Accounts Payable Services & AP Automation Providers in Columbus, OH

Holbrook & Manter is a full-service CPA and professional services firm headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. It has worked with businesses and individuals since 1919. Companies looking to hand off day-to-day finance work, including the processing behind paying vendors, will find the most relevant offering in its outsourced accounting practice. A dedicated internal group, the Business Services & Solutions Team (BSST), runs that practice. The group handles routine financial operations for business owners, from keeping the books to running payroll.

Outsourced Accounting and Back-Office Support

The firm offers two models. A company can move its entire accounting function to the firm, or keep its own finance staff and have the firm work alongside them. Buyers comparing payables providers should note that the firm's site does not name accounts payable as a separate line item, and it does not mention any AP automation software. Payables work would fall under its broader bookkeeping and outsourced accounting engagements. Related services listed on the site include:

• Outsourced and virtual accounting
• Bookkeeping
• Payroll services
• Financial statement preparation and business compilations
• Staff shadowing alongside in-house personnel
• Business consulting and planning
• Tax planning, preparation and filing
• Collections handled by a team of specialists

The firm says its outside team often finishes accounting tasks faster than an internal department would. It presents this as a way for clients to save both time and overhead. Its advisors also help owners set up scalable systems and processes that support growth.

Assurance, Advisory and Specialty Work

Beyond outsourced accounting, the firm provides audits, reviews, compilations and agreed-upon procedures. It also offers benchmarking and ratio analysis, plus support for mergers and acquisitions. A risk advisory group delivers SOC audits and SOX compliance work, which is useful for organizations that need assurance over their internal financial controls. Other practice areas include business valuation, private wealth planning, trust and estate planning, and ESOP services. Nonprofits can get bookkeeping, audit, reporting and donation management support that follows AICPA standards.

Industries Served

The firm focuses on family-owned and closely held companies. It also lists agribusiness, construction, healthcare, manufacturing, nonprofit organizations, and professional and college athletes among its specialties. Its advisory practice includes accounting for medical practices.

Approach and Locations

A central part of the firm's pitch is that clients work with a team rather than a single accountant. Several staff members become familiar with each client's business and industry. The firm stresses frequent contact and on-time deliverables, and it describes itself as offering the range of a large firm with the attentiveness of a mid-sized one.

It is aimed at businesses unhappy with slow responses from a current provider. In addition to the Columbus headquarters, Holbrook & Manter has offices in Akron, Canton, Marion and Marysville, plus a Cincinnati-area presence in Milford. That footprint gives Ohio companies across much of the state access to a nearby office for outsourced accounting and related financial services.

Overview

Perfect Balance Accounting also does business as Perfect Balance CPA. It is a firm focused on bookkeeping, based in Bexley on the east side of Columbus, Ohio. Its founder, Sue, is a licensed CPA.

She started the firm as a one-person practice, and it has since grown into a team that includes QuickBooks ProAdvisors and long-serving bookkeepers, several of whom have been there for fifteen years or more. The firm has been operating for close to three decades.

It chooses not to do tax preparation, so its staff work on books, controller tasks and related back-office support all year instead of switching focus during filing season.

Accounts Payable Services

For companies comparing AP providers, the firm offers an outsourced payables service that covers supplier invoices and disbursements. Its team receives incoming bills, enters them into the client's accounting system and manages each one until it is paid. The typical workflow includes:

• Entering supplier invoices in the general ledger with correct expense coding
• Sending bills to the right approvers when sign-off is needed
• Scheduling payment by electronic transfer or printed check
• Keeping a current AP aging report of outstanding obligations
• Using internal controls to catch duplicate or incorrect bills
• Attaching receipts and supporting documents to build an audit trail
• Sorting out backlogged or disorganized payables before regular processing starts

The team works in Bill.com, QuickBooks Online and other platforms. It can recommend a tool or work within the software a client already uses. Clients choose how involved they want to be, and most review and approve bills before funds are released. Payment runs usually happen weekly or every other week, depending on vendor terms and available cash.

Because the same staff keep the books, paid and pending bills show up in financial reports without being entered twice. Multi-step approvals help lower fraud risk and make it easier to take early-payment discounts.

Broader Back-Office Support

Clients can buy payables support alone or as part of a wider outsourced accounting package that works like a virtual finance department.

Other services include receivables and invoicing, payroll with multi-state compliance and 1099 filing, bank reconciliations, QuickBooks cleanup, monthly closing reviewed at the controller level, consolidation for owners of several companies, budgeting and forecasting, KPI dashboards, and fractional CFO advice.

The firm says its best fit is small and mid-sized companies that need fewer than twenty hours of back-office help per week. Packages can be built around just the functions a client wants to hand off.

Industries and Service Area

The firm promotes its AP service especially to businesses with frequent bills, such as restaurants, construction contractors and property management companies. It also works with medical and allergy practices, nonprofits and grant-funded groups, law and consulting firms, real estate investors with multiple entities, local retail and trade businesses, wealthy individuals, professional athletes and online content creators.

Its focus is Columbus and nearby suburbs such as Dublin, Upper Arlington, New Albany and Grandview Heights. It also serves clients remotely elsewhere in Ohio and in other states, and its site has location pages for Cleveland, Scottsdale and Miami.

Buyers may be most interested in a few things the firm stresses: a CPA reviews every set of books, staff stay long enough that clients rarely have to train a new bookkeeper, and the team is available all year. The firm also says many of its clients have been with it for more than ten years.