How Butler & Sanchez LLC Organized and Expanded to 22 States with Financial Cents
Hugo C. Sanchez
Name
Butler & Sanchez LLC
Firm Name
Accounting, Tax & Part Time CFO Services
Services
10
Staff Members
Kingwood, Texas
Location
2017
Year Founded
Remote
Working Style
The story of Butler and Sanchez LLC proves that you don’t need a grand vision or well-thought-out branding to start a business. The universe can fan a small idea into flames if you know how to ride the wave and deploy the right resources (technology).
Butler and Sanchez started as a joke in March of 2017. I needed to help out a friend and wanted to sound legitimate, so I formed an LLC in Texas because it was easy. "
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPAThree years after this casual step, Hugo Sanchez, CPA, had seen enough clients to convince him to bet on himself and his accounting expertise. At some point, his wife, Amanda Butler, joined him.
Together with eight other accounting professionals, they provide full-service accounting solutions to businesses in 22 states in the USA.
Our book of business started growing. It got to the point where, in January 2020 (right before COVID), it became my full-time job. Ultimately, my wife was able to quit her full-time job about nine months later to continue to grow our firm."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPAWith their entire family (and eight other households) depending on the firm for livelihood, Hugo Sanchez and Amanda Butler were determined to attract more clients and grow their profits by improving service quality and giving their staff the tools to do their best work.
This is when the limitations of their existing project management system hit them.
The Two Biggest Challenges Butler and Sanchez LLC Faced
1. Inability to Track Work and Store Client Information in One Place
Like every firm, Hugo Sanchez and Amanda Butler started out tracking work and managing clients using Post-it notes and spreadsheets.
But they have clients in multiple industries (construction, healthcare, dental, law, manufacturing, hospitality, and real estate), who require slightly different financial reporting needs.
They need a robust practice management solution that is robust enough to organize all the unique information and is easy to use at the same time.
We tracked work and stored client information in Post-it notes and Excel. As we started bringing on team members, that obviously was not going to work for anybody."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPA2. Struggling to Collect Client Information
Hugo often found his team stuck with client data collection. He would email clients repeatedly for missing tax documents, praying that he would get a response quickly enough to get the job done.
Like every other task that can be automated in accounting, this seems negligible until you realize that they are why firms couldn’t do deep, focused work in 2024.
There was no good system to send automatic task reminders unless you're using a product like Financial Cents. I would send an email to a client, saying, ‘I still need a list of these things to work on your tax return.’ I've got to keep reminding myself to resend that email to the client if I don't hear from them, or I’d pick up the phone and reach out."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPAWhy They Switched to Financial Cents
It’s more difficult to have tasted the productivity and efficiency that comes with using project management software, to then return to unwieldy and counterintuitive solutions.
Hugo and Amanda, his wife and partner, had used project management software in their previous roles. Even though they didn’t like it that much, they had seen enough to know the firm wouldn’t rely on Excel and Post.it Notes for long if they hoped to achieve all that was possible.
True to that, things began to fall apart when they hired their second staff.
My wife and I have worked at firms where they had some project management software, but it was not a great option. After our first or second hire, we knew we needed something to stay better organized and communicate for everybody to see the big picture."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPAGuided by their existing knowledge of project management software, Hugo went in search of a software solution; a search that led them to Financial Cents.
I started shopping around, and I came across Financial Cents."
Top Financial Cents Benefits for the Butler and Sanchez Team
1. Running a More Organized Firm
No one teaches accountants how to organize their accounting team in school, so when you get a program that keeps your team on top of all deadlines and prevents things from slipping through the cracks, your job as a firm owner is half done. That is why organization is Hugo’s biggest benefit from Financial Cents.
Financial Cents gives the Butler & Sanchez team a centralized dashboard with full visibility into the status of the tasks everyone is working on.
They can filter tasks by team members and manage capacity centrally without drowning in sticky notes and email inboxes.
Our major benefit from Financial Cents has been organization. We have full insight into what our team is working on. We can assign projects, create filters, and see what is assigned to each team member to help capacity management."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPA2. An All-in-One Platform
Using multiple software solutions for different tasks is a quick way to make your team unproductive. They’ll have to constantly switch between multiple apps with the time and mental energy they could have spent directly on billable work.
With the inclusion of the billing and proposal feature in Financial Cents, Hugo has enabled his team to do more from one place, keeping project, time, and billing information more accurate.
Now that billing has been introduced, we're all in on Financial Cents. We're using as many modules as we can. The more information we put into Financial Cents, the better it is helping us to stay organized."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPA3. Flexible Working Style that Helps Remote Work Thrive
Hugo does not believe in micromanaging his team, so he does not care about the time of day his staff works as long as they get the job done.
With two team members in the Philippines and others spread across the U.S., Hugo couldn’t afford to use a cookie-cutter approach to the team’s work hours.
The challenge with this strategy is the tendency for team members to become complacent. Thankfully, Financial Cents’ real-time updates, shared task lists, and central workflow management system provide Hugo with firm-wide visibility into every team member’s performance.
We allow a lot of flexibility amongst our team members. Two of our team members are in the Philippines, and we allow our team here in the US to work at any time they want. We don't have set firm hours, so everybody's kind of spread out. But Financial Cents gives me a global picture of what's going on."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPA4. Automated Client Task Reminders
Financial Cents saves Hugo the stress of remembering (and calling or emailing) to remind clients of outstanding requests.
I can set Financial Cents up to bug the client every three, five, seven days, or whatever frequency (until they respond). I can set it and forget it until the client's ready to get back. I love that I don’t have to remember to send the reminder (because that just adds a boatload of work."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPAFinancial Cents’ Impact on Butler & Sanchez LLC
1. Customizable for Every Role
Financial Cents allows everyone in the firm, regardless of their roles, to customize Financial Cents with the information they want to see.
Financial Cents enables us to see a big picture overview, but at the same time, we can drill down into the details. Its customized checklists show us whatever we need to see as a business owner or a staff accountant, keeping us organized on every project."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPAWhen you’re handling around 20 projects at a time, seeing where each project stands can be challenging. The Financial Cents checklist also helps Hugo to understand where each project stands for timely decision-making.
“With the checklists (task list), you’re not reading through notes. You can see what has happened, what hasn’t happened, and most importantly, what needs to happen next. That saves us time,” said Hugo C. Sanchez, CPA.
2. Standardized Workflows for Consistent Work Quality
The firm has done very well documenting workflow templates on the accounting side of things, which has improved the consistency of their client service.
This has motivated Hugo to also document their tax workflows to make their next tax season less demanding.
My wife's been phenomenal at documenting our accounting workflows. I’m still trying to get better at it. One of my goals this entire month is tweaking our templates to have a better tax season next year."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPA3. A Software Partner They Can Grow With
Financial Cents’ benefits to the Butler & Sanchez LLC go beyond features. The team behind the product has also shown, time and time again, their commitment to helping accounting firms maximize the product through their responsiveness to users’ concerns.
Instead of treating feedback like a suggestion box that is emptied once or twice a year, Financial Cents approaches it like an ongoing conversation that allows them to iterate alongside their users.
Financial Cents is very responsive to feedback. I’d go to the Facebook group to ask questions, and on several occasions, the CEO, Shahram Zarshenas, would say, ‘Hey, let's jump on a call and discuss it. How can we improve it? That's huge for us because it shows how much they want to continue to develop the platform to grow with us. It’s a win-win for us, our clients, and the Financial Cents team."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPA, Tax Partner, Butler & Sanchez LLCFrom One Accounting Firm Owner to Another
You've got to pull the trigger on something. You're probably researching, and there's a ton of practice management options on the market. Financial Cents works very well for us. If you're thinking about getting more organized, the time to do it was last tax season, so if you haven't done anything, do something today."
Hugo C. Sanchez, CPA, Tax Partner, Butler & Sanchez LLCSubscribe to our newsletter for an awesome dose of firm growth tips.
