CPA Dwayne Anderson relies on AllianceHCM to support his clients, including many clubs across Texas.
Clubs and other businesses rely on Dwayne Anderson to manage their accounting, and he relies on AllianceHCM to make it easy.
Dwayne Anderson got his first club job in 1988 at Colonial Country Club, and he jokes that he spent all of his time during the Colonial Tournament just counting margarita money. “A couple hundred thousand dollars worth of cash went across my desk during that tournament. And by the time it was over, I had margarita salt in every crevice of my workspace,” Dwayne remembers.
That job as assistant controller at Colonial paved the way for Dwayne Anderson to have 35+ years of experience supporting clubs. He spent five years at Colonial and five years at the Austin Country Club before starting Carefree Financial Management in 1999. Carefree Financial Management provides an array of accounting, financial, and tax services to various clients, and Dwayne’s company is especially adept at supporting clubs.
“I don’t try to manage the golf course. I don’t know how to fill up their tee sheet on Saturday–that’s just not my thing. I tell the golf pro, ‘I’ll keep your books in order. Just don’t ask me to be able to hit a golf ball straight down the fairway.’ I’m a professional enabler,” Dwayne said.
AllianceHCM is Dwayne’s answer to providing clubs with the time- and cost-savings to serve their individual needs
Dwayne currently serves six clubs across Texas, and he’s served as many as eight at a time. Some of the clubs have been outside Texas, too, and Dwayne has found that AllianceHCM’s flexible system allows him to offer tailor-made service to each client.
“Some of them, maybe I only do their tax return. Some of them, I touch every timecard. It just depends on what they need me for,” Dwayne said.
When he welcomes new clients to Carefree Financial, he often recommends they switch over to using AllianceHCM from their current payroll platforms. He put his first club onto the AllianceHCM system in 2008, and he said that even if the club no longer requires his services, they’ll rarely move their club off AllianceHCM as the payroll platform.
“I tell these club managers, ‘Here are all your buddies that you’re at your monthly meetings with that are already using this program. You should talk to them. It’ll save you money, and it will be more efficient, and you just don’t have to worry about this again,’” he said.
Setting up data for seamless integrations makes total transparency a snap
Many clubs may use other accounting systems or club management platforms as a part of their standard practices. Dwayne found that dividing all data into departments within the AllianceHCM system makes it easy to provide a clear, detailed view of anything related to payroll and taxes.
“In our industry, it’s the golf shop, it’s the golf course, it’s the restaurant, it’s the bar,” he said. But once all the data is set up, he can provide financial reports by department that include a general ledger detail behind every line item.
“Instead of having a 50-line-item journal entry, maybe it becomes a 1,000-line-item journal entry because every employee has wages and payroll taxes and deductions and all of those little components,” Dwayne said.
Dwayne said it’s also easy to have the AllianceHCM system integrate with other existing platforms a club may use. He mentioned club management systems that are common throughout the industry, and said an integration may be set up in as little as a month. These integrations save time for both the Carefree Financial team and any users from the club’s side.
Once a client is fully set up with AllianceHCM–which typically takes from 60-90 days–then providing reports is a key responsibility of Carefree Financial. “I try to automate all that I can,” Dwayne said. He relies on AllianceHCM’s automated reporting and sharing functionalities to make regular reporting quick and then provides other reports on an ad-hoc basis.
Taking it a step further, Dwayne mentioned that other AllianceHCM products–like its employee self-service app–can fill other club needs. For example, the employee app can be a single place to clock in and out, view schedules, look at pay stubs, manage direct deposits, and see time accruals. Dwayne said that having one place to serve all employee needs can be a significant benefit.
“Employees don’t need six places to go to get what they need,” he said.
AllianceHCM is the payroll and HR system that Dwayne recommends
Dwayne first learned about AllianceHCM because he knew someone who came to work at the company. Once he figured out what the company provided, he realized it could neatly fill the needs of his clients. It’s been more than 15 years since he first had a client use AllianceHCM, and he recommends it whenever he can.
“Because I’ve worked at some really nice clubs and I’ve worked for the smallest little place, there’s just not much that I haven’t seen,” Dwayne said. “I’m always happy to recommend AllianceHCM. It’s always my go-to solution.”
Dwayne said AllianceHCM can always support his clients’ payroll and HR needs, whether they’re in the club space or not.
“Your job is to enable them to have fun and not have to worry about the money,” he said.
