Selected Case Studies

AREA 17

Black Ink Business Services played a pivotal role in empowering AREA 17 with the financial tools, processes, and platform necessary to efficiently gather, validate, and centralize financial information every week.

Black Ink Business Services played a pivotal role in empowering AREA 17 with the financial tools, processes, and platform necessary to efficiently gather, validate, and centralize financial information every week. This streamlined approach enabled key stakeholders to collaborate and make well-informed decisions based on accurate and up-to-date financial data.

AREA 17’s Background

Founded in 2003, AREA 17 drives transformative outcomes for the world's most influential organizations. They integrate brand, experience, and technology to realize their vision and achieve their greatest impact.

The
Challenges

Transition of In-House Accounting Team

Black Ink stepped into the role of Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable and Controller when a staff member departed from the New York office. Within a month of onboarding, Black Ink had successfully taken over the entire accounting process, handling full month-end closes and reconciliations by the 15th of each month.

Collaboration Across Two Offices

The Black Ink team regularly gathers all relevant information from the Paris studio monthly, consolidating and streamlining the financial operations across both locations.

Abundance of Unlinked Spreadsheets

Multiple unlinked and duplicated Excel documents created delays and errors across two offices. Black Ink streamlined these documents into a customized financial dashboard, consolidating data from both offices into a real-time management tool.

Operating Model Misalignment

After seeing past results not meeting the expectation of ownership, Black Ink Services suggested several changes to align AREA 17's model much closer to the 60/20/20 agency model — including control of investment time, contractor usage, project scoping, hiring decisions, and profitability tracking.

Our Solution

Revamp Accounting Procedures and Operations

Black Ink took over the accounting function from in-house staff and seamlessly consolidated two offices' accounting functions into one. We redefined their accounting processes and procedures and their operating model to better identify and handle the ebbs and flows of the business cycle.

Dynamic Reporting Dashboard

Black Ink designed a Dashboard with Dynamic Reporting in Google Sheets — providing a holistic view of the business's 2 offices with past, current, and forward-looking projections. All the data living in many places was brought together in one place, heavily customized to management's liking.

Model / Budget / Bill Rate Review

This exercise is done yearly to ensure that their current business model will succeed if the assumptions are met. Proved valuable in making decisions and changes before issues happened and allowed the business to withstand downturns and growth effectively.

Weekly Management Meetings

Meeting and discussing what the dashboard and other tools were saying and how best to use that information to make decisions. This became a critical piece of helping management with the financials.

The Timeline

May 2020

Black Ink engaged by AREA 17 and transitions finance functions.

June 2020

Reorganized Charts of Accounts and customized dynamic Reporting Dashboard.

December 2020

Yearly Budgets, Bill Rate review, and Model verification exercise.

January 2021

Revenue Recognition Model implemented.

2021 and Beyond

Ongoing bookkeeping and controller support.