Ep. 4 - Modernizing Construction Finance

[00:00:00] intro music:

[00:00:00] Jaclyn: Welcome to the Acumatica ERP podcast, where we explore practical innovation for growing businesses. Today we're joined by Cassie Moore, CFO of Alpha Insulation and Waterproofing. Cassie, welcome. We're excited to have you here.

[00:00:16] Cassie: Thanks, Jaclyn. I'm not gonna lie, this is my first ever podcast.

[00:00:20] Cassie:So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Yeah, it'll be great.

[00:00:23] Jaclyn: Yeah, I'm sure. let's start with the first question here. Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Alpha Insulation and waterproofing and what your company does?

[00:00:34] Cassie: sure. So I am currently the Chief Financial Officer for Alpha Insulation and Waterproofing. We do commercial construction, typically heavy commercial, libraries, hospitals, AIrports, stuff like that. We do waterproofing, fireproofing, fire stopping insulation, a lot of those scopes, um, in the construction space. So the company is building the country. Pretty awesome.

[00:00:56] Jaclyn: I'm sure. Yeah. It sounds awesome. Yeah. What are some of the, um, unique challenges of managing finance and operations in your industry?

[00:01:07] Cassie: I don't know that our struggles are atypical or unique. We struggle to get the office and the field to communicate in a timely manner. And when you're on commercial construction projects like that, it's extremely important. They need to have real time feedback and have all the tools that they need to be able to do their jobs.

[00:01:26] Jaclyn: For sure. Yeah, that's super important. I mean, like, imagine like not being able to communicate in time, in real time with your, with your team members, right?

[00:01:35] Jaclyn: Your company recently went live with a distribution and manufacturing expansion that also uses Acumatica. I wanna know more. Tell us more.

[00:01:45] Cassie: So we went live on Acumatica with Alpha, which is our heavy commercial division, January 1st, 2021. Um, it went really well. We had no business interruption. We went live on time and, and then when our distribution side of the house, AMD distribution was acquired, they were looking for a software to replace what they had and still be scalable.

[00:02:07] Cassie: So that's kind of where we came in. Me and my team, uh, jumped in and helped them with the implementation of Acumatica on the distribution side. We've been live for roughly a hundred days now.

[00:02:20] Jaclyn: Oh.

[00:02:20] Cassie: So far it's going well. No one's cried. There have been no injuries. Um, it, it was a, a culture change. Right. Implementing an ERP is hard, right? Especially, yeah, especially when you're not used to it. But the, the people were so amazing and so patient and really wanted to understand and be able to grow their business.

[00:02:44] Jaclyn: Right. Yeah. And if I ask you like, it's, it's worth the investment, right? And it's worth the, you know, the, the challenges that you had. You had to go through with the implementation. But I mean, like, like you sAId. There was a good support team, and now after using it for a hundred days, you're in a good, very good spot for now and in the future. Right.

[00:03:04] Cassie: Exactly.

[00:03:05] Jaclyn: What did the expansion involve?

[00:03:08] Cassie: So we actually have a separate tenant for distribution. We did have to customize a little bit. Our manufacturing isn't discreet manufacturing, it's custom, and so that required a little bit of customization of the system. So we have a separate tenant for our distribution operations and a separate one for our commercial operations.

[00:03:25] Jaclyn: What does use the use of Acumatica look like, uh, in, uh, different operations?

[00:03:31] Cassie: It's amazing how interesting it is to have the mind shift go from, using different systems to something that talks to each other. You're very dependent on upstream and then you affect a lot of things downstream and getting that whole understanding into everyone. It takes a little bit of time and so when we have, you know, our procure to pay from our purchase orders to the AP bills that go out, and then we have order to cash from the sales orders to the cash that's collected, it touches every facet of the business.

[00:04:05] Cassie: And so it is exciting and terrifying all at the same time. But the teams have really taken, taken it and kind of made it their own.

[00:04:14] Jaclyn: So it's like kind of connecting all the dots that were kind of doing their own thing in the past. Now it, they're actually talking to each other.

[00:04:22] Cassie: Yes.

[00:04:22] Jaclyn: Yeah. Awesome. Once you decided to make a change, what did the evaluation and implementation process look like?

[00:04:33] Cassie: So for Alpha, we kind of went to market with our business requirements, right? We are a commercial construction business. We do large scale projects that require progress billing. And certified payroll, stuff like that. The, the basic things for heavy commercial. And we went RFP and we ended up with, you know, five responses.

[00:04:53] Cassie:We whittled it down to three and effectively we actually brought the operations team and everybody into score the three that we ended up with. And so everybody kind of got a choice in what software we ended up going with.

[00:05:09] Jaclyn: Okay, cool. What was the percentage of votes that Acumatica got?

[00:05:15] Cassie: Oh boy, it's probably been, it's been five years. I'm not sure that I remember. Um, I do know that it was fAIrly weighted, weighted pretty heavily in favor of Acumatica.

[00:05:27] Jaclyn: That's awesome. Yeah. So how did you involve your team and what factors were most important in selecting the right technology partner?

[00:05:37] Cassie: So the partner is huge. When you're looking to bring in an ERP, they will guide you. They're the experts, right? You just showed up and you're brand new at this, and you want somebody to guide you and, and help you and understand not only your business, but the the platform, right? And so my team was very involved in the implementation.

[00:05:58] Cassie: That's one of the pieces of advice I give everybody when they ask me like, how were you successful? And one of the biggest things is my team owned it. And so we had SMEs for each functional area, so ar, AP billing projects, general ledger reporting. Everybody had their area and their specialty, and they really took it and owned it.

[00:06:19] Cassie: So now not only did we implement, they're able to support at least level one support with the end users because they know exactly how their modules work.

[00:06:30] Jaclyn: Yep. They've done it probably many, many times, so they surely are the experts. Yeah.

[00:06:37] Cassie: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:37] Jaclyn: Every growing business reaches a point where old systems or processes start holding it back. What were some of the signs that it was time for Alpha to modernize your financials and operational systems, and what goals did you hope to achieve?

[00:06:55] Cassie: So I think the goals that I hope to retrieve were three. Reliability. Uh, I needed a stable platform, uh, timeliness. Of information passing from the field to the office and back and, oh crap. What was the third one? No, those were my, my mAIn two. Yeah. Reliability, visibility and real time feedback. Those were the most important things I think when, when we were evaluating a software and that it be flexible to grow with our business. It had to be scalable.

[00:07:10] Jaclyn: Real time communications. Maybe like that's what you're looking for, having the different teams being able to communicate to each other in real time versus, you know, in their own silos.

[00:07:21] Cassie: Yes.

[00:07:22] Jaclyn: Maybe that might be the first one. Uh, the third one. Maybe. Maybe. Okay. So, um. Um, Technology can give a huge impact on visibility and decision making. How has modernizing your systems changed the way you and your team work day to day?

[00:07:32] Cassie: It's so different. We used to spend so much time on manual processes, so we had to run shadow systems because our, our, the system that we on were on wasn't reliable. And so the team spent a lot of time doing non-value added tasks. Now, now they can spend more time doing financial review and digging into stuff that makes sense or doesn't make sense.

[00:07:52] Cassie: And learning and being able to go through the upgrades once a year like that is our team does that too. So it is really just changed how they spend their days and what they spend it on. Shifting it from day-to-day grunt work, if you will, to more analytical.

[00:08:11] Jaclyn: Yeah. That's awesome to hear. That's what we've also been hearing from a lot of our customers. That's awesome. Yeah. How have you been able to better connect your finance team with what's happening in the field and what difference has that made for your business? Mm-hmm.

[00:08:25] Cassie: One of the things that was my goals when I started here at Alpha seven years ago was to bridge the gap between finance and operations. And I think that my team being able to see these transactions, the volume, the amount of revenue going through what it takes, right? Even just from a transaction side,

[00:08:45] Jaclyn: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:45] Cassie: They have an appreciation now for what happens in the field. And so I'm a big proponent of field trips. Like I want them to go out there and see these are where the transactions are coming from. This is how they're getting here. This is where, you know. bread is made, if you will, like this is how we make our money. And so being able to take that and combine it with the transactions in the system electronically, I think has been really invaluable for the team.

[00:09:10] Jaclyn: Yeah. That's great. Yeah. 'cause they're no, no longer just numbers, they're related to something that's happening in, in real life or in, in the field. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, I know, I know how that is, when, when you're so into spreadsheets or numbers and you're just, you, you just dived into there.

[00:09:28] Cassie: They're just numbers, but like our guys in the field, like they have a customer coming over to ask them what's going on. They've got a safety guy on the job asking questions. You have other trades coming and going. It is, it is very chaotic. And so when we are asking them, Hey, can you upload your receipt? We're like 15th on the list and, and there's. You can't even really be mad at him for it.

[00:09:51] Jaclyn: Right. I know. Yeah. Well, I'm glad it's, it's, we've made it easier for you. Yeah.

[00:09:57] Cassie: Yeah.

[00:09:58] Jaclyn: Um, Alpha has grown significantly over the years. From a CFO's. From a CFO's perspective, how do you approach scaling your operations and how does technology support that growth?

[00:10:10] Cassie: I talk to the team about a lot is that we are growing, we're gonna continue to grow. We have amazing things ahead. I wanna be able to do so responsibly and so by employing technology to do some of the things that maybe uh. an employee doesn't have to do, they can focus on them more.

[00:10:26] Cassie: The things that excite them, the things that are value added, the things where they see impact being made, as well as when we grow, I don't necessarily have to add the headcount. I used to have to add per revenue dollar.

[00:10:39] Jaclyn: Yeah, because, because they're not no longer doing all the grunt work or you know, doing all the workarounds that you mentioned, and now they're focusing on the insightful, like how to analyze the data, what you're getting from the data and growing the business in general.

[00:10:53] Cassie: Yes, yes.

[00:10:54] Jaclyn: Yeah. What advice do you have for other CFOs or finance leaders who are considering a digital transformation?

[00:11:03] Cassie: Oh my. If you haven't thought about it more than just considering by now you're behind. Really. Right. And the good news is that it's never too late. Um, I would say that you have to take advantage of what's offered.

[00:11:18] Jaclyn: Right. Yeah. A lot of the customers that I've seen, like they are now, I mean, they've switched from using like a basic accounting software to a, to an ERP solution, and that's, that's because their business is growing and they foresee that um, being the future and, you know, having a, um, technology that supports that growth. It's super important. So that's great to hear. Yeah.

[00:11:42] Jaclyn: As you look to the future, what trends or innovations are you most excited about in the construction and finance space?

[00:11:51] Cassie: Oh, I'm gonna be the cheesy buzzword and it's AI.

[00:11:55] Jaclyn: Hmm. Yes.

[00:11:55] Cassie: How can it not be? I mean, what, what else is there right now? Um, that is on everybody's mind. I do wanna try to leverage some more of that to agAIn, handle some of the stuff that's not as value added or even the anomaly detection in Acumatica is something that could really simplify financial review, catch mistakes before they happen.

[00:12:16] Cassie: It is something that we as a company are very interested in. And the staff too, right? So, I brought them in. Some of them had never done an ERP implementation before. This was their first one. Now that they've done it, and I still get goosebumps every time I talk about this. You can never take that away.

[00:12:35] Cassie:Implementing an ERP being on the ground floor of that is something that is so valuable when you look at people's experience skill sets, it, it gives so much to the individual and now they've accomplished something that is pretty huge. Like when you talk about it, they always, people look for people with ERP implementation experience all the time, and now they can say they have that so. It continues with giving them the opportunities to explore the space, right? So, I don't know everything there is to know about AI. Good grief, man.

[00:13:08] Jaclyn: Yeah.

[00:13:08] Cassie: My brain is simply not that big. And so, but giving them the opportunity and the, and the ability, the resources, the tools, the freedom to go explore all those things, the sky is the limit for them.

[00:13:20] Jaclyn: Right. Yeah. They're no longer spending the time finding the issues. They're using their valuable time to actually deal with the issues. Yeah. Awesome. So how do you see companies like Alpha continuing to evolve in the coming years?

[00:13:35] Cassie: I think we'll continue to look at processes, procedures, growing the way that we're gonna grow. It's gonna be necessary. I think that we will try to employ additional technology. I mean, we already are, we're in the process of several projects that, that keep everybody busy. It is a good time to be at Alpha.

[00:13:56] Jaclyn: Yeah, so would I like, is it fair to say that after implementing Acumatica, your business, like the growth has only has been going up. I'm going like this way or in a mirror. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:05] Cassie: Yes. I would, I would say and continues to do so, and we've been able to do it responsibly and not worry about overwhelming our people, our systems, or all of that with the growth that has already happened and is still to come.

[00:14:19] Jaclyn: Yeah. And knowing that, you know, everything is in compliance with regulations, you know, accounting rules and every regulations and everything, that's just, it's, it's comfort, right? It's, you know, it's there already.

[00:14:32] Cassie: Well, my focus has totally shifted, right? Instead of worrying about those things, like I know that we have the processes, the people, the procedures in place, that it's almost gonna take care of itself. And so that part becomes less of a focus. It's not a fire drill anymore. It's, I can focus on the growth and, and the, the improvements and, and all the, all the positive things.

[00:14:54] Jaclyn: Right. Oh, that's great. So now let's move on to the lightning round.

[00:14:58] Cassie: Oh boy.

[00:14:59] Jaclyn: Yeah. What's one thing you have to do every morning before diving into work?

[00:15:06] Cassie: I drive my daughter to school every day. Um, whenever I, I travel some for work, but when I'm in town it's our time, so we, I will take her, she will dj, we talk about everything. It is my favorite time of the day.

[00:15:20] Jaclyn: Yeah, I have to say daughters are great. I have one too, and very talkative, but they're so sweet.

[00:15:20] Cassie: Yes. I just, I want her to always talk to me, keep talking to me. 'cause she's 14 now. And so now the fact that we still have that and she still, she'll still talk to me at all.

[00:15:26] Cassie: I mean, I'm glad, but it, that time together is super important. 'cause I get to find out what's happening in her day, what music is she listening to, what are her friends doing, stuff like that. So that is the one thing I have to do every day.

[00:15:38] Jaclyn: Oh, that's great. I mean, I, I'm on the same boat. Mine's 13, so we're, we're very in sync here.

[00:15:44] Cassie: Yes,

[00:15:45] Jaclyn: Yeah. Um, when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grow, when you grew up?

[00:15:52] Cassie: I wanted to be a lawyer.

[00:15:53] Jaclyn: Oh.

[00:15:54] Cassie: I was, I had my mind made up. Um, I've always been that kind of kind of person, even from when I was a kid. Like I decided I was gonna do something. That's what I was gonna do. You weren't telling me any different. Um, however, I'm not a lawyer. I think it was because I, I did argue so much.

[00:16:09] Cassie: I was very good at that. Um, but I still ended up kind of in an analytical role, if you will.

[00:16:15] Jaclyn: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, it's, it's, it's good. Yeah. Yeah. If you could master one skill, professional or personal, what would it be?

[00:16:23] Cassie: Oh boy. I really wanna be able to play the guitar. There is not a chance that that's happening, but I really am envious of the people that can.

[00:16:34] Jaclyn: I know, like the musicians, I, I don't know how they do it either.

[00:16:34] Cassie: No, no.

[00:16:34] Jaclyn: It's talent for sure!

[00:16:36] Cassie: Yes, yes.

[00:16:36] Jaclyn: Yeah. Okay. Um, okay. Yeah. So yeah, so Yeah.

[00:16:37] , music break:

[00:16:38] Jaclyn: Yeah. Okay. Um, alright.

[00:16:38] Jaclyn: Cassie, thanks so much for joining us and sharing all about your work with Alpha. It's been great to have you.

[00:16:44] Cassie: Thanks Jaclyn for having me.

[00:16:46] Jaclyn: Yeah. And thank you to our listeners for tuning into the Acumatica ERP podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future conversations on practical innovation for growing businesses, and we'll catch you next time.

Modernizing Construction Finance

LISTEN NOW ON:

Show Notes

Episode Description

Timestamps

Cassie Moore

Chief Financial Officer | Alpha Insulation & Waterproofing

Links

Transcript

Episode Transcript

The Acumatica ERP Podcast

Practical innovation for growing businesses