Ep. 197: Rachel Baesler - Accountants as Business Partners for M&A

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Full Episode Transcript:
Adam:

Welcome back to another edition of Count Me In. The podcast that explores the world of business from the management accountants perspective. My guest today is Rachel Baesler, VP of financial reporting and technical accounting at FLEETCOR Technologies, a leading global business payments company. We talk a lot on this show about the need for accountants inside the organizations to partner cross-functionally with leaders and groups, driving business performance and growth as an accounting leader at a company that has completed over 90 acquisitions, Rachel is the perfect guest to help us better understand how accountants can overcome common stereotypes and thrive as strategic business partners. So let's get started.

Adam:

So, Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, and we're just gonna jump right in cuz we're talking about strategic partnerships today and when you're building those strategic partnerships, a common term or role today for accounting and finance professionals is business partnering. That's the term we've been hearing a lot. And so how do you ensure success when building these relationships across departments?

Rachel:

So to ensure business success, collaboration and partnership across departments is critical to the success of the organization, I was reading this Deloitte report that said that 83% of organizations want to increase the time spent on finance business partnering over the next three years. So it can be difficult to foster open communication with accounting. We're often seen as an impediment rather than a strategic business partner. So they understand that we handle the numbers and that we handle compliance, but it's up to us to, you know, articulate our value and demonstrate how we can be a strategic partner. A major component of FLEETCOR's success is our M&A strategy we've had over 90 acquisitions to date. Each of these require extensive involvement from accounting. So last year we purchased AFEX for over 400 million. They are part of our cross-border payment solutions similar to Cambridge global payments, which are all newly aligned under our court pay business unit.

Rachel:

We have noticed over time that we are getting similar accounting issues come up in these deals. So for our deal team, we created this quick reference guide and we shared it with them. So these matters that come up over and over again, they have them at the front of their mind versus the back. This helps, you know, demonstrate our value as a partner cuz they know every decision they're making and an acquisition, there is an accounting impact. It also helps just foster a relationship with them. Now they know, you know, they know my name, they know to come to me, when things come up, I can help them work through issues and they understand their accounting implications.

Adam:

So is that why it's so important for accounting and finance professionals? Because you have to be a seat at the table, no matter what's happening, whether it's an M&A, or the strategy that's being run or FP&A like all those different things are happening. Why is it so important for accounting and finance professionals to be a part of that?

Rachel:

Well, there's, you know, the compliance matters, obviously it's our job to ensure that the books and records are accurate, but also, you know, in the business environment today, all departments are being asked to demonstrate their value and partnering with other departments is how we demonstrate our value in an organization. And this also helps us, you know, foster culture of governance and compliance because you know, we have a seat at the table and we know what's going on in the business. It also helps us, you know, understand what's going on in the business. So we can better communicate with our stakeholders. You know, I'm the one preparing a lot of investor documents, right? So knowing what's going on across the organization helps me communicate more effectively with our investors.

Adam:

So what skills have you had to develop to be a successful relationship builder in this process?

Rachel:

Okay. So I read another Deloitte study and it was talking about the main competencies you need to be a successful finance business partner. And it talked about you know, being able to challenge negotiate, have, you know, commercial acumen, strategic thinking. And then one, I think for me has been critical, which is relationship management, such a simple thing, but building interpersonal relationships with people in other departments helps foster open communication and builds trust. You know, we live in an environment where we receive lots of emails. Whenever possible, I try to meet with people in person or have a face to face video call even pick up the phone, you know, you're not, you don't really have the opportunity to build a relationship when you're communicating over email, this, you know, just helps facilitate an open dialogue and create a trusted relationship. I'll give you an example.

Rachel:

I was working on this project with, you know, it was KPIs and I was having to talk to different leaders of the businesses. I'm sure it felt like an incremental ask. One of our lines of business leaders I was working with on this project. We just started chit chatting about Disney world. He has kids, I have kids, he was giving me some tips. I haven't taken my children yet. They're a little too young, but we built this, you know, great rapport fast forward a few months. And we acquired a business and he didn't understand, you know, how the revenue recognition pattern was working with one of the new products. Fast forward a few months later, we acquired a new business and we have a new product and there's trouble with the business leaders, understanding how the revenue recognition pattern works for that new product. You know, now they know my name, they know my face. They know to reach out to me, I can help them, you know, translate the, you know, the product to the accounting impact. So it helps me, you know, I'm getting to know the business that we've acquired from the business leaders and from the target itself. And you know, I'm at the front end of the issue they know to get me involved and it's just a really productive relationship and it, you know, helped us get involved early. So.

Adam:

Yeah, it's almost like you've you learned how to connect on a human side with your other collaborators and then because you connected, you developed the relationship and that allowed you to, when that you needed their help or they needed your help, you were able to connect in a better way.

Rachel:

Absolutely. I mean, you know, if I'm just shooting an email, so I'd be like, give me this, you know, or even asking politely. You know, I'm not gonna be the front of their mind when a problem comes up. So, you know, just spending a little bit extra time with folks, you know, building that connection, it really helps create a good relationship. And you know, it enables you to have a strategic partnership. I think that's really hard to just like force that on someone.

Adam:

Yeah. I was thinking, you know how it's always easy for us to talk about for as accountants to say, how do we partner with everybody else? What advice would you give to somebody who is not an accountant? How do you best partner with the accounting team? We've already talked about the human side and building that relationship, but are there other elements that we can say, Hey, this would, this would be best way to communicate. This is the best way to kind of ...