Heavy-duty vehicle dealer saves 25 hours a month with Intuit Enterprise Suite

The need to scale reporting with revenue

For Western Companies, a multi-entity heavy equipment powerhouse across the US, scaling from $16 million to $36 million in annual revenue required more than just sales grit, it demanded financial clarity. Managing four distinct entities across sales, financing, and service, Chief Business Officer Marlie Rumsey and CFO Brady Martin found themselves trapped in a vicious cycle of manual Excel work and unreliable third-party plugins. By migrating from QuickBooks Online to Intuit Enterprise Suite, Western Companies transformed their financial department into the proactive growth engine they’d always sought to be. Today, audited reviews are completed nine months faster than previous years, securing the confidence of major lending institutions.

Questionable trust in complex manual processes

Before Intuit Enterprise Suite, Western Companies operated under a disparate financial structure that hindered executive decision-making. The team relied on a combination of QuickBooks Online, Great Plains for inventory, and a $1,800-per-month third-party consolidation tool that Rumsey describes as “incredibly messy” and prone to failure.

This technical debt was heavily felt by the finance team. Mapping over 200 General Ledger accounts into a Google Spreadsheet often resulted in a sea of “yellows and reds” rather than a balanced sheet. The lack of trust in the numbers reached a breaking point when a manual consolidation error led to an incorrect trial balance submission. This single oversight cost the company $12,000 in additional auditor man-hours.

CFO Brady Martin noted that the manual process was so cumbersome that the company’s previous controller couldn't finalize audited financials for months. This delay was a strategic liability. With a rental fleet expanded from 5 to 76 trailers and a target of 200 units by year-end, the leadership team needed to provide quarterly financials to lenders to maintain critical lines of credit. Staying on the legacy system meant risking their audit process and jeopardizing the capital needed for expansion.

Enterprise performance without the enterprise tax

Western Companies initially evaluated ERPs like NetSuite, but at “an insane price tag,” as Rumsey describes, the platform felt “too big” and lacked the user-friendly interface the team preferred. With the introduction of Intuit Enterprise Suite, leadership realized they could achieve enterprise-level multi-entity consolidation for 30% less than NetSuite, effectively the same price they were paying for a single, unreliable plugin, all within the Intuit ecosystem they already trusted. By eliminating third-party services and costly auditor fees, Western Companies saw an immediate $34,000 in annual savings.

The implementation of the Suite also allowed the company to leverage multi-entity capabilities to manage Western Truck and Trailer Sales, Western Finance and Leasing, and Western Service Center under one roof. The move was driven by a need for:

• Consolidated Reporting: Seamlessly merging data across all different entities into a single, unified view.
• Intercompany Eliminations: Automating the complex process of eliminating intercompany transactions across the umbrella company.
• Centralized Access: Implementing a single sign-in to save “hours a day” previously lost to administrative navigation.

Manual friction to million dollar momentum

The transition to Intuit Enterprise Suite delivered immediate, bottom-line results. By moving away from “death by a thousand spreadsheets,” Rumsey has reclaimed 25 hours per month, shifting her focus from data entry to high-value growth activities, such as increasing marketing presence and industry influence. 

Now, the company is far better positioned to hit growth targets due to:

Audit velocity and accuracy

The acceleration of the company's audited financial review process improved drastically. With a 90% faster audit review time, this increase in speed has fundamentally changed Western's relationship with its lenders. Martin can now provide a P&L or balance sheet to financiers “within minutes,” ensuring the company never misses a window for capital.

Operational efficiency

Rumsey found that between the single sign-in and the way the Suite automatically links accounts across entities, the consolidation process is now seamless. As long as data is entered correctly at the entity level, the detective work of hunting down mapping errors is completely eliminated, saving the team hours of manual troubleshooting every week.

Strategic confidence

With accurate, real-time data, the President and VP now receive “true numbers monthly,” rather than waiting weeks to months for a historical snapshot. This visibility supported a growth of $9 million in a single year, a feat Rumsey notes is “unheard of” in the trucking industry.

High growth without high headcount

With a solid financial foundation, Western Companies is prepared for aggressive expansion. Having recently secured a dealership license in Montana and with Texas operations in development, the company is scaling its rental fleet without the need to add additional accounting headcount.

The team plans to further optimize Intuit Enterprise Suite by implementing integrated bill pay to further streamline their $36 million operation. For Western Companies, Intuit Enterprise Suite is more than an accounting tool, it’s the engine that allows a small, “many-hat-wearing” staff to compete and grow at an enterprise scale.