The Sledge Organization LLC, Jerry M. Sledge CPA
The Sledge Organization, LLC provides growth and planning services to growing businesses in addition to transactional bookkeeping services provided through its Supporting Strategies – Raleigh franchise. Supporting Strategies is a cloud-based model that leverages people, process and technology to help growing businesses outsource their transactional bookkeeping needs, positioning business owners to focus their energy on the operations and marketing functions in their company. Our people have an average of 10 years experience in the profession and many of them are CPAs or MBAs. We develop a clear understanding of processes required to efficiently run your business. We leverage technology, especially with the advent of the cloud, to efficiently deliver cost-effective services with our highly integrated proprietary technology platform. We have been in business since 2004 and have thousands of clients and hundreds of employees around the country serving a wide variety of industries and professions. Beyond transactional bookkeeping, we can help you develop your business plan in a manner that clearly articulates your business to the public.
The organization is led by Jerry Sledge, a licensed CPA in NC and VA. My career started as a manufacturing cost accountant and grew to CEO. My experience occurred in the corporate arena in startups and high growth companies, some of which were global in scope. Some delivered a service while others manufactured a product. I built my own company and sold it and helped build other startup and high growth companies, from software to telecom to non-woven manufacturing. Those environments provided an opportunity to “wear different hats,” helping me develop a perspective that goes far beyond a financial “view.” I spent decades “in the trenches” doing what growing business owners do every day…..”put out fires” until the company builds the infrastructure that positions it to hire professionals to handle day-to-day activity. Consequently, I can bring a different dialogue to the discussion with you as a growing business owner…..a dialogue that ensures your financial “picture” dovetails to your sales, marketing and operations functions because I’ve been there. While important, public accounting firms more often than not provide a compliance-based perspective that is different.
I can help you with your transactional bookkeeping. While it isn’t glitzy, it IS the foundation to your financial function and important to get it right. It’s also important that it be connected to your internal processes in a way that collects and uses the data to generate your monthly financials while bringing efficiencies to your business. I can help you develop an annual budgeting and planning process. This is important because it allows you to compare actual monthly results to the projections built into that annual (or 3 – 5 year) plan and identify variances you can use to adjust operations or sales and marketing activity. I can help you evaluate the risk management component of your business. We do that by helping you use insurance in a manner that manages and hedges risk or supports the employee component of your business. I can help you navigate your banking and finance relationships so you leverage your cash flow and assets in a manner that helps you achieve what your business is capable of. We’ll also integrate tax strategies into our dialogue, working to minimize how much you give to “Uncle Sam.” Parallel to building that infrastructure, we’ll open a dialogue that develops and supports your exit strategy. The earlier you start that dialogue, the higher the probabilities will be that you maximize value.
Your crowd-funding offering will tell your story to interested “public” investors. Tell that story to those prospective investors, whether debt, equity or revenue-share stakeholders, through a lens that integrates your financial, operations and sales & marketing functions. The financial picture is critical in helping those debt, equity or revenue-share stakeholders understand the risk they will be taking when investing in your company. It quantifies your market and operations functions in a way that shows who your customers are, where your customers come from, how many you need to deliver those financial results and what it will cost to deliver that product or service to markets and customers through your operations team. The financial, marketing and operations elements of your business plan are extremely important parts of your offering memorandum and can paint a positive picture for regulators while clearly telling your story to debt, equity or revenue-share stakeholders. It can catapult you and your business to the potential you believe it has. That plan should clearly articulate how those three functions are connected. Let us help you build that plan in a way that more easily “sells” your company.
Contact Jerry Sledge at 540.421.7824, [email protected] or [email protected].
