A strategic accounting partnership that powers long-term growth
“Easy Signs has always been driven by speed,” says Adam Parnell, co-founder of Easy Signs. “We’ve built our culture around it, and thanks to Air, that same sense of urgency extends to how we manage our finances and operations. Without them, I’m not sure where we’d be today.”
When Easy Signs started with a team of just four people, their ambition was simple: Create high-quality signs with lightning-fast speed and precision. Fast forward to today, and they’ve grown into an international powerhouse with 220 employees. Their operations span both Australia and the US, with a core emphasis on production speed and high-quality service.
For a company moving so quickly, keeping up with finances and operational metrics could have easily slowed them down. But thanks in part to their long-term partnership with Air Accounting, they’ve managed to stay ahead of the curve without sacrificing their core pillars of speed and quality.
A strategic, decade-plus accounting partnership
Easy Signs became one of Air Accounting’s earliest clients, and the relationship has blossomed over many years as the company scaled.
In fact, Adam Parnell, Easy Signs’ Co-Founder, describes Air Accounting as a “fantastic partner” who helped guide Easy Signs through various stages of growth:
“We were one of their early clients, and we’ve been with them ever since,” Adam said.
Supporting financial and operational growth
Initially, Easy Signs handled their own bookkeeping, but as they grew, they needed more robust financial compliance, management, and reporting.
Adam adds, “Way back in the beginning, we would handle the basic bookkeeping functions ourselves, and then as the business grew, we needed more support from a financial compliance, management, and reporting perspective.”
Air Accounting provided these critical services and helped Easy Signs transition from a small company to now a much larger organization operating across 2 continents.
Air ensured that Easy Signs received timely and accurate financial reports, which provided a clear snapshot of the business’s health and operating metrics.
“the regular and timely accurate reporting that we receive, obviously on the financial side of the health of our organization, but then our operating metrics as well that we’re able to generate from the numbers,” he said.
This support meant that Adam could focus on the big-picture goals and lead the company without sweating the small stuff.
Getting clarity on their North Star metric
“A big part of what we do in our organization is we track what we call jobs per day. It allows management to then make decisions without me or Andy needing to be involved.”
This North Star metric allowed Easy Signs to make data-driven decisions quickly on everything from headcount to inventory and when to expand internationally, which has been crucial to their success.
In fact, Air Accounting played a crucial role in helping Easy Signs navigate its US expansion, providing financial advice on funding options, such as dealing with Export Finance Australia.
“At the time, Shaun and the Air Accounting team were assisting us in exploring if we should bring in external capital partners or if we could do this purely by ourselves. What would that look like?”
Their assistance helped make this expansion a reality, and today, Easy Signs’ US facility is thriving.
Air as a Growth Partner
Ultimately, it came down to having shared values. Air Accounting’s values aligned well with Easy Signs’ core pillars of speed and quality. Adam emphasizes that having a finance partner with similar cultural values is why this partnership has thrived over many, many years.
“We make sure that the culture we have in the business translates across to our back office teams as well, including the finance teams, and with having a very similar culture of speed and quality, that’s made the partnership incredibly easy along the way.”
Plus, they actively challenged Easy Signs to think critically about their business decisions, which helped them grow strategically.
“They would ask us the relevant and hard questions at times, sort of why are we doing it this way? What about this? Have we thought about this?”
This trust and ability to deliver consistent, high-level service is why Adam never hesitates to recommend Air Accounting.
“I recommend Air Accounting to my friends to this day, and I tell them because they won’t be disappointed. They’re a service organization. They understand that, and they get those service levels spot on.”