[ CLIENT SUCCESS ]

Gravity Renewables: Managing 15 Hydropower Entities

Industry

Other

Solution

Financial & Operational Systems

Client Since

2020

About Gravity Renewables

For centuries, humans have leveraged the power of water falling— the power of gravity — to create mechanical and electrical power. The first water-powered industrial mill in America dates back to 1793. Gravity Renewables, Inc. celebrates the American hydropower tradition, preserving and celebrating original clean energy facilities for generations to come. The company believes that the small, distributed hydropower that helped shape communities’ past can be an important contributor to their future.

Founded in 2012, Gravity Renewables purchased its first plant in 2013 and now owns 15 such assets throughout the Northeastern United States. Keeping its financial operations firmly grounded is what allows Gravity Renewables to continue to grow profitably. That’s why the company relies on BT Partners.

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“We wouldn’t be where we are without BT Partners. Throughout the implementation they knew what needed to happen and when, and then made it happen. They consistently hit their deadlines and managed the project professionally.”

Kathy Nicholson

Chief Financial Officer, Gravity Renewables

The challenge

Like many startups, Gravity Renewables started small, relying on QuickBooks as its accounting application. “Each asset we own is a separate legal entity,” explains Kathy Nicholson, CFO for Gravity Renewables. “QuickBooks worked fine when we had just one or two assets, but as we grew, we outgrew QuickBooks.”

Managing the multi-entity, inter-company accounting transactions for 15 entities soon became an onerous task that consumed a large portion of the month. “We allocate costs between our assets,” explains Nicholson. “In QuickBooks, that meant we had to enter every transaction twice. Not only did that take too much time, but there was no system of checks and balances to be sure we hadn’t made a simple data entry error. We felt that too much of our time was spent on these lower-level administrative tasks, with little time left to strategize.”

Why BT Partners?

Gravity Renewables was referred to BT Partners by their accounting and consultancy firm. They selected BT Partners after evaluating several options because the team demonstrated a clear understanding of their workflows and showed how the solution could be mapped to improve existing procedures.

Kathy Nicholson, CFO, notes “BT Partners impressed us. They came prepared, and they were able to demonstrate how they could map Sage Intacct to accommodate and improve our workflows and procedures.”

The solution

BT Partners led an on-time, on-budget implementation of a modern cloud financial management platform. They configured the system to handle multi-entity operations, inter-company transactions, and cost allocations efficiently.

Additional improvements included streamlined requisition and purchasing workflows with full visibility and document attachment, plus integrated payment processing. BT Partners introduced the company to Checkbook, an integrated payment platform, to replace their previous, stand-alone payment processing application. Using Checkbook, Gravity Renewables can send ACH payments, real-time payments, digital checks, or even printed checks to vendors quickly and easily. The application’s integration with Sage Intacct provides Nicholson and her team with full visibility into payments, speeding reconciliation and streamlining the entire procure-to-pay cycle.

Results & business impact

Gravity Renewables achieved substantial efficiency gains. Multi-entity reporting and month-end processes that previously took days now take a fraction of the time. Accounting staff can complete many daily tasks in half the time, and consolidated financial statements are generated much faster.

“Previously, I was logging in and logging out of QuickBooks companies all day long, entering mirroring journal entries,” says Megan Oaks, Accounting Manager at Gravity Renewables. “With Sage Intacct, that’s not necessary, I have access to all our entities in one location. Not only does it save me time, it eliminates the very real potential for error.”

Running the reports for the monthly close used to take Oaks more than eight hours. “I used to spend an entire day going back and forth printing reports from the 15 entities and merging them into a spreadsheet,” Oaks recalls. “The same reports in Sage Intacct now take me less than 15 minutes.”

These improvements eliminated the need to fill an open bookkeeper position and freed up significant capacity for strategic initiatives. Purchasing processes are now transparent and controlled, and leadership has greater flexibility to analyze financial data.

What’s next

Gravity Renewables continues to find new ways to automate workflows, uncover new insights, and grow the company profitably.

“BT Partners is helping us become our own experts,” concludes Oaks. “With their help we’re expanding how we use Sage Intacct into more areas of the business. We’re uncovering new capabilities, and BT Partners is helping us apply those capabilities to streamline additional business processes.”

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[ Client Success ]

Gravity Renewables: Managing 15 Hydropower Entities

Industry Other

Solution Financial & Operational Systems

Client Since 2020

About Gravity Renewables

“We wouldn’t be where we are without BT Partners. Throughout the implementation they knew what needed to happen and when, and then made it happen. They consistently hit their deadlines and managed the project professionally.”