Natasha Hodgman – Case Study

How Number Krunchers helped Hodgman Kitchens Become More Autonomous with Cloud-Based Accounting

Often, companies that look to work with accountants either want someone to help them at tax time only or they want someone to take over all the accounting. There are some businesses, however, that fit between those ends of the spectrum. They have someone–often a business owner–taking care of much of the accounting and bookkeeping, but they need a bit of guidance and they could benefit from becoming cloud-based. 

Natasha and Dale Hodgman, owners of Hodgman Kitchens, are in that third group. Since they started their business in Tasmania in 2003, they’ve won more than 20 housing industry awards. Their company has become renowned for its focus on custom-building first-class kitchens that combine products, materials, and workmanship that are all of the highest quality. 

When they founded the business, Dale and Natasha used the accountant that Dale had worked with when he started in the construction industry. That accountant worked with Steven Mulligan, and Steven was responsible for the majority of Hodgman Kitchens’ tax-related activities. Natasha still did some of the financial work and invoicing, but she did so with Steven’s guidance and help. 

Later, the accountant sold his practice to Deloitte and Steven moved with the practice. He continued doing the accounting for Natasha and Dale, helping them get set up with MYOB. Eventually, Steven left Deloitte and started Number Krunchers. A while later, he reconnected with Natasha and Dale and told them about Xero, a cloud-based accounting platform.  

Natasha and Dale engaged Number Krunchers to streamline their accounting services, which involved converting them from MYOB to Xero and integrating Xero with Dext. This enabled Hodgman Kitchens to move to a paperless accounting system, allowing staff to focus more on servicing client needs than on filing paper documents. 

“I was doing more and more of my own accounting work–BAS and IAS and those sorts of things. From talking to Steven, I realised I needed to update my accounting system. Steven did the transfer from MYOB to Xero and helped me learn how to use Xero. It streamlined what I was doing and was much more user-friendly.” 

Steven continues to provide business advice and any book-keeping assistance Natasha requires. She says changing to cloud-based accounting has made a huge difference to her work. 

“Being connected to the cloud-enabled me to make the change away from my office, so I could work from anywhere. When I just wanted some time off or was ill, I could still hop in at any time I wanted. The flexibility was huge. I’ve become even more autonomous but know if I have queries, I can go straight back to Steven with them.” 

Natasha cites Steven’s accessibility and desire to learn more about ways to help Hodgman Kitchens as being reasons she trusts his guidance. 

“I know with Steven, he’s always looking at new technologies. He understands our business, so he’ll let us know what he’s discovered that could be a benefit. He introduced us to Xero and to Profit First money management as well. Profit First is yet another layer of that whole accounting side that has opened up another world again. We feel like we’re in so much more control. It is an easy system to implement and extremely beneficial. I still feel almost excited when BAS and IAS time comes around, knowing I have the funds available in an account ready to go. Comfort, clarity, and control are the three words I use to describe the Profit First system.”

“Steven is always looking for better ways to do things and he’ll suss them out thoroughly before deciding whether they’re worth promoting. He was very excited about Profit First and we are very grateful he introduced the system to us.” 

Although Natasha does much of her own accounting work, she wishes Number Krunchers had been around when Hodgman Kitchens was starting out, as it would have helped her navigate starting a business more easily. “If we were to start out over again and had them to help us, I wouldn’t have had the stumbles I had and our business would have had a smoother start in those first few years. For anyone starting a business, they’d be the ideal company to go to for that support.”