George's Tool Rental

The Client

George’s Tool Rental, Inc. is a family-owned equipment and tool rental company headquartered in Hatfield, Pennsylvania that has been in business since 1970.  The company operates three stores located in Bucks and Montgomery counties and offers state of the art equipment while providing exceptional service to its customers.  In addition to rentals, the company also sells new and used equipment as well as provides prompt and professional service and repairs to its customers.

The Opportunity

George’s Tool Rental was using their predecessor accountant to assist them with performing their monthly financial closing process and maintaining their schedule of fixed assets.  Through general conversations with the client about their business, it was discovered that the operational software the company was using had a fixed asset module built right into the system.  Our recommendation was to transition the monthly closing process and to migrate the fixed asset tracking from the accountant to the client’s own software so that it would become an internal function of management.  This would enable the company to gain a greater level of independence with respect to their operations and free up some future cash flow that could be more usefully reinvested in the business.

The Solution

Kreischer Miller helped George’s Tool Rental develop a month-end close process and we assisted with the fixed asset migration.  The project started with several on-site interviews to review the day-to-day transactions recorded by the company as well as assess what areas the predecessor accountant had been helping them with.  From there, we developed a dynamic closing checklist that not only incorporated specific procedures, but also attached deadlines for when these procedures were to be completed.  This checklist was to serve as a guide for closing the books and could be modified as the company’s processes and procedures evolved.   The initial close involved an on-site visit and review of the process to tweak the procedures.  Since then, we visit periodically to spot-check the process and suggest answers for questions on non-recurring items.

In addition, we guided the company on the information they needed to successfully transition their fixed asset schedule.  This involved discussions with the company as well as conversations with the software provider in order to identify the optimal format that would be needed for conversion.  We reviewed the information and its format with the company, who submitted it to the software company that handled the actual integration into the software.

The Outcome

Today, George’s Tool Rental operates more independently with respect to its internal financial reporting and fixed asset management.  They are looking forward to putting the cash savings they will realize in future years into reinvesting in the company’s growth.