models in hours (not days) and generate financial reports in minutes (not hours). Jirav is headquartered in San Francisco with offices and teams across the world including Seattle, Austin, and Poland. Learn more at www.jirav.com.

4 Key Insights Offered by Accounting Software

4 Key Insights Offered by Accounting Software

The accounting and finance industry has experienced a rapid digital transformation over the last 10 years. What began as custom software programs built for the accounting departments of giant corporations evolved into an entire ecosystem of accounting and finance software available to businesses of all sizes. By ecosystem we mean it’s no longer software just for generating financial statements  — profit and loss, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Now there is a software program for just about any business area involving dollars. 

There are software programs for payroll, expense tracking and reporting, accounts receivable, and accounts payable — this list goes on. When this accounting and finance software ecosystem is leveraged properly for your business, the insights it produces are quite impressive. 

Let’s examine four of these insights more closely.

Contents

Ability to Identify Growth Drivers

Avoiding Costly Business Decisions

Unlock The Power of Integrated Financial Insights

Enhanced Data Visualization


1. Ability to Identify Growth Drivers

According to Business.com, “Cloud accounting software can streamline your business processes and help you identify growth drivers.” Since your financial data is stored within software programs, you are able to slice and dice your financial metrics with much greater flexibility to uncover a deeper level of analysis than you previously could. 

For example, you may now be able to attribute an explosive jump in sales to a small operational change you made last quarter. Previously, this level of insight was most likely unattainable because it would have been too cumbersome to run the analysis with data housed in Microsoft Excel.

With a cutting-edge accounting and financial software ecosystem, it’s all about the granularity of insights. Prior to accounting software, key insights were much more high level. Stakeholders of businesses and private equity firms relied mostly on quarterly profit and loss statements, balance sheets and statements of cash flows to glean top-level insights into the business. 

With the advanced cloud-based software ecosystems, owners and stakeholders can now drill down to a far deeper level of financial insight. Have a deeper, more detailed level of insight allows owners and stakeholders to make more intelligent and beneficial decisions for the future of the business.

2. Avoiding Costly Business Decisions

All too often business owners of high-growth companies are so busy moving up their growth curves that they have to make educated guesses as to the financial state of their businesses. They then use those educated guesses to make critical business decisions. Without the use of cutting-edge financial software, actual financial data may not be reported until 30-60 days after an important business decision is made. In many of these cases, those decisions end up being extremely costly.

For example, if a manufacturing plant experiences a fire resulting in 14 days of downtime, business owners need to know the financial impact of that downtime immediately. Without accounting and financial software in place, business owners will be making critical decisions based on last quarter’s financial data that does not account for the fire that took place at the plant.

By using appropriately selected accounting and financial software, business owners and private equity firms have real-time access to their financial performance data. This real-time access allows business owners to make accurate forecasts and highly informed business decisions that lead to further growth and success of the company.

3. Unlock The Power of Integrated Financial Insights

Here at Lavoie CPA, we are experts at building powerful accounting and finance software ecosystems for our clients. We study your business operations and goals and then select software programs that will allow your business to get the maximum value. 

By selecting appropriate cloud-based software that encompasses financial reporting, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and expense tracking we are able to integrate these software programs and unlock powerful 360-degree insights about your business. Your accounting and financial data will no longer be isolated in its respective areas. 

For example, you will now be able to understand exactly how accounts receivable defaults are impacting cash flow and your profit and loss statement. Knowing exactly how the financial performance of one area of your business impacts the others gives you a much more powerful and integrated financial analysis. This results in you being able to make more educated, high-quality business decisions.

4. Enhanced data visualization

According to Harvard Business School, “A company can have all of the data it needs to be successful and still fail if no one knows how to understand or leverage it.” As the leader of a private equity firm or high-growth start-up perhaps you can relate to this sentiment. Maybe you have spent considerable amounts of time and resources training employees to track as much data as possible so that you can conduct analyses to benefit your operation. 

However, when push comes to shove and it’s time to analyze you may find it difficult to put together all the pieces of the financial data puzzle. At Lavoie, we don’t just build a sophisticated accounting software ecosystem for our clients. We also continually run this ecosystem and optimize it to maximize the benefit for our clients. One of the most important ways we accomplish this is by implementing integrated data visualization dashboards so that our clients can see their financial performance in real-time. 

There is no more sifting through Microsoft Excel files and manually comparing profit and loss statements to expense report trends. Now all of your accounting and financial data is integrated into one centralized performance dashboard when you can check in anytime and see the real-time financial insights on your business or portfolio of businesses in the case of private equity firms. 

The ability to visualize these key financial insights in one centralized dashboard allows you to finally leverage all of your diligence and efforts to track and store robust amounts of business and financial data. With our powerful dashboards, harvesting key financial insights on your business has never been easier or more convenient.

Start Building Your Software Ecosystem

Perhaps you are a little overwhelmed by the many different accounting and financial software platforms on the market today. Here at Lavoie CPA, we are your trusted experts when it comes to navigating these programs. We have the experience to know which software platforms will be a good fit based on your unique business and your growth goals. To learn more about how Lavoie can build and run a next-generation accounting and financial software ecosystem for your high-growth business, contact us today!

Sage Intacct’s 6 Key Performance Metrics For Subscription Businesses [INFOGRAPHIC]

Sage Intacct’s 6 Key Performance Metrics For Subscription Businesses [INFOGRAPHIC]

How Healthy Is Your SaaS Business? These 6 Metrics Will Help You Figure That Out

As a Sage Intacct certified accounting and implementation firm, Lavoie CPA is excited to share the latest findings for SaaS businesses to become successful in 2021.

From startups to organizations ready to scale each one of these indicators is an invaluable piece of information to evaluate your company’s overall health — not to mention prep you for that looming board meeting in the near future.

In this infographic we will dive into why each of these metrics is the difference between getting your next round of funding, scaling year over year, or hitting the wall.

Get the infographic and learn why you should care, how to calculate, and an interesting fact about the following KPIs:

  • CARR (Committed Annual Recurring Revenue)
  • CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
  • CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value)
  • Churn
  • Free Cash Flow
  • CCS (Cash Conversion Score)

Lavoie CEO Named Goldman Sachs NC Hill Week Captain

Lavoie CEO Named Goldman Sachs NC Hill Week Captain

As the election season draws closer and the concerns of small businesses continue to grow in the wake of the pandemic, SMB’s are joining forces to make sure their voices are heard in congress. According to a Goldman Sachs survey released on September 8, 88% of small business owners have exhausted their PPP loan funding; with 43% of Black small business owners depleting their cash reserves by the end of the year. 

To help amplify US small business needs, Goldman Sachs is using its 10,000 Small Businesses (10KSB) Initiative to serve as a policy platform and community resource center. However, prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the 10KSB alumni collectively represented $12 billion in revenues and employed 175,000 people. More notably, 44% of these businesses are family-owned and 66% are minority and women-owned businesses.

“The 10,000 Small Businesses Voices initiative is designed to help small business owners in the United States advocate for policy changes that will help their businesses, their employees, and their communities,” according to Goldmansachs.com. “We provide the 10,000 Small Businesses Voices community with the tools, resources, and training needed to make their voices heard and drive tangible impact against real issues.”

Among the many tools to assist small businesses, the program includes surveys, open letters to congress, and ongoing virtual events to help guide owners through ongoing challenges and the most recent policy changes.

One of these events was the Virtual Capitol Hill Day held on June 9th -11th. Over three days, 2,100 small business owners connected with Members of Congress through 434 online meetings across all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Lavoie CEO, Sharai Lavoie, was named a NC Hill Week Captain and lead discussions with congressional leaders and small businesses across the state.

Lavoie led three discussions one of which was with Congresswoman Alma Adams, representing North Carolina’s 12th District. Discussion topics included:

“I was thrilled to participate in this initiative,” says Lavoie CEO, Sharai Lavoie. “It’s programs like these that will give SMBs a fighting chance and help promote policies that positively impact the everyday American business owner.” 

To learn more about the 10,000 Small Business Voice initiative, check out the website to access resources or participate in the many surveys to inform congress of US business owners’ ongoing needs.

Race Talks in Sports

Race Talks in Sports

Charlotte Business Leader Sharai Lavoie joins Jerrold Kinney, De’Marcus Miller, and DeAndrae Watson for a discussion on race and the role the sports industry can play in creating positive change within the business community.  This captivating conversation explores systemic racism and the vital dialogue that should exist between equality advocates and business leaders.

Watch the full video below, and check out a few of the highlights!

Key Takeaways

Simply put, we as a society are at the crossroads of cultural advancement and organizational ineptitude. The topic of systemic racism, workplace inequality, and homogenous decision-making can no longer be ignored. However, the definition of the “talk” changes from colleague to colleague as do the continuous actions that need to follow. 

Over the years, sports professionals have championed those difficult conversations (“talks”) and been at the nexus of sustainable change and political progress. And now, with unparalleled access to recorded footage of police brutality and the confluence of back-to-back violence on black men and women, professionals and companies have an obligation to drive national momentum and activate the diversity conversation.

Here are some very real tips on how to move the equality needle from our Race Talks in Sports panelists:

Are you an athlete or a professional in the sports industry? Here’s how you can influence or participate in sustainable change:

  • Continue to be active in your communities… every day
  • Have your beliefs front and center… literally wear them where the cameras will see
  • Always participate in the conversation… no matter where you are
  • Get over your anxiety and fears surrounding communication… no matter what environment you’re in, someone can learn from your experiences
  • Bring your full, authentic self to the workplace… the court, the field, or the office

A company’s commitment to diversity

How to do more than just check the box

Unfortunately, most organizations check the diversity and inclusion box by creating an internal group, announcing it on social media, and that’s it. Committing to diversity means providing your employees the opportunity to be mentored and propelled into their desired industry or professional stature. Companies need to rethink how they can use these diversity and inclusion groups to present goals to leadership, and, over time, show what has actually been accomplished. This allows for true accountability and a way to track how quickly programs are progressing and identify ways to continuously improve. 

Start improving your diversity and inclusion initiative by focusing on these 5 areas: 

  • Evaluate Your Organization & Find The Right Skills That Can Lead Change
  • Build A Community With Accessible Communication Channels & Resources 
  • Educate Everyone In The Company From Leadership to Interns
  • Create Transparent Goals That Can Be Shared & Tracked
  • Drive Accountability That Can Be Analyzed On A Consistent Basis

Ways to Get Involved

Join the Charlotte Sports + Business Networking Group

Charlotte Sports+Business is a free networking group connecting sports industry executives in the Queen City. 

Join the Racial Equity Institute

A Greensboro based organization, the Racial Equality, Institute helps individuals and organizations develop the tools they need to challenge patterns and grow equity within their communities.

Watch Uncomfortable Conversations With A Black Man

Emmanuel Acho sits down to have an “uncomfortable conversation” with white America in order to educate and inform on racism, system racism, social injustice, rioting & the hurt African Americans are feeling today.

Moderator

Sharai Lavoie
CEO
Lavoie CPA

Participants

DeAndrae Watson
Vice President
Octagon

De’Marcus Miller
Senior Marketer

Jerrold Kinney
Senior Marketing & Strategy Professional

A CPA firm that does NOT provide Tax or Audit services?

A CPA firm that does NOT provide Tax or Audit services?

The value in not providing traditional accounting services

When most people hear CPA they immediately think tax and audit.  Lavoie CPA does NOT provide either service.  So, what do we do?  We provide world class accounting bundled with leading accounting technology and Outsourced Accounting (Accounting as a Service) to help our clients succeed . But why don’t we provide tax or financial audit services?

  1. Our focus is helping grow your business.  We provide financial intelligence you can rely on to make informed financial decisions.
  2. We don’t want to become tax experts.  Staying on top of changes to tax laws and regulations is an exhaustive process. We rather partner with tax professionals and focus on what we do best – help grow your business!
  3. We can’t audit ourselves. Since we provide leading finance and accounting services, we can’t audit our own work.  However, our clients are always audit ready!

Why do clients come to Lavoie CPA since we don’t do tax or audit?

  1. We help grow sales.
  2. We turn finance into a strategic asset.
  3. We keep cost under control.
  4. We eliminate distractions and let our clients focus on what they do best.

Want to learn more?