A fast-growing, owner-led accounting firm uses Meridian to run the month-end close for 100 small business clients. Before Meridian, the firm struggled to close every client on time each month because its team didn't have the capacity. With Meridian, every client gets financials on time or early. For one of the firm's most complex clients, the close used to take one accountant nearly a week. Now that client's books take less than two hours to run and review in Meridian.
Where the firm started
This family practice focuses on brick-and-mortar businesses and online retailers. Many of these clients sell on several platforms and also run back-office systems like payroll and AP.
As the client base grew, some closes started rolling into the following month. That often pushed back the financial review meetings that are critical to the firm's client relationships.
The firm could have added capacity by hiring or offshoring. The owner wanted to make the existing team more efficient instead, and keep them responsible for client work. An earlier automation effort hadn't met the firm's quality requirements.
What the firm required
The firm set three requirements for its next system:
- The month-end close had to run from reusable, tier-based templates that the firm's team could configure and adapt as it added clients.
- Meridian had to categorize at least 95 percent of transactions correctly, so accountants could review the work instead of redoing it.
- The firm's accountants had to keep final sign-off and accountability for every client.
How the firm rolled out Meridian
The firm started with 10 clients in February and reached 100 by May. First, Meridian turned the firm's tiered client engagements into a set of cash-basis and accrual-basis month-end close checklists, plus the custom review checks the firm applies to every client.
To set up each client, the firm connected the client's QuickBooks Online ledger to Meridian and uploaded existing SOPs, workpapers, supporting schedules, and other supporting material. Meridian used that material, along with the history in the books, to build a client-specific version of the right close checklist. It also flagged prior-period issues the firm might want to clean up before the first Meridian close.
During the onboarding review, Meridian found credit card payments and thousands of bank transfers booked to COGS by mistake. Several clients had missing depreciation entries, stale balance sheet balances, and incorrect negative liabilities. Meridian also surfaced problems common in multi-channel books, like payment-processor deposits posted to sales instead of matched to invoices, and Amazon sales counted twice.
One of those custom review checks enforces the firm's client tiers. The firm prices on a five-tier structure built around what's in each client's books: the number of bank accounts and credit cards, revenue per period, and similar measures of the work involved. Before Meridian, the firm had no systematic way to spot when a client had outgrown their tier. Now the check runs as part of every monthly close and flags any client whose books exceed their current tier. The firm can move those clients to the right tier and get paid for the work it was already doing.
What changed for the firm and its clients
Every client on Meridian now closes on time each month, following the firm's tiered policies and procedures. During onboarding, Meridian categorized transactions with 98.9 percent accuracy, against the firm's 95 percent target.
For one of the firm's top-tier clients, a close that took one accountant most of a week now takes about an hour. For a multi-channel Amazon seller, Meridian now handles all of the work that used to take three hours of Claude-assisted manual entries.
With Meridian running the production close work, the accounting team reviews the results and spends the time it got back on budgeting and planning. The firm couldn't offer that work to clients before.
The firm can also onboard more clients each month than before, so it's investing in client acquisition and expanding its geographic service area.
Clients notice the difference. Financial review meetings that used to be scheduled a month out now happen the same week the books close.
The owner kept the full team and put the extra capacity toward growth. The goal is to train existing staff to support twice their current client load.
The firm's accountants still review every close and sign off on every set of books. Meridian took on the manual production work. Responsibility for the result stays with the firm.
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