Case Studies » Greg Schuricht
REI Bookkeepers gets 1.5k client questions answered per month using Keeper’s Client Portal
“We were getting lost in a sea of emails. I needed a central portal that I could communicate with everyone through.”
- Greg Schuricht
- Owner/CEO
Case study highlights:
- REI Bookkeepers swapped out a complex and disconnected email system for Keeper’s Client Portal, boosting client engagement and decreasing response time.
- Within one week of introducing the Keeper Client Portal, REI Bookkeepers experienced a 90% client response rate.
- Keeper equipped REI Bookkeepers with QBO-integrated file review tools to eliminate spreadsheets of uncategorized transactions.
- REI Bookkeepers relies on Keeper’s automated client reminder features to reduce follow-up efforts and administrative headaches.
REI Bookkeepers’ background
When Greg Schuricht discovered a company called REI Bookkeepers and connected with former owner Dave Rice, the two immediately hit it off. With a background in public accounting and a newfound passion for the real estate industry, it was a no-brainer for Greg to join a team of bookkeepers tasked with handling the financials for investors, realtors, landlords, and house flippers.
Greg’s first task? Managing the bookkeeping team while evaluating the various operating procedures that kept the firm running.
Client communication chaos
“The workload was getting so huge that it was difficult for Dave to oversee,” Greg noted. “Everything was still very manual at that time. There were no apps – other than QuickBooks – to run the business. Client questions were being tracked through spreadsheets and back-and-forth emails. There was a convoluted system where each client got their own email address, and their responses would often get filtered incorrectly. Client communications were quickly slipping through the cracks.”
These disconnected systems put unnecessary strain on the bookkeepers, clients, and Greg as a manager. Greg observed a pileup of scattered email threads and missed deliverables. Sometimes, spreadsheets containing questions and client responses would be wiped clean once the task was completed. Of course, this made managing and overseeing the month-end close process nearly impossible. With all these issues in mind, Greg was certain that REI Bookkeepers needed a tool to improve client communication and encourage organization of those exchanges.
Discovering Keeper’s Client Portal
After hearing a talk from Keeper’s CEO and Founder Ben Stein, a few of the REI Bookkeepers encouraged Greg to take a closer look at the tool. After sitting through a demo, it was apparent that Keeper’s Client Portal was exactly the solution they needed to more efficiently engage with their clients.
This was great news for Greg, considering he had recently test-drove a different software that resulted in client friction and a low adoption rate.
“We used a system before Keeper, but getting adoption from our clients was difficult,” said Greg. “Keeper truly manages the back-and-forth between bookkeepers and clients. It also helps me as a manager to answer any questions that may need my review. That is where Keeper shines and where competitors fall short, and was the ultimate draw in our case.”
Client reception and engagement
After REI Bookkeepers introduced Keeper to their clients, the feedback and reception was overwhelmingly positive. “We had 90% of our clients using Keeper’s Client Portal within the first week,” said Greg. Compared to previous portal interfaces which required yet another set of login credentials, Keeper’s use of one-click Google Magic Links proved attractive to their less tech-savvy accounting clients. With enthusiastic support from those clients as well as the bookkeepers who were using the app, Dave was ready to take the leap. “I started to love Keeper, and we decided to go all in.”
Steering clients away from email and onto Keeper has been REI Bookkeepers’ number one priority. Greg found Keeper’s Client Portal easy and straightforward to use – and his clients agreed. The bookkeeping team also loves the option to set up automated reminders for clients, which get sent twice a week until the client responds to the questions in their portal. Today, all of REI Bookkeepers’ clients are up and running on the new communication system.
“We’ve seen higher response rates across the board, and no one misses the old system of using Google Sheets and sorting through email inboxes.”
Leveraging Keeper as a whole
Keeper has quickly become the single source of truth for Greg and the team. Beyond the overall benefit that the Client Portal provides from a communication standpoint, Greg’s team also relies on the many review tools that Keeper offers.
One of the favorites amongst the team is the uncategorized transaction report. Greg and his bookkeepers no longer have to go through the effort of downloading uncategorized transactions into Excel, tidying up the file, and sending the questions one-by-one via email. Keeper’s two-way integration with QuickBooks gives Greg’s team the ability to mark and edit transactions in the app, and add any questions or comments straight to the Client Portal for his clients to review and respond to.
“Keeper makes it easy for me to do my work where I review my work,” said Greg. “I would not be able to manage this workload as well as I do without it. Paying to have Keeper on our team is a no-brainer.” response rates across the board, and no one misses the old system of using Google Sheets and sorting through email inboxes.”
What the future holds for REI Bookkeepers
After buying REI Bookkeepers and assuming the role of CEO, Greg admits that his team has only scratched the surface with Keeper. Their next undertaking is to explore the management reporting packages that Keeper offers. “We still send manual reports out of QuickBooks to do reviews. I am well aware that using Keeper will make our reporting that much more valuable to our clients.”
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