Ep. 261: Timothy Wingate - Streamlining Construction Accounting

Welcome to another episode of Count Me In, where today we're joined by a very special guest, Timothy Wingate, the insightful founder and president of GF Business and Financial Consulting LLC. With his extensive expertise in construction accounting, Timothy delves into the complexities of interdepartmental communication, focusing on crucial links between back office operations and finance teams. In our conversation, Timothy unpacks the transformative impact of technology in streamlining communication and shares effective strategies for safeguarding financial data. Whether you're in the construction industry or keen on enhancing team collaboration and and financial management within your organization, this episode offers valuable insight and actionable advice from a seasoned pro. Let's get started.

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of challenges. Number 1 is just getting the right code on a receipt, you know, just the the basics of of that. And it it requires 2 people to be communicating, you know, consistently and frequently. So you have to build out systems or channels where that communication can live so that way we know exactly where to seek out that information.

That makes a lot of sense because, you know, we're well beyond the days of the interoffice memo that's in a one of those little envelopes that you you wrap it up and you have to put your name on it and you send it out. Right. You know, we're well beyond those days. Right? So Yeah.

You know, what are some

ways that we can leverage technology to kinda help improve that? You know, you mentioned it's between 2 people, but, you know, sometimes teams are 10, 20, 30 people. How do you, you know, how do you utilize that technology so you can effectively have that good communication?

Yeah. So, I mean, one of the good things is sometimes when you have meetings like like we we're having today on a Zoom platform or a Google Meet, you know, one of those platforms, using a notetaker, it becomes a a a very good tool to use because it's capturing, you know, everything that's being said. So that way, we can now go back and revisit some things that was mentioned, and we don't have to, you know, bother the the person who was in the meeting physically. We can just go back to them digitally and get that information. So that's one one strategy that we use.

Mhmm. Yeah. Gone are the days they're having to have your notebook out and trying to quickly take notes, and you can get in there and just have the AI make a summary for you. And then you're like, okay. That is what we we did cover that. And even Yeah. Some of them even give you next steps, which is It does. Which is amazing.

It does.

One of the things that I've I've enjoyed, you know, we we implemented a receipt type, like, a a new system. Because I remember when you go on a business trip, you'd have to fill out Excel spreadsheet, maybe take pictures of things. Now you just, you know, upload them in there, put the code in there, submit it. Boom. Bang. Boom. Yep. You know, you're already there. And I I think it's really cut down on the time it takes, and so people really don't have excuses. I'm a I I can't get that too.

Yeah. It is. It is. It's really advanced. And, you know, we still we still haven't gotten rid of the spreadsheet because, of course

Mhmm.

People still miss taking receipts, pictures of receipts. So we get in there and start coding

Mhmm.

Accounts and realize, like, hold on. We don't have a receipt for this, so now we have to send them a spreadsheet report. But we're using different, I guess, systems, like, for Google Sheets. You can use Google Sheets where now it becomes collaborative. Mhmm.

Mhmm.

You know, it's like I I want to use this. I wanna be up to date with that instead of taking the Microsoft Excel, downloading it, you know, filling it in, saving it, and then uploading it back. You know? So those days kinda work.

Well and then realizing that somebody else updated the same sheet, and you guys and you guys both like these different times, and you have to reconcile it and figure out who made changes. Right. Right.

So definitely trying to stay away from that. So slowly but surely, we're we're getting away from that as well Mhmm. With our, reporting.

You know, one thing that I think the accounting and finance team doesn't talk about enough is, you know, when you're working with people who are not in accounting or finance, they don't necessarily understand the importance of, you know, your financial information, keeping it accurate, keeping it safe, and and all that stuff. Are there some strategies that you've implemented to kind of share the importance of that with people who are not financial and saying, hey, this is the like, are there any ways that you've kind of ensured that they're sharing the real time data is very important? And what are some strategy views to do that?

Now to make sure I understand, are you saying with the with the client per se or just within, you know, our office?

Either way. Either with your client that you're working with or in internal office because, you know, there's people who you know, there's people in your office who may not be with finance or connected to finance. So, like, you know, what are some strategies you work with to educate them in the best way of sharing this data and the importance of it?

Yeah. So we we do a lot of trainings. So we train all the time on how to share share data. We have SOPs on how to share data, keep data, store data. We use a system, we like a gatekeeper, which is called Practice Protect.

That that is truly important. It's funny if you watch spy movies. They're like, I can't find any of their information on the cloud to hack it. Oh, no. They keep it in a filing cabinet, and then they have to break into somewhere and steal a filing cabinet.

Yeah. You

know, that's like the new joke in these in these movies. But Right. It is very important to have access to all your data no matter where you are. And Yes. And with all the new technologies out there, you know, nothing's unhackable, you know, unfortunately.

Man, it's it's the way I live. You know, my my entire practice is virtual. So everyone who works for me works for some remote location. I got, you know, people who are in Ohio, in Cal California I mean, not California, North Carolina.

Okay.

And then they're here here in Florida. So but some of us, you know, met only once or twice in person. So it just it's a different world today. And to me, I think it's it has opened up businesses to be able to compete Mhmm. On a on a larger scale because you're not bound to your your local demographic.

Mhmm.

And so you can serve different communities, and you can receive help from different communities. Mhmm.

No. It's it's great. It's great how we've been able to shrink the world in a way by the way we're able to connect, which is truly important.

Yeah. Yeah. We did.

So, you know, we can't talk about communicating with the field office or or clients just like that without talking about budgeting and forecasting because as organizations, we have to have that budget in place to make sure that we understand our strategy and going forward. You know, are there different tools or strategies that you've taken to help, collaborate with your staff to make budget the budgeting and forecasting process a more stable process?

I mean, the main thing is just clean bookkeeping. Mhmm. You know, making sure that the the month before is closed out, everything is balanced, so that way we can have a solid baseline.

Mhmm.

Is is I always tell people with bookkeepers, what kills a a bookkeeper's, you know, joy in doing the work is rework. Mhmm. So anytime you gotta go back and just do rework or you're catching up, it kills momentum. It delays a lot of things, and it it don't allow us to really forecast. So just making sure that everything is caught up, everything is accurate, allows us to be in position to set a budget. And then we, you know, we use the QuickBooks tool

Okay.

Where you can go in there, create a budget for every single chart of account, and start to really plan and make those decisions about growth for the client Mhmm. Which is important, and then also about cash flow, which is probably even more important. So yeah. Yeah. So that's what what what we put in place.

Maybe you could talk a little bit about the importance of cash flow, especially in your type of business and the way you're working with different construction companies. How would it important to understand how your cash flow works, and how do you how do you maintain that?

Cash flow is huge. Huge. And then when when you're dealing with construction, they have cash flow coming from different projects to support one organization. And so you need to have a good eye on what's happening on each project, so that way you can know you can predict the cash flow from each project to help support the the one organization with the which is the construction company. And so having systems in place to manage projects in the construction world, we we find project management software.

Yeah. So it seems like communication is is extremely important to keep things flowing smoothly. Otherwise, you have delays. You know, things won't get billed. You'll have things unfinished because and it could come down to just the money's not moving properly.

Right. Yeah. And and you gotta keep an eye out on how that money should be moving.

Mhmm. And and

then and then also be quick to make a decision about a project so that way you can solve the problem, the cash flow problem.

Mhmm.

Because cash flow is king, working capital is king Mhmm. And a construction company.

Yeah. For sure. So I can I I understand why you would do lots of education because if you're working with, you know, project managers who are on-site, they not may not be familiar with the project management software? They may not be they may just learn one aspect of it. So you have to keep that communication, keep that education there so that things can flow properly.

Yeah. Because we need to know, like, hey. When you don't do this, it affects the bottom line. Or if you're behind on getting materials, like, you know, you hey. I forgot to order materials. So instead of it coming this week, it's gonna come in 3 weeks. Mhmm. Well, you may have just pushed the project back 3 weeks. You may have now burnt through 2% of profit, you know, because of that 3 week delay.

Mhmm.

So having them to understand, you know, how the decisions made in the field affect the the numbers and how much money the company makes and earns and and can use to grow. Yeah. So it's just bringing everything full circle, making the connection. Mhmm.

Well, and it also helps allowing people to see the big picture. Yeah. Because if you do if you delay here, then it delays the next project, which delays more income, and it just it's a it's a stair it's a Yeah. Waterfall.

It's a waterfall. A big one. A big one.

A very big one, which which they've certainly, like, causes everybody to pull their hair out and be like,

ah. Yeah. It does. It does, man. And it's easy for it to happen and hard to get out of. Mhmm. Very, very hard to get out of. And sometimes it takes some time. Sometimes it takes, you know, cutting back, and sometimes you may have to cut someone's job because Mhmm. It's gotten that bad.

Mhmm.

So we we we just gotta be careful on you know, we don't construction's a it's a different animal. Mhmm. You know, it's not like, hey. Let's just boost up marketing to sell more product. No. It's it's not it's not as simple as that. Mhmm. So there's a lot of, you know, human touches involved, and so a lot of room for error. Mhmm.

Are there any examples you can share that where you kind of fell into that hole what you used, you know, you were able to get out of it, you know, information that you can share? Obviously, you don't have to give names or anything like that. But are there any examples of where you've seen that happen and you were able to climb out of it using some of the examples we've been sharing today?

Yeah. So one in particular was, you know, a client who really didn't didn't know how how the cash flow on one project was affecting all of the other projects. Mhmm. And so we we started to dig into that particular project, but then come to find out that there's, you know, like I said before, a scheduling problem.

Mhmm.

Because people were scheduled to do certain things. And because they did not come when they were scheduled, it pushed it back a week, and then you start pushing back all the other different trades, you know, who are coming after this one trade.

Okay.

And it's just delaying the project. They saw a project that was supposed to be completed in 5 months took 9, 10 months

Mhmm.

To be completed. So what happened? You know, you missed out on opportunities to do other jobs that you would had the opportunity to do if you would have completed a project on time or, you know, to or near time. Mhmm. So by identifying that, now that put the owner in position to say, I need to look more into daily logs. I need to look more into what's happening.

Mhmm.

I need to have consistent meetings with the team every single week about what we should be accomplishing this week. Mhmm. And because of the and by them doing that, it allowed the team to rally together to say, hey, we're gonna make sure we we meet these goals. And then they started to just pick up pace and getting things done on time. And, I mean, it's just a trickle down effect now that

Yeah.

Now the team is is is just growing now, you know, because everybody finally has like, they like, they found purpose, you know. I know why I do what I do Mhmm. You know, and and how it helps the company. So

That's awesome. It's it's like it's you you you solve the issue. I mean, obviously, there's nothing you could do. You had to get it done when it got done, but then you're just like, what steps am I gonna take to make sure this doesn't happen again? Yeah.

Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely, man. You you gotta be able to persevere. Mhmm. Things are gonna come up all the time. Business is not for the faint of heart. You you have to come in here expecting some sort of failure

Mhmm.

In different phases of growth. But all those things, you just build upon it. You just build upon it. And I love being a part of you know, as an accountant, you you have a special place in a a client's, like, internal community, like, their their core, their nucleus.

Mhmm.

And so they rely on you a lot. You become confident. You you become a friend in some cases. You know? So it's just a lot that happens with that relationship.

So, you know, speaking about speaking to that, you you're talking about, you know, making sure they feel like they're part of family, you're part of their family. What are some strategies that you take to build that trust to make it feel like family? Because it's not something that happens day 1, obviously. It's something that builds over time.

No.

So what are some strategies to build that trust?

Yeah. One thing is you tell them the truth. Yeah. You know, sometimes the truth hurts. You know? So when we first get together, I start off by doing an analysis, what we call a financial blueprint. I, ask for tax returns, access to QuickBooks, loan agreements, bill of sales, closing documents, you know, 941, 940. You know? So I'm asking for a ton of information to review so that way I can tell them the truth Mhmm. About the condition that they're in today.

Wow. I mean, that's that's like a masterclass in just building relationships in general. Because if you wanna meet somebody, you don't sit there and just take, take, take. It's a it's a give and take in any relationship. So whether it's a personal relationship or a business relationship, I think what you just said there, you know, is smile, give a smile, learn, and give.

It's hard.

Not that we have to fake being happy.

Yeah.

But when you're when you're sharing things and you're trying to connect with people, be mindful of your

face. Exactly. You should be. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how I do it.

That's great. I mean, I I think that's a wonderful thing. And, you know, and and I think you you hit the nail on the head, especially when it comes to learning. You know, as accountants, always have to be aware of what's happening in in your industry, be aware of what's happening in other industries, how they could affect your industry, but also looking at best practices in other industries. Say, hey. Can I apply that here in mine?

Right.

And it's one of those ways where it's great to, you know, whether it's, you know, you're connected through an accounting organization like IMA or some or other ones, you know, you can connect with other accountants who may be in other industries, you know, take a continuing education classes, you know, constantly learning because otherwise, you'll just be stay stagnant. And if you stay stagnant, you can't grow.

Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And I stagnant, I'm I'm allergic to being stagnant. I don't know how to be stagnant.

Yeah. Well, I don't think any of us should be stagnant, and I think we should we we everybody should take on that stance of I'm allergic to being stagnant.

And Yeah.

That's the way to keep growing.

For sure.

Yeah. Well, Timothy, I thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been great getting to know you and chatting with you, and I I hope our audience enjoys this conversation as much as I have.

Man, I enjoyed it, Adam. Thank you so much for having me. I hope that, you know, people gain something from this, for sure.

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.ima net.org.