There Had to Be a Better Way--And There Is

Historically, the process that accountants follow in order to prepare SBA loan packages has been a tedious manual process plagued with multiple forms, spreadsheets and formulas.

This has all changed thanks to the development of SBA Form Plus, a software program designed by Management Ultimate Solutions under the guidance of president Rajiv Mahajan, CPA.

As is the case with most small businesses, the idea to start a company comes out of some personal experience. According to Mahajan, the experience came for him when he submitted an SBA loan package for approval to start his own CPA firm, only to be rejected.

Befuddled by not knowing what else he could have included to get his loan approved, Mahajan began to think that there must be a better way. After getting valuable advice from the SBA Regional Office, he reformatted his package and submitted it to Key Bank & Trust. After his loan was approved, he use what he'd learned to get a client's loan approved. Now that he knew what needed to be done, he decided to automate the process so he and other CPAs could include SBA loan packages among their services (and not dread doing them).

Recognizing this need, Mahajan pulled together a team of young financial and information technology professionals. The group quickly put their heads together to create a software program that could be used by all accountants--a package with all the forms, including complete financial analysis with percentages, ratios, z-score and cash flow for both historical and projected periods.

While fine-tuning the software, Mahajan had submitted 47 SBA loan packages using SBA Form Plus to different banks in Maryland, Virginia and California, and got approval on 37 loans--an approval rate of 80 percent. Most of the loans were for start-up companies, for amounts ranging from $20,000 to $6,075,000.

With such a positive track record, and confident the software works, Managemet Ultimate Solutions introduced SBA Form Plus to the Baltimore-Washington market last month.

Mahajan explains, "The SBA software will make the process of preparing a loan package easy, providing forms and user-friendly help functions, plus diagnostic checks and restore/back-up capabilities."

Reducing the time it now takes to prepare a loan package by 75 percent, this new package will allow accountants easily to turn preparing loan packages into a profit-maker for their firms and allow them to earn a reputation for "submissions that get approved." The package retails for $799 for a one-year license through Management Ultimate Solutions; most accountants charge $1,000-5,000 for preparation of a loan package, meaning a large profit.

In addition, another program just introduced by the five-year-old company is Office Manager for Accountants, designed to help accountants manage their practices and create a paperless office in no time.

As with SBA Form Plus, this program was developed out of Mahajan's personal need. Working hand-in-hand with his wife, Shalini, who is also a CPA, Mahajan found that as his new CPA firm grew, they would spend (waste) time looking for client information or tracking the status of projects--he would be looking for this and she for that, often feuding as a result. Once again, Mahajan thought there must be a better way.

Soon after, Office Manager for Accountants was born. The new program provides modules for contact management, workflow management, document management and storage of reports to access old records at the press of a computer key. This software is introductory priced at $399 for a one-year license.

According to Mahajan, with his team of accountants and computer experts who took his vision and made it work, "This management software will save an accounting practice hours and hours of time in searching for information, 'to do' lists, managing staff and work flow, and measuring office performance by staff member or job. Also, at the press of a key, the accountant can determine his or her own annualized billings, streamline operations and focus on practice development through client service...not spending hours focused on tedious micromanagement and administrative headaches."

Both of these software programs enable accountants to produce results that are more comprehensive, less time-consuming and a lot less stressful.

For more information on SBA Form Plus or Office Manager for Accountants, please call Mahajan at 410-884-2993 or visit Management Ultimate Solutions' web site athttp://www.musinc.com.