How Baker Tilly improved project efficiency by 95% with Ideals

Overview

Baker Tilly International is a global consultancy network that offers a wide range of high-level advisory services in 148 countries. In 2021, they set up an office in Costa Rica, which their Managing Partner, Alberto Porras Rojas, described as “a commitment to the comprehensive development and high-speed growth of the organization.”

For the new venture, they chose Ideals to streamline communication with hundreds of clients and securely handle their accounting, taxation and legal, audit, finance, and consultancy services. 

According to Alberto, “Ideals is perfect in all senses. It’s easy to use, improves efficiency, and is extremely secure.” 

Adopting all the available features allows project managers to act fast and save time dealing with clients and stakeholders. As a result, they increased their process efficiency by 95%.

The context

Their strict membership criteria, aligned with local expertise, allows Baker Tilly Costa Rica to deliver high-quality services to companies and apply their knowledge to the ongoing analysis of suitable solutions for their clients. 

Their employees advise, identify and manage risks, providing guidance on spotting key opportunities. Their core mission is to continue to be a trusted advisor for all client’s corporate objectives in the modern world.

Key challenges 

With the launch of the operation in Costa Rica, the firm rapidly attracted numerous clients. To cope with the rush of new projects and expansion of their portfolio, they needed to handle numerous transactions while ensuring compliance with the requirements set by national regulators, such as the College of Public Accountants of Costa Rica and the College of Private Accountants of Costa Rica.

Alberto emphasized that, “structure and organization were key factors. We needed different clients, employees, and investors from various places to communicate securely and efficiently.”

Besides streamlining communication, the firm was searching for a digital tool that could:

• Serve as a centralized and highly secure digital document store
• Grant easy access to documents for internal and external users in different locations
• Allow for comprehensive tracking of all clients’ and stakeholders’ activities
• Provide granular reports and notifications around projects and documents
• Ensure compliance with the regulatory requirements in Costa Rica 

Solution

After analyzing multiple options, the team was most impressed by how easy it was to set up different permission levels with Ideals. 

Cybersecurity was a key concern, so being able to select from different levels and track all the activity, was their main reason for choosing Ideals over the competition, “Ideals is a great platform for us because it solves all our major pain points,” explained Alberto. 

“It’s also an amazing tool to look security conscious. Our clients are impressed when uploading documents, and the log-in demands secondary authentication using SMS. The whole process feels and sounds secure for everyone involved,” concluded Alberto. 

He elaborated that with Ideals, they could also:

• Quickly upload and share extensive documents, such as tax compliance declarations
• Track when files are sent, by whom, who has received them, and all surrounding activities
• Analyze and communicate on contracts for their legal department
• Ensure that financing projects’ deadlines for receipt of documents were met
• Run audit reports for clients at any time
• Use the automatic index as a checklist for locating and updating documents

The future

Baker Tilly Costa Rica currently has clients in all the country’s leading industries and is expanding rapidly into other services, such as payroll administration, transfer pricing, human resources, and sustainability. 

They rate the three top attributes of Ideals as:

• The different permission levels
• The total security of the data
• How the notifications and reports enhance communication with their clients 

Alberto says their next move is to conduct an in-depth audit for a major client and affirms that “the platform we will choose for that will obviously be Ideals.”