The Client’s Challenge:
A global transportation and logistics provider experienced significant operational friction after transitioning through multiple CFOs, Controllers, and accounting personnel. While the subsidiary’s local leadership focused primarily on day-to-day operations, the parent organization recognized that the books were in severe disarray. A fractional CFO familiar with the organization recommended Imperial as a specialized advisory alternative to traditional staffing firms.
Initial diagnostic assessments revealed critical structural failures in the client’s financial records:
- System Migration Imbalances: An outdated upgrade to the accounting system left historical beginning balances completely out of balance.
- Severe Reconciliation Gaps: More than two years of historical GL data failed to reconcile across critical accounts, including Accounts Receivable ledgers, customer deposits, vendor pre-payments, and freight accounts.
- Compounding Delays: Local management fell further behind on current-year reporting while trying to retroactively fix the prior year’s rolling balances.
Despite initial resistance from local management—who provided only a brief introductory meeting—the parent organization’s leadership remained concerned about the lack of historical data integrity. After subsequent internal attempts and unsuccessful placements from a traditional staffing firm failed to resolve the issue, the parent leadership re-engaged Imperial to step in.
Strategy:
Imperial deployed a comprehensive, multi-tiered financial team to stabilize the department and untangle over 24 months of complex accounting data. To secure the infrastructure and address the immediate need for interim leadership, Imperial:
- Deployed Interim Management: Placed a high-level Controller four to five days a week and an Assistant Controller two to three days a week to govern the department.
- Supplemented Operational Staffing: Integrated a detail-oriented accountant to manage daily accounting functions and support the cleanup.
- Maintained Stakeholder Alignment: Managed continuous communication and strategic alignment between local management, parent organization leadership, and the referring fractional CFO.
- Prioritized Targeted Remediation: Collaborated closely with the fractional CFO and interim leadership to isolate the most critical, high-risk accounts, systematically narrowing the unreconciled balances down to manageable levels.
Results:
Through persistent oversight and forensic accounting execution, Imperial successfully brought over two years of complex, broken accounting data into full reconciliation.
By resolving the historical rolling balances and stabilizing daily workflows to a consistent level, Imperial established an organized, transparent financial environment. This cleanup paved the way for the client to successfully source and onboard a permanent, full-time Accounting Director, who smoothly took over daily operations using the clean foundation Imperial established.
Contact Michael & the Imperial Team, and let’s have a conversation.
