Services Guide

We're here to make accounting great again for small businesses.

About us.

Founder of GreenSlate, Justin Araco, started GreenSlate to help aspirational small business owners with the challenges of managing high-growth businesses.

Both Justin and Joel Canny grew up in small business owner families in Mildura and Wangaratta respectively. They have the unique perspective of truly understanding the realities of running a small business day to day.

Together with Troy, Syennel, Richard and Mia we bring over 50 years experience in helping 1,000+ small and established organisations run profitable, scalable and rewarding businesses (while saving some tax along the way).

We're building a team that has real world business and CFO experience, who are passionate about working with high-growth businesses and have the necessary skills to match.

Our strengths that set us apart from others (in our humble opinion) is that we combine real-world business experience, with strong tax knowledge and leverage technology expertise to provide a proactive and future-focused experience.

All in all, we just love seeing start-ups and business people thrive.

Services

Think accountant-on-performance-enhancing-substances (in a legal way).

Accounting & Tax

Big business strategies re-packaged into proactive, affordable services for small business.

THINGS OUR CLIENTS DON'T SAY ANYMORE..

"I'm worried we might be paying too much tax"

"This was the right structure for our business when we started, but maybe we've outgrown it"

"My accountant is very reactive, we don't normally hear from them until it's too late. I think his/her main focus is reducing his/her golf handicap these days."

"I'd like to understand more about strategies used by others to save tax"

"Our accountants are ok, but they speak in jargon. Sometimes we've no idea what they're talking about"

Cloud Solutions.

We lead the way in leveraging technology to help small businesses work smarter.

Below are a just a few case studies of how we've recently helped streamlined business processes to reduce costs, scale efficiently, collect valuable data and save hundreds of hours.

BASIC

Helped a Sports Marketing business streamline their Debtor Management and reduce debtor days by over 50% by implementing a solution to automate over 80% of debtor communication.

Reduced administration staff costs by >$1,000 p/month by implementing an invoice/receipt management solution within a Consulting Business which also automated the allocation of costs against respective income streams helped to better monitor margins and performance.

Using 2 FREE tools, we automated invoicing for new customer orders placed via a website order form, eliminating hours of manual re-keying of the data and potential missed invoicing.

NEXT LEVEL

Implemented a PoS system for a Retail Franchise to manage food, beverage & merchandise sales & inventory then mapped to Xero so the profit margins on various income streams could be reported and tracked vs budget. Then built a bespoke dashboard to give head office real-time visibility on how all franchisees are performing in real-time. We're now building another dashboard to give to franchisees to track their performance vs budget and vs high performing franchisees. Benefits are still being quantified, but head office expects it will reduce costs and increase revenue across the whole franchise group if managed correctly.

Developed an automated system to collect and provide real-time analytics to sales reps in a Pub Trivia business around how many people attended the 150+ weekly shows. This enabled resources to be deployed quicker to venues with declining attendances and has resulted in increased venue retention by >20%.

We could go on.. But you probably get the idea!

CFO Advisory

Forward looking financial insights normally only available for big business.

GOING THE EXTRA MILE - HELPING SOLVE THESE TYPES OF BURNING QUESTIONS AND STRATEGISE FOR A BETTER FUTURE.

"We'd like to sell the business one day, but we're unsure what we need to do to get a great outcome"

"We're making a profit, but we don't have any cash - what are we doing wrong?"

"I'm considering buying 'Business X', but I'm not sure how to decide whether it's a good investment?"

"Our business is going well, but I'm not sure how it compares to other businesses"

"If we did [insert business idea] what effect might this have on our business?"

"I wish we had a Financial Controller or CFO to help us make the right financial decisions for our business, but we can't afford the full time salary"

Good Fit, Bad Fit

Like competitive dog grooming, we understand we're not for everyone.

GOOD FIT

Small businesses and their family group(s)

Turnover between $500k - $50m, but more importantly - with ambitions for growth

Wanting more than just a 'form filler' - owners place importance on building a relationship, proactive & forward-looking advice, communication, attention to detail and quality of service

Multi-dimensional businesses - i.e. with multiple locations (franchises, chain stores) or various revenue streams (subscriptions, products, lines of services etc). Not essential, but this is where we normally add the most value to customers.

BAD FIT

Individual salary earners looking for someone to do their personal tax returns

Family group with high level of investments, but without a trading business

Lifestyle business owners who don't have ambitions to grow or evolve their business

Businesses that don't have an appetite or culture to embrace technology and/or be willing to try new things

**Disclaimer: Even though we may not be a good fit based on the above, we're always more than happy to have a chat, even if it's just to help structure the business appropriately and get them started on the right foot. Deep down, we kind of want to help everyone!

Promises We Keep.

We do things a bit differently to the old, wrinkly 'charge-by-the-hour' approach.

Proactive Advice.

We believe in building an ongoing and proactive partnership with you. You won't be waiting days/weeks for a response, unless we get stuck in a mini-apocalypse - which seems unlikely.

We Treat Your Business Like Our Own

No sales spin or incentive-based recommendations. We will only recommend to you what we ourselves would do if we were in your shoes.

Growth Focused.

We get a real kick out of helping your business grow. Your success is our success.

Technology-Enabled Service

No more piles of documents snail-mailed to you or untimely old school services that you end up paying for.

Fixed Fees.

You won't be charged by the minute or hour. Upfront and inclusive quotes. Fixed pricing with no nasty surprises. Ever.

Unlimited Support

You'll receive unlimited phone and email support at no extra charge. We want to encourage you to contact us, not deter you. It helps us better understand and serve you.

TESTIMONIALS

Our clients really do like us. Here's just a few of the happy little Vegemites.

Peter C - Director @ Quiz Meisters Group

Justin has helped our business significantly. From restructuring the business and on-boarding 150+ employees in less than 2 weeks, migrating to Xero, streamlining our bookkeeping and administration tasks, cash flow forecasting to secure bank finance, assisting with a new product launch, keeping us up to date with our tax obligations and much more! Justin's help has been invaluable to us.

Tom H - Co-Founder & COO @ Greenroom Digital

In less than 6 months GreenSlate have massively streamlined our accounting and bookkeeping. Month end reports are now done within days of the end of the month, new customer and employee on-boarding is a breeze, debtors are back under control, taxes are being proactively managed and cash flow has improved. Highly recommend!

Alex W - HR Manager @ Hugo & Cat (ex HR Manager @ BDO Melbourne)

Justin is an exceptional Manager. His organisational skills and technical knowledge that he has built up over his career put him in a position where servicing clients or managing people comes naturally. He is confident, and delivers what he says, which is an instant rapport builder with others all across the business and externally.

Ryan P - (ex) Financial Controller @ Remunerator Group

Justin's work with our business was exceptional. Not only was he very astute at applying accounting standards and taxation requirements, but he was able to work with us on forward planning and delivery of key projects. I would recommend Justin to all.

Peter H - Director @ Capital Building Contractors

I wish to recommend Justin to anyone requiring an efficient, effective accounts/audit manager for their business. We are very happy with the end of year and taxation works he has completed for us over the last 3 years.

Malcolm H - Director @ Elevate Financial Group

I have known Justin for many years and he is always the ultimate professional. In more recent times we have worked together on several clients and on all occasions he soon became their trusted adviser due to his technical knowledge and professional attitude. I would have no hesitation in recommending Justin in the future.