Work-life engagement platform adopts managed accounting services

Client background

BetterSpaces is a digital and in-person workplace well-being solution. As the way people work evolves, BetterSpaces provides the next generation of tenant amenities for landlords and enterprises through curated programming, community engagement and thoughtful, well designed spaces. All interactions and decisions are powered by the company’s award-winning technology and robust data.

BetterSpaces' co-founders, Stephen Rizzo and Keith Angell, founded BetterSpaces to rethink the workplace of the future. Stephen owns sustainability consulting company that does engineering and sustainability work for 500 of the largest commercial office buildings in New York City. "We thought: 'What if we use the scale of these large office buildings to let employees at smaller companies have access to great curated programs and experiences, similar to what Google does but at a fraction of the cost?'" said Keith Angell, BetterSpaces’ co-founder and CFO.

They knew the workplace was being disrupted by WeWork (and similar establishments) and that landlords needed to provide amenities like these in their buildings to retain their corporate tenants. That’s how the idea for BetterSpaces was born.

The business challenge

• Reporting wasn't robust
• Tedious to sign checks by hand
• Lack of controls

When BetterSpaces launched, they were using infrastructure from another startup venture, which included QuickBooks. "I was going to stick with QuickBooks because it had our company history and there was no extra work to just stay put. However, it had a lot of downfalls. We paid bills by signing checks so one of us always had to be available to sign the checks. The reports out of QuickBooks were pretty stale – the system didn't let us report by location. There was no way for me to slice and dice my P&L. There was no good structure and not enough control features. We tried to get month-end reporting done within three weeks after end of the month, but it was super challenging," said Angell.

Strategy and solution

• A solution that can scale with the company's growth
• Best-in-Class suite of software and accounting platform
• Stronger controls and real-time robust financials
• Time savings and automation

With Baker Tilly's managed accounting services, BetterSpaces doesn't need a full-time controller. They just need somebody that understands where things go and can make it all efficient. "We do a 30-minute call once a week with my Baker Tilly controller. That's all I need. When I need more, she's there for me. That resource is incredibly valuable to me. As a founder and CFO, I need to raise money, close deals, find great talent and build a business. There's so much to do. If I can get it down to such a low cost of time, it’s incredibly valuable to me. Baker Tilly saves me my time and that is more valuable than anything," said Angell.

BetterSpaces started closing P&L within seven days of month-end. Baker Tilly also helped them automate processes and payments. "It’s so nice knowing what the best products are – you’ve already curated what that experience should be like, so that a CFO or founder like me can focus on higher-level tasks. It’s so nice to not do the analysis on expense management systems, like Nexonia. I don't care which one I use. I just want it to work well and be reliable," said Angell.

"What ends up happening to a lot of founders is that they are working a full-time job and then have the idea to start a second company. Most of the work is done on the side, at night and on the weekends because they're working hard and because they're committed, but they're not sure if it's going to work. They try to reduce their costs by doing everything themselves. But they’re not thinking of their own time as their most valuable asset. Outsourcing processes like finance and accounting that aren’t core to your business gives you so much more scale and so much more time back leading to a better opportunity to be successful," said Keith Angell, BetterSpaces’ co-founder and CFO.