About Alliance Advisors

Alliance Advisors is an international corporate advisory firm that supports public and private companies with strategic shareholder and investor advisory services. They offer advisory and proxy services to support shareholder meetings and engagement, compensation, governance, and sustainability through their global network. 

Headquartered in the US with offices in the UK, Hong Kong, and Canada, they have a longstanding client base of over 1,000 active public companies from a range of industries and market capitalization size. 

Challenges to address

Alliance Advisors operates at a rapid pace and has seen significant growth in recent years. After operating for some time with a small accounting team, Ben Caiola, then-CFO of Alliance Advisors, realized that gaps in their current financial processes had begun interrupting vital operations. They had seen some recent turnover and no longer had the financial team or the resources needed to support their fast-paced international company. Alliance Advisors were looking for ways to stabilize growth and scale with a strong foundation, but their current financial operations structure could not support growth or movement into new markets. 

“The pace is very opportunistic, and we do acquisitions when it's right for the business, not when it's necessarily right for the finance department and the supporting staff,” Ben Caiola said. “So that was an ongoing challenge for the finance team – to keep up with the business.”

As an existing CFO, Caiola knew they needed to quickly bring in more talent to rebuild their accounting department. They needed experienced accounting professionals with diverse skillsets for their rapid pace of business, but Caiola said it was a struggle to find candidates with the skills and experience they needed. This led him to ultimately decide to bring in third-party support to manage their financial operations and address their day-to-day needs while they continued their search for an in-house team.

Having previously worked with CohnReznick’s tax professionals, Caiola was familiar with the firm’s highly experienced, hands-on support. He decided to engage CohnReznick’s Client Advisory Services team to help support the financial department and transform their existing financial processes. 

“You're only as strong as the foundation you build and, foundationally, we weren't where we needed to be,” Caiola said. “The talent level at CohnReznick was much greater than the talent level we could hire in the market at that time.” 

Actions taken

With their deep experience in end-to-end accounting and finance support, the CohnReznick team was able to quickly identify opportunities for greater efficiency in Alliance Advisors’ accounting processes. The team covered day-to-day operational processes while working closely with Alliance Advisors to process their backlog of transactions, clean and organize their existing financial data, and completely overhaul their existing financial systems to simplify their accounting processes. 

“CohnReznick was able to throw us a life preserver and keep us afloat as a department,” said Caiola “Getting [the team’s] support in finance and accounting was invaluable.”

Additionally, after working with Caiola to improve financial processes, the CohnReznick team recognized an additional need. Alliance Advisors had faced challenges in implementing and using their current accounting technology solutions. Their current accounting software could integrate with their ERP, NetSuite, but could not fully support their international accounts and payroll needs. Their financial team had been relying instead on legacy processes that increased their workload, extended timelines, and interrupted their payments and payroll schedule. 

The CohnReznick team worked closely with Alliance Advisors to implement a new financial solution, Tipalti, which could integrate seamlessly with NetSuite. Once implemented, Tipalti offered a robust system for international payroll as well as options to automate routine processes to reduce employee workload and streamline accounting tasks. 

Ongoing results

CohnReznick’s work with Alliance Advisors helped to stabilize their financial department while allowing the business to continue operating at their usual rapid pace. The new financial system and technological solutions CohnReznick helped implement has greatly improved the financial department’s efficiency, allowing for quicker turnaround in closing their books and completing transactions. This transformation of their processes has also increased transparency, giving Alliance Advisors’ leadership greater visibility into their payables and strengthening internal trust in their financial data and systems.

“We have a very complicated operating environment,” Caiola said. “CohnReznick did a great job keeping the books in order and basically being a lifeline until we could get the new team in place.” 

With CohnReznick supporting their financial operations and implementing improved processes, Alliance Advisors were able to find the experienced accounting professionals they needed to rebuild their financial department.

Next steps for Alliance Advisors

As outgoing CFO, Caiola worked with the CohnReznick team to streamline the transition for incoming CFO Mike Weems and his new finance team. The CohnReznick team led onboarding for the incoming team, even traveling to the Alliance Advisors office to provide in-person training on their updated financial systems and new Tipalti solution. 

“It’s extremely helpful just to spend time [with the CohnReznick team] going through and getting us introduced to NetSuite and Tipalti and the way it's set up for Alliance,” said Mike Weems. “Understanding the financial dimensions, how the departments and groups within align with different companies. This way we are hitting the ground running as we onboard our team.” 

Weems plans to continue working with CohnReznick in the future, recognizing that the CohnReznick team has provided vital support and transparency throughout the transition. 

With a strong foundation for their new financial team to build on, Alliance Advisors is well-positioned to continue strengthening their operations and looking forward to a future of growth.