From XU Magazine, 
Issue 33

Game-changing add-on for those who make the world a better place

Clay Sandoz, the founder and owner of Wellstead Solutions described his experience with G-Accon and proved that this add-on is a game-changing tool for any business.

This article originated from the Xero blog. The XU Hub is an independent news and media platform - for Xero users, by Xero users. Any content, imagery and associated links below are directly from Xero and not produced by the XU Hub.
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If you are a business owner, G-Accon can improve the way you manage your company. Our app excels in integrating Google Sheets with various cloud accounting platforms. With G-Accon, you can automatically export, import, email, and refresh your data and reports. You can pull data from apps like Xero, Quickbooks, and Freshbooks; make needed changes; and send the data back to your accounting software. You can also use a variety of pre-existing flexible templates to make 50+ reports including things like Account Transactions, Purchase Orders, Profit and Loss, Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and more. 

From how we’ve described it, G-Accon might sound like the perfect glue that can hold your business’ data together. However, it can be more difficult to actually visualize how G-Accon would be used in your day-to-day operations. That is why we’ve started this new interview series!

We firmly believe that there is a whole story behind each individual client and business. In this series, we aim to explore these stories and show how G-Accon is used today by real, thriving companies. This will allow you to reflect on your own business and think about how you could use G-Accon to streamline your operations. For this particular magazine issue, we had the distinct pleasure of talking to Clay Sandoz, the founder and owner of Wellstead Solutions. 

Wellstead Solutions is the product of Clay looking at the market, seeing a gap, and filling it himself. Wellstead Solutions is essentially a consultant company for people who want to create their own non-profit foundations. Clay saw people and businesses in the market who wanted to make the world a better place but lacked the logistical support. This is where Clay stepped in with his skillset. Now, he helps these new nonprofits with logistics by creating structure and establishing processes so that the businesses can focus less on operations and more on doing good. 

“G-Accon has been crucial in allowing me to reduce my time doing something a computer can do, greatly reducing error (no copy/paste or manual entry) - all of which has allowed me to scale my business”.

Behind the scenes, mid-sized nonprofits require full-service financial operations, including donation processing, bookkeeping, accounts payable, expense reimbursements, payroll, and more. One of the biggest factors that has to be handled is processing all things donation related. This means processing physical checks, overseeing online donations, and interacting with donors when there are questions or issues. 

Clay’s job is to set up all the processes and automate the workflow. He ensures that all financial procedures go through cloud-based accounting solutions such as Xero, QuickBooks, WorkflowMax, or FreshBooks. Further, thanks to G-Accon, the data can then be easily transferred to Google Sheets. There, several tabs contain various reports and data collected in the needed and clear formats. Using the professional settings, this data can be updated automatically at set time intervals. In the end, all of the non-profit data is used to create informative dashboards through Google Sheets, so that every client can log in to the document and see a visual graph or structured table, depending on the task at hand.

Clay helps his non-profit clients, and we help clients like Clay! Below, we interview him to get the real scoop on Wellstead solutions, using G-Accon, and more. 

Interview with Clay Sandoz

Welcome Clay! Can you tell us a little bit about your business, clients, and services you provide? What is the story of your business?

Clay: We serve mid-sized nonprofits, offering full-service financial operations including donation processing, bookkeeping, accounts payable, expense reimbursements, payroll, etc. One of the biggest things we handle on behalf of our clients is processing all things donation related. This includes processing physical checks, overseeing online donations, and interacting with donors when there are questions or issues. We currently have 9 clients and active conversations with 2-3 prospective clients.

What challenges do you face in your day-to-day business operations?

Clay: As our list of clients grew, we were doing similar tasks (like running monthly journal entries, generating P&L and balance reports, etc.), but each set of data was different (clients, donors, systems) and had to be treated as a separate set of tasks.

Why did you choose G-Accon?

Clay: I don’t remember where I learned about G-Accon, but it didn’t take long for me to become a big fan! Before G-Accon, I was using a service that allowed me to upload .csv files as journals. That was groundbreaking at the time, but it was one-directional. I think I began searching for “Google Sheets Integration” when a prospective client expressed interest in getting more detailed reporting. That led me to G-Accon, where I discovered that I could pull reports and upload data!

Which G-Accon features were the most useful to you? Did you discover any new features that made your life easier?

Clay: It’s hard to say what’s most valuable, but the feature that is probably most important to me is uploading journal entries. I do some complex journals each month based on several factors (like donations to specific campaigns needing to be credited to certain classes, related credit card processing fees getting assigned to those classes, etc.). Years ago, I calculated this in Google Sheets and manually entered the values into the Accounting application. Being able to upload journals has been an absolute game-changer. 

Have you faced any difficulties while using G-Accon solutions? How did you deal with them?

Clay: It took me a bit to understand some of the concepts of G-Accon (like how templates are created on each page that you can update/modify/delete), but it didn’t take long to learn. I have also had a few issues with processes not working as expected (journals uploading twice, fields becoming unmapped, etc.). The support team has helped assist me through these issues, though.

What does your work experience look like? What kind of reports do you create? How do you integrate G-Accon into your work?

Clay: I do all the work for my business and my clients in G-Accon (it’s a little complex to share at this point, and the extra licenses would not be fully utilized). The primary ways we use G-Accon are for uploading journal entries and pulling P&L reports, all of which I now schedule to run automatically! This all feeds into sheets that I use to create dashboards for my clients. 

How have G-Accon solutions affected your business?

Clay: G-Accon has been crucial in allowing me to reduce my time doing something a computer can do while also minimizing errors (no copy/paste or manual entry).This has allowed me to scale my business. 

How do you spend the time that was freed up with G-Accon?

Clay: The extra time and mental capacity has allowed me to focus my attention on other aspects of my business like developing standard operating procedures, refining processes, and developing our offerings. This has had a compounding effect. It has also given me more space in my schedule for things like a morning run or spending additional time with my family. 

Thank you for your time, Clay! We appreciated chatting about your business and your experience with G-Accon.

If you are a changemaker with a nonprofit and are looking for help with operations,etc., Clay and his team are ready and eager to help! You can find more information and get in touch at wellsteadsolutions.com

Finally, if you are interested in being featured on our G-Accon blog/our next magazine issue or just want to explore G-Accon business solutions, feel free to reach out to us! We strive to make your business more efficient and would love to get in touch.

Disclaimer: Comments by Clay Sandoz about G-Accon were not solicited or paid for in any form. He freely offered his honest thoughts and statements.

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