Running a business is never easy. Especially when you’re deeply involved in the community and dedicated to the social causes that drive you, but to manage both profit and non-profit and stand squarely balanced in the middle will take some serious support. That’s where Debra Giunta of the Brainchild Collective was when she first learned about the services at KARE Accounting X CFOs.
A Chicago-based entrepreneur and purpose-driven founder with a huge heart, Debra founded Design Dance in 2008 inspired by the positive impact dance had on her social and emotional development while growing up as a competitive dancer.
But as a busy heart-led entrepreneur who had to make snap decisions as well as think big picture, Debra needed some serious visibility into her financial situation to be able to account for the right revenue and expenses for the right business.
“We ended up finding $14.000 of missed revenue. For every single client we find something similar. We just end up paying for ourselves.”
Heather (Chief Accounting Partner)
Heather (Chief Accounting Partner)
No visibility for decision-making
Revenue loss is something that even the most seasoned of entrepreneurs struggle to grapple with. But in the non-profit sector that can happen easily when you hold very little control over the grants that come through. Debra not only took it in her stride, but with the KARE team support she was able to make difficult decisions at the right time, which saved the company in the long run.
Debra: “We just had a really low year (...) Without the KARE team, without Admira’s CFO insights I think I probably wouldn’t have made the cuts that I needed to make because I was so emotionally attached to my people and it would have driven us into so much more debt. The other thing is that using my old system, I wouldn't have known early enough that things were not on track”
The lack of visibility in the past was a good reason for Debra to doubt her numbers. Previous experiences with accountants left her with late or incomplete reports and no strategic support in making decisions while the business went through rapid changes.
We needed some cold, hard data on hand.
So we asked Debra to log 2 months of time-tracking. Of course the more the better. But to begin with, we wanted a solid 2-month start to base some healthy projections on. This in turn meant we could prepare reports based on real, accurate financials not on suspicions, or intuition.
About 4 months in, once the data was clear we had to figure out how we’ll use it to start making strategic decisions. This is where the role of a CFO truly comes into place. The perfect opportunity to truly support Debra came about with a stressful board meeting.
There was too little tracking of billable utilization and without much data at hand, intuitively, Debra felt she had to pay out of pocket and give up her wage because the thought of moving money from one organization to the other felt awful. She was incredibly stressed about justifying the decision to the board and couldn’t stop feeling guilty about it all.
- Cashflow
- Budgets
- Projections
Heather (Chief Accounting Partner)
"Other than finding actual billed revenue that never made it into the bank account by combing through public school records, we also found that Brainchild owed money to a referral partner. There was a mix because of lagging records and missing invoices. It was a close relationship so this wasn't a huge problem, but it could have been a much different situation with another referral partner."
First step, get the books thoroughly cleaned and implement a system to allocate the correct revenue against the correct company.
With 3 organizations, historical data and a board of trustees, this was no easy task. Heather & the team worked around the clock to make sure everything was accurate.
This first stage immediately offered Debra a lot of transparent communications and the first layer of visibility into the health of her companies.
How we turned things around
We needed some cold, hard data on hand.
So we asked Debra to log 2 months of time-tracking. Of course the more the better. But to begin with, we wanted a solid 2-month start to base some healthy projections on. This in turn meant we could prepare reports based on real, accurate financials not on suspicions, or intuition.
About 4 months in, once the data was clear we had to figure out how we’ll use it to start making strategic decisions. This is where the role of a CFO truly comes into place. The perfect opportunity to support Debra came about with a stressful board meeting.
There was too little tracking of billable utilization and without much data at hand, intuitively, Debra felt she had to pay out of pocket and give up her wage because the thought of moving money from one organization to the other felt awful. She was incredibly stressed about justifying the decision to the board and couldn’t stop feeling guilty about it all.
- Cashflow
- Budgets
- Projections
Heather (Chief Accounting Partner)
"Other than finding actual billed revenue that never made it into the bank account by combing through public school records, we also found that Brainchild owed money to a referral partner. There was a mix because of lagging records and missing invoices. It was a close relationship so this wasn't a huge problem, but it could have been a much different situation with another referral partner. "
First step, get the books thoroughly cleaned and implement a system to allocate the correct revenue against the correct company.
With 3 organizations, historical data and a board of trustees, this was no easy task. Heather & the team worked around the clock to make sure everything was accurate.
This first stage immediately offered Debra a lot of transparent communications and the first layer of visibility into the health of her companies.
How we turned things around
Debra went fully prepared and armed with the most accurate of data, ready to answer any questions. And a fantastic thing happened - the board was impressed with her presentation and in full agreement with her decision.
We celebrated as a team, at KARE & Brainchild, because for us caring about our clients means we care about this exact kind of victory. It is the kind of empowerment that we aim to offer to all our clients!
Debra: "I just recently referred KARE to one of my friends and said I think you’ll love Admira and the team. She texted me after and said: ‘I feel like Admira is my business fairy godmother.’ It’s true because she’s like no one I’ve ever worked with in finance. No one’s ever seen me and made me feel so supported in my role as a business owner”
The real win
The ultimate goal to empowerment for KARE X Accounting and CFOs was to bring Brainchild Collective onto the journey towards profitability. A not-so-great financial year does not have to be a deciding factor for a business or a non-profit. It can be just a milestone.
But we knew that the decisions made at this milestone will be critical for the destiny of the business. So we tasked Debra to brainstorm the next set of revenue-generating initiatives, beyond the current work.
Not only did she get creative with it, but we have even set a few targets next to these initiatives to start turning them into reality. We’re truly excited for the future of Brainchild and the next chapter with Debra!
Debra: “Admira is very honest. Very warm. She lets you be a whole person and she cares about your business as if it’s her own. Heather is amazing as well. We work really closely and it’s messy tedious work, but Heather goes out of her way to signal a mistake. She’ll send me an email to let me know ahead of time how things are going to affect our cashflow. "
Despite confronting difficult decisions and challenging moments across her collective businesses, Debra has remained steady and confident in running the organization and steering it to a stronger future. It is the true mark of an empowered leader and the team can certainly feel this calm confidence even through stormy waters!
“A lot of my other finance conversations with people were like: ‘Here’s the report. Do you have any questions?’. I would come off the call and whatever emotions I was feeling they were just mine to sit with. With Admira it was always: ‘Debra, what does this mean for you?’”
Debra Giunta
Brainchild Collective
@karecfo
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