StarCorp, a fast food franchisee, sizzles up fast financials

StarCorp, which runs 144 Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants across Arizona, Texas and the Midwest, can whip up a burger and fries for a customer in a minute or two. Preparing financial statements and reports took the fast food franchisee far longer.

“QuickBooks was just too time-consuming between the different restaurants to have to go through and deal with a set of books for each restaurant,” StarCorp Controller Cesar Elizondo says in a Sage Intacct customer success video.

The Phoenix-based company needed a modern, sophisticated and cloud-based accounting platform that could deliver greater efficiency and real-time data for business decision-making. Elizondo, who had worked with Sage Intacct at a previous company, had Sage Intacct on top of his list.

“When we saw the capability of the cloud-based management and being able to see the results right away, that’s what really sold us on going with Sage Intacct,” Elizondo said. “We didn’t really look at any other solutions.”

Sage Intacct has delivered the speed and productivity that StarCorp was looking for. For example, the company is saving nearly 20 hours a month by moving from manual to automated bank reconciliations. Moreover, it’s switched from once-a-month reconciliations for each store for a single, consolidated reconciliation each day.

StarCorp is saving another eight hours per payroll period because Sage Intacct automates data exchange with the payroll system, while time spent managing vendor bills has been cut from four hours a week to 15 minutes. Similar productivity gains have been seen across payables, cash management and financial reporting, as outlined in our full StarCorp case study.

“We’ve been a lot more productive since we made the switch to Sage Intacct,” Elizondo said. “It’s really helping my job out as well because I don’t have to be so much involved in the smaller transactional stuff and can see the bigger picture.”

Insights with Real-Time Data

New ability to quickly provide richer, timelier reports lets upper management more closely monitor business operations and make more informed decisions. Dimensional reporting by location helps guide decisions on whether to keep a restaurant open, or expand into a new region.

StarCorp also uses Sage Intacct dimensions to track in-restaurant equipment maintenance on an urgent and lower-priority basis, and better manage maintenance spending vs. budget allocations. And it’s gained new insights into personnel and overtime costs to help keep the books in line.

“The benefits from Intacct have been the real-time data being instantaneous so that we can get the information that we need, and improving workflow processes so you’re not bogged down by day-to-day stuff,” Elizondo said. “And more than anything else it gives peace of mind to upper management that the accounting numbers are good.”

Going forward, Elizondo notes that StarCorp has additional business initiatives in its pipeline. He’s confident that Sage Intacct delivers the scalability that StarCorp needs for continued growth.

“As we continue to grow, I definitely think Intacct has all the capability that we need, not only for our line of business but for the other business ventures we might be pursuing,” he said. “The system just works.”

To learn more about how StarCorp benefits with Sage Intacct, view the customer success video and download the full StarCorp case study.