Bowman & Company saves over 1,000 hours a year with NetLease
“Being able to get on a call with the client, say, ‘If you put in these eight pieces of information and hit commence, then everything's going to come out; there's your journal entry,’ that transformation of it was very helpful.”
Bowman & Company, one of the largest accounting firms in the Delaware Valley, has been helping clients manage risk, improve operations, and grow their businesses since 1939 through financial and accounting services.
Michael Thilker, Partner at Bowman & Company, oversees over 80 audits a year, some of which have hundreds of leases. Michael knew he needed a robust software solution to streamline his clients’ audits and ensure compliance with ASC 842 and other lease accounting standards.
That’s when he found NetLease.
High lease volume and complexity
At the start of the transition from ASC 840 to 842, Michael and his fellow partners realized that the new lease accounting standard would require not only more complex calculations but also a mindset shift for his clients.
When Michael received an Excel spreadsheet for each of a client’s 175 leases, he quickly realized that he couldn't run his audits on spreadsheets.
“I used Excel for one client, and it was a nightmare,” Michael recalls. “I had an aha moment and said, ‘Oh, we need software.’”
That’s because using spreadsheets for his audits would bring the following challenges:
- Volume and time: Handling around 80 audits manually—including nonprofit, affordable housing, governmental, and SOC audits—would be extremely time consuming.
- Lease management complexities: Auditing 683 leases (for just one of the firm’s 19 partners) posed a considerable administrative burden, especially when it comes to compliance with standards like ASC 842, GASB 87, and GASB 96.
- Risk of compromising auditor independence: Working with spreadsheets can be a slippery slope. If auditors must make changes to spreadsheets to address complexities, they could veer into multiple non-audit services, which can compromise their independence.
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Cost-effective lease accounting software
As he compared lease accounting software solutions like LeaseQuery, LeaseCrunch, and NetLease for Firms, Michael noted that NetLease offered all the features he was looking for at the right price. This included:
- Ease of use for clients: NetLease’s user-friendly interface makes it easy for clients to input lease details and extract reports. “The ability to have the client set it up was a big part of it,” Michael says.
- Auditor view helps preserve independence: Once the client is set up in NetLease, auditors can use auditor view to see the client’s data and run reports, giving them full visibility while preserving their independence. “Not a lot of software has a function for auditor login or read-only access,” Michael explains, “So the fact that we could be in there as the auditor and see all their information, but they could also go in and use it without us, was another factor.”
- Cost-effective, flat-fee pricing: In addition to having the most competitive price without compromising on features, NetLease offers a flat-fee pricing structure. This was a vital point for Michael, because he couldn’t estimate how many of the firm’s partners and how many of their clients would decide to implement NetLease.
- Compliance with lease accounting standards: Because Michael runs audits for governmental entities, he needed a system that includes compliance with standards like GASB 87 and 96. NetLease includes this as part of the standard offering, while other solutions offer it at an additional cost (if at all).
These factors made NetLease the clear winner for Michael. He has since implemented NetLease for over 50 of his clients with the help of the Netgain implementation team.
Faster, more efficient audits
For Michael, managing a high volume of audits required a solution that could handle diverse audit types and ensure compliance with various standards.
NetLease provided the necessary tools to streamline and automate processes for Michael and his clients, reducing the administrative burden on his team.
Over 1,000 hours saved each year
With over a decade of accounting and auditing experience, Michael is an expert at the calculations involved in lease accounting. But the volume of audits and their corresponding leases make it extremely time-consuming. For him, the real value of software is in quickly aggregating the data and generating reports.
“Being able to get on a call with the client, say, ‘If you put in these eight pieces of information and hit commence, then everything's going to come out; there's your journal entry,’ that transformation of it was very helpful,” Michael says.
Michael estimates that for a recent audit, NetLease saved his team at least 40 hours. If you consider he oversees about 80 audits a year, many of which have leases, his team is saving over 1,000 hours of work throughout the year.
In fact, after our interview, Michael is presenting an extensive audit, and he credits NetLease with helping him finish it in time. “I don't think I'd be presenting an audit today if I didn't have NetLease to speed this through,” he adds.
Easy navigation and automated reporting
Once his clients input all the lease data into their NetLease account, Michael can easily navigate to the client account and pull the necessary reports for audits. Some of his most-used reports include:
- Journal entry report: lease activity
- Journal entry report: LT/ST reclass
- Weighted average rate
- Weighted average term
- Supplemental cash flow information
- Lease balance roll forward report
- Short term/low value lease schedule data
Enhanced client experience
A unique feature of NetLease is the ability to provide clients with continued access to their lease portfolios, even if they no longer work with the firm.
"The ability to give our client the database...to say, ‘if you end your relationship with Bowman, you can keep your lease portfolio in the system,’ was an added bonus," Michael explains.
This gives clients flexibility and control, and it helps preserve Bowman & Company’s auditor independence because the client can input and manage their own data.
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Continuing to improve audit efficiency with NetLease
When he was looking for a software solution, Michael’s criteria were simple: He wanted software that does what it says it does—and does it well. That’s what he found in NetLease.
“It makes things easy. It simplifies the computations,” he says. “Everybody’s about something that’s going to make their life easier, me included, and NetLease does that.”
Since adopting NetLease, Bowman & Company has seen substantial time-savings while ensuring compliance and efficiency across their operations. As they look toward the future, Bowman & Company can confidently rely on Netgain to support their growth and client satisfaction.
Michael’s only request? “Don’t change it, don’t break it, and I’m good.”
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