Night and day: How Steps Group took the pain out of intercompany accounting.

Company overview.

Steps Group is an Australian organization providing a broad range of supports across several sectors, chiefly disability services and education and training. Its mission is simple: make a difference for the people it serves.

Steps operates across multiple legal entities, a structure that changes as its industry does — from four entities at go-live, to two today, with a third expected soon. A nine-person finance team handles accounting across the group, including finance officers and billing officers who aren’t trained accountants but post intercompany transactions every day.

Challenge.

Before moving to Dynamics 365 Business Central with Binary Stream’s Multi-Entity Management (MEM), Steps ran on an accounting system more than ten years old. Every intercompany transaction meant manual journals across a web of loan accounts, and every month-end meant hunting down the errors that inevitably crept in.

• Outdated, manual system: Creating a single record meant filling in data across three different pages. New team members who had used modern systems elsewhere saw the gap immediately.
• Complex intercompany journals.:A simple two-line entry became a four-line entry whenever two entities were involved, built by hand to post to the right loan accounts the right way around.
• A reference sheet for every entry: Finance officers had to look up which of numerous loan account combinations applied, depending on which entity was dealing with which.
• Month-end errors, every month: Intercompany loan balances were out basically every single month, so accountants had to unpack the differences and correct entries one by one.
• Non-accountants doing accountants’ work: Finance and billing officers were forced to master loan account logic that had nothing to do with their core roles.

“We knew there had to be a better way. There had to be the right system out there to manage this for us.”
– Holly Barber, Finance Manager.

Solution.

In 2022, Steps decided to move to Dynamics 365 Business Central with its long-standing Microsoft partner, Professional Advantage. The team had one major reservation: paying for multiple subscriptions across multiple entities. They challenged Professional Advantage to find a better way, and the answer was Binary Stream’s Multi-Entity Management. After a careful implementation with extensive testing, Steps went live in 2023.

Highlighted capabilities:

• Automated intercompany entries — users simply choose the entity they’re posting to, and MEM handles the loan accounts in the background.
• Self-service entity setup — new entities are created and in use without needing partner involvement, so the structure can flex as the sector changes.
• One combined update cycle — Professional Advantage bundles Microsoft’s six-monthly Business Central releases with Binary Stream’s updates, so the team tests once.

“When we first implemented MEM, the team couldn’t believe the difference. It was like night and day. It has been life changing.”
– Holly Barber, Finance Manager

Results: Balanced loan accounts, simpler entries, and a happier team.

Three years after go-live, the benefits are as clear as ever. The impact was felt immediately, with almost no learning curve; the most common question was whether it was really that easy.

• Loan accounts balance every month. Intercompany loan accounts that were out nearly every month now reconcile perfectly, with no month-end error hunting.
• 4-line journals → 2-line entries. Intercompany entries are as simple as any other transaction: pick the entity and post.
• No more reference sheet. Finance and billing officers no longer have to work out which loan accounts to use, freeing them to focus on their actual roles.
• Entities on demand. Whether Steps runs two entities or ten, adding one is quick and doesn’t require outside help.

“I think it is something any organisation with multiple entities and intercompany loan accounts would benefit from. They wouldn’t regret it”
– Holly Barber, Finance Manager.

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