Key Takeaway: By building Firm360 as its practice management foundation, Red Rock Accounting integrated four firm acquisitions, eliminated paper and local servers entirely, and cut new seasonal hire ramp-up down to two days. The result was a firm that could scale through acquisition without ever losing track of a client’s paperwork again.
Overview
Red Rock Accounting is a full-service firm with five offices across Arizona and a team of about 20 employees, supported by independent contractors working remotely. The firm serves businesses, individuals, estates and fiduciary returns, nonprofits, and offers accounting, sales tax, payroll, and business valuation services. In 2022, Managing Director Bill Burke was preparing to bring two newly acquired firms into the fold right before tax season — and needed a practice management foundation that could handle it. Red Rock turned to Firm360 to centralize operations and support a period of rapid growth through acquisition.
Challenge
Before Firm360, Red Rock was running practice management on an aging Thomson Reuters platform and still operating largely on paper.
“We were really in the dark ages, to be honest,” said Burke.
Documents moved between offices without a reliable system, staff lost time hunting for files instead of doing billable work, and misplaced client paperwork created real business risk.
“The worst thing that could happen to you was if you couldn’t find a client’s documents, and then the client was calling and asking, where’s my tax return? … It just made us look totally disorganized. And I lost clients because of it.”
With two acquisitions closing in December 2021 and tax season bearing down, Burke needed a stronger foundation before folding in more clients, staff, and files.
Solution
Red Rock evaluated several platforms, including Canopy and a general project-management tool that wasn’t built for the accounting industry, before selecting Firm360 for how naturally it mapped to the way an accounting firm actually works.
“The Firm360 interface was easier for us to grasp the concepts,” said Burke.
Since onboarding in 2022, Red Rock has built its entire operation around Firm360’s project- and task-based structure and used it as the backbone for four firm acquisitions.
“We brought on Firm360 during the acquisitions. Without Firm360 there as the foundation, it would have been very, very chaotic.”
Implementation included projects and task lists as the onboarding foundation for every new hire, document routing to staff and contractors around the world, a fully built-out folder structure, and client portal adoption supported by instructional videos and a dedicated internal Client Excellence Coordinator (CEC) team. The firm recently turned on Firm360’s client messaging feature as well, which Burke expects to be the next big efficiency gain.
Results
Since adopting Firm360, Red Rock Accounting has realized major gains in efficiency, client retention, and its ability to scale through acquisition:
- Fully Paperless, Fully Virtual: Red Rock eliminated its local servers in favor of two virtual servers, replaced its Thomson Reuters document retention software with Firm360, and cut down enough paper to eliminate several copy machine leases.
- Four Acquisitions Absorbed: Firm360 gave Red Rock the operational foundation to integrate two firms in December 2021 and two more the following year, on top of organic growth from referrals.
- Zero Clients Lost to Disorganization: With projects set up the moment documents arrive, Red Rock no longer scrambles to locate client paperwork.
- Fast Ramp-Up for New Staff: Onboarding speed varies by individual comfort with technology, but many seasonal hires are trained and working autonomously within a couple of days.
- Stronger Client Adoption: After hands-on onboarding, most clients have fully embraced the portal and don’t want to go back to paper.
“We were constantly scrambling for documents. That doesn’t happen anymore. That never happens … we don’t lose clients because of that anymore.”
Four and a half years in, Red Rock has moved from active onboarding to fine-tuning — layering on modules and evaluating new features like Firm360’s tax-prep integration, AutoPrep, alongside Burke’s own internal AI review process.
“We couldn’t operate virtually. We couldn’t operate as a paperless office. We would have much, much, much less efficiency. The clients would be much more dissatisfied,” Burke said of where the firm would be without Firm360.
About Bill Burke
About Bill Burke
Bill Burke, CPA, CMA, CFM, MBA, is the Managing Director of Red Rock Accounting Group, a full-service accounting firm with five offices across Arizona. Bill’s accounting career includes experience with publicly traded companies and a role in the successful NYSE launch of Minerals Technologies Inc. He holds MBA degrees in accounting and finance and is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Under his leadership, Red Rock has grown from a single office into a five-location firm through a series of acquisitions, all while modernizing its operations to serve individuals, businesses, and nonprofits across the state.
