In the neighborhood
Some of my best client relationships start with a handshake in the neighborhood. That’s how I met Joe.
Joe runs a Portland restaurant group with six locations across four concepts: Joe’s Burgers, Choza PDX, Little Burro, and Hen House. He also has a management company tying it all together, with stores inboth Oregon and Washington. When his longtime accountant retired and the replacement didn’t workout, he needed someone who could step in quickly. I lived a mile away, so I told him I could do the job.
That was two years ago.
Where we started
Joe’s books were in good shape. His previous accountant had taken great care of them. But the system behind them was showing its age. Everything ran on Sage 50, a desktop accounting program, sitting on asingle computer. Nothing was in the cloud. One person handled almost everything. And every week, Joe sat down and signed a stack of paper checks.
Honestly, I spent my first few months quietly worrying that the computer would give out.
What we changed
I work with Joe’s team as a contract controller. I’m on site two afternoons a week, and I work alongside his team rather than replacing it. A great member of Joe’s staff handles data entry and day-to-day bookkeeping. His operations person runs payroll. My job is the big picture: managing cash, paying the bills, and producing monthly financial statements that help the group make decisions.
Along the way, we made some big upgrades:
Moved to QuickBooks Online, so the books are secure, in the cloud, and accessible from anywhere.
Set up Ramp for bill pay. Joe doesn’t sign paper checks anymore. Bills get approved and paid digitally, with a clear record of everything.
Built consolidated monthly financials and a dashboard, so Joe can see every location and the group as a whole in one place, for the first time.
I also sit in on a weekly operations meeting with Joe and his Oregon director of operations. Every Monday, Joe and I meet one-on-one. The numbers don’t just sit in a report. They show up at the table where decisions get made.
What the numbers are telling us
Once we could see all the locations side by side, the numbers started telling a clearer story.
The targets weren’t realistic. The cost of goods and labor targets the group had set just weren’t matching reality. Now we’re narrowing them down so each location has real, achievable targets to aim for.
We had the data to ask for help. We decided to pursue rent relief at a couple of locations. When Joe sits down with a landlord, he isn’t guessing. He has the numbers to back up his case.
Menu pricing is getting smarter. Right now, I’m helping the team adjust menu prices. We’re also building simple forms and templates so the next round of price updates goes faster.
What’s next
Our next goal is getting these reports into the hands of more of the team. When each manager sees their own report card, they can make better calls every day, not just once a month.
This is what I mean by CFO-level insight at an accessible price. It isn’t about fancy software or thick binders. It’s about knowing your numbers well enough to act on them.
