BDO NZ helps Kiwi SMBs build stronger, automated financial controls

Home Customer stories BDO NZ helps Kiwi SMBs build stronger, automated financial controls

Case study

Learn how BDO NZ’s IT advisory services team helps its clients use ApprovalMax to automate approvals and build stronger financial controls.

BDO in New Zealand extends across 20 offices, with over 1,200 people all working towards providing its clients with exceptional service and developing richer client relationships.

1,200+

Employees

Xero

Accounting Platform

Accounting

Industry

New Zealand

Location

BDO New Zealand has been a trusted partner to businesses across the country since 1979, offering a range of advisory, audit and assurance, and tax services. As businesses’ reliance on technology has grown – like cloud-based accounting tools – so too has BDO NZ’s IT advisory service, where it helps clients find the right tech stack to address their various challenges.

These clients are typically small to medium sized businesses – everything from a small sole trader all the way up to reasonably large operations, but usually still owner-managed family businesses.

“They come to us with their problems, like systems that don't work or need modernisation, or a desire to move to the cloud,” says Carl Ferner, Partner - Business Advisory & IT Consulting, BDO in New Zealand. “Then my team and I help them uncover the right tech stack to solve the problems they have, which ApprovalMax is often in.”

Taking it to the cloud

While BDO NZ has seen cloud-based accounting software and other tools increase in popularity since the early 2010s, Covid drove a big boom. “Covid put us behind in many ways, but it definitely accelerated the move to the cloud,” says Ferner. “Work from home pushed a lot of this move – if you had a server-based system or manual paper-based approval systems, it really didn't work well from home.”

With this move to the cloud came the need for different controls, to support and integrate with these new systems, especially for certain industries like not-for-profits with stringent reporting requirements. “Often, people say they have an approval process and then when you dive in, they realise it’s not as well structured as they think,” says Ferner.

“Much of the work we do isn’t just setting up the tech stack, but actually improving our clients’ controls and making sure they’re airtight. This can be enlightening for the clients – the process of putting in ApprovalMax actually helps them realise they need stricter controls.”

Setting up the right level of control

While each business has unique needs and a different use case, the BDO NZ team has helped more than 150 businesses embrace approval automation to build stronger financial controls.

In some cases, they’re building a tech stack from scratch and completely switching from paper-based or other manual processes. In others, a business might have an existing server-based accounting or ERP system with built-in approvals but want to move to the cloud. “We’ve taken people out of old ERPs that have some quite complex requirements and put in a Xero tech stack. Then, ApprovalMax fits in naturally,” says Ferner.

The BDO NZ team finds different organisations want different levels of control. Some even request that BDO holds the exclusive ability to make changes to approval workflows. “Some clients get us to manage the entire approval matrix in ApprovalMax to ensure there are strong controls. That way even the CFO can put their hand up and say ‘I can’t just mess with it myself’ if they have stringent audit needs,” says Ferner.

Going paperless

With ApprovalMax, BDO NZ helps its clients say goodbye to piles of paper – forever. Instead, it’s easy to route all approvals directly through ApprovalMax without needing to hit ‘print’.

Mobile-ready

BDO NZ’s clients can manage approvals on-the-go and from their mobile using ApprovalMax’s app or Slack integration.

Keeping people out of the GL

BDO NZ helps its clients limit access to their accounting system by using ApprovalMax to approve documents without logging into Xero.

Everything in the cloud

With ApprovalMax, BDO NZ sets up the right tech stack for the unique needs of its clients based entirely in the cloud, so there’s no need for on-premise servers or storage.