Julie DeLong Shares Her Tech Stack

Nov 3, 2023 | Episodes

Julie DeLong from Backyard Bookkeeper joined us for a Firm Spotlight on October 24th, 2023 and it was awesome! We learned about some new apps and got some cool information!

A little bit about Backyard Bookkeeper

Backyard Bookkeeper started in 2008 with Julie and her best friend. They have 40 team members and are servicing 600 firms! Now they also have other companies that offer payroll, controller and consulting, recruiting, and now an academy where they are teaching courses in bookkeeping! The goal is to offer solutions for everyone! Julie having so much going on, really gives her the experience to share what tech they are using and be able to relate to so many people in our field. 

Internal tech stack overview

Julie shared her internal stack with us which includes some cool solutions. They are using Google for email, documents, etc. They have Quickbase for their database and CRM, some emails, and tracking metrics for bookkeepers and clients. Keeper for password management, Asana for project management, Quickbooks for accounting as well as QB Time for internal tracking, and that all connects with Quickbase. They use Loomly for social media posting, and WordPress for website management.  Bamboo for payroll and HR software. With it, they post job ads and those go to Indeed for free, then they can manage hiring, and move people to the hiring pipeline to onboard them, send out paperwork, and now payroll is there as well.  Each employee has a profile with their performance reviews, questionnaires, and job history.  They have been using Anchor for 2 years and were the first to fully adopt it. They are using it for client onboarding, contracts, and billing. It is making billing easy, and they can anticipate problems and prepare for them. Anchor offers payroll relief with a per-check fee instead of a per-person fee. Now they can take those anticipated problems and add them as possible line items in their contract, making it easy to pass those fees to the client instead of coming up with a whole new contract.  

External tech stack overview

She also shared the External apps they are using! Such as Quickbooks online for accounting, as well as a few clients using Xero. Cosmolex practice management software for law firms and includes a full general ledger accounting solution. They are using Anchor for A/R. For payroll clients, they use Gusto and Guhroo.   Bill/Divy are their partners of choice for accounts payable or expense management for clients. We took a few minutes to talk about Guhroo, it gives them more flexibility such as back-dating checks, which taxes get paid when, and when the filings can be finished. This type of flexibility makes it easier to juggle the payroll clients!

In this episode, we covered other apps as well and how they utilize them. Be sure to watch this episode so you can learn how this tech stack works!

If you’re interested in learning more about these apps, be sure to check out their websites, or you can watch the episode by visiting our website or on YouTube!