When Farnam Street Financial realized they needed better reporting capabilities to keep up with their company’s growth, they turned to their existing ERP support partner for an answer. See how they migrated seamlessly from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 Business Central with Boyer & Associates.
Note: This article was originally published on Microsoft’s website in August 2020.
Funding the next generation of entrepreneurs with Farnam Street Financial and Dynamics 365 Business Central
For 20 years, Farnam Street Financial has provided custom leasing solutions to help small and midsized businesses secure the technology and equipment they need. Now, with equipment in all 50 states and hundreds of millions of dollars invested, Farnam needed a business management solution that could deliver more transparent, accessible, and efficient data analytics to keep its team operating effectively. Its solution? Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
For the past 20 years, Farnam Street Financial has provided custom equipment leasing solutions to ambitious businesses across the country. Headquartered 20 minutes southwest of Minneapolis, Farnam is built on the trust, credibility, and commitment of 30 people. Headcount hardly reflects stature. In 2019 alone, Farnam financed an additional $125 million in new equipment and expanded its leasing services into all 50 states.
With a knack for delivering and retaining long-term leases for emerging, mid-market, and multinational customers, Farnam prides itself on joining its customers, from initial signatures to final payment. It was no surprise then, that since Farnam partners with dozens of customers with hundreds of millions of dollars in investments across multiple states, they needed the right tools to keep everything on track.
Improved transparency with Business Central
Enter Leif Stoa, Vice President of Finance at Farnam Street. Like many of his colleagues, Stoa has a wide range of responsibilities — HR manager, accountant, IT director — but every role can be summarized into a simple thesis: empower colleagues to serve their borrowers more effectively every day. As a part of that mission, Farnam took advantage of on-premises data solutions to better track, assess and apply its lease data. This combination of QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics GP worked well enough in the past, but as the firm’s efforts continued to multiply, so did its needs.
“We’ve grown considerably over the last five years and we want to stay ahead of that growth, but we needed more transparency into our data to do it,” Stoa explains. “Now that we’ve grown, those needs led us to look towards even better, more enhanced tools and cloud applications.”
In a discussion with Farnam’s Dynamics GP partner, Boyer & Associates, Stoa shared that the firm needed a software solution with charts and graphs embedded in the right places, plus easy and intuitive drill downs and drill around features. Boyer saw a clear fit with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and invited the Farnam Street team to a Business Central webinar.
By working with a transparent and adaptable application for monitoring and sharing critical lease data provided by Business Central, the Farnam Street team is now equipped with the tools it needs to thrive. “We are efficient at what we do, and we’re able to do that because of the experience that we have and because of the applications that we’re using,” Stoa says. “Business Central has given us a lot more visibility into our data.”
High-performance tools for a high-performing team
Beyond the data, the move to Business Central has helped Stoa unload a few daunting stressors. Now, new hires can be onboarded with an email, and more importantly, Farnam can rely on Microsoft to remedy any performance or security concerns at a moment’s notice. “That was a huge factor in our move to Business Central. In the past, we were at the mercy of two individuals. If something went wrong and they weren’t available, we were in trouble. Now, we have an entire marketplace of experts who can handle those challenges,” Stoa explains.
That added peace of mind, and the flexibility to pass one of his primary responsibilities to a partner, left Stoa with more opportunities to focus on his primary interests — pulling greater insights out of the firm’s data.
And he isn’t the only one reclaiming his workday. The improved accessibility, transparency, and security features of Business Central equip Stoa’s already excellent team to deliver tasks more efficiently.
The perfect partnership
From Farnam’s initial step into Dynamics GP to its Business Central migration, the firm has relied on Boyer & Associates to help guide its steps. Since the beginning of their partnership in 2016, Boyer has helped simplify Farnam’s digital transformation while supporting its efforts at every juncture.
“Boyer has been a great resource that understands our needs, drilled into our requirements, and got the job done on time. We couldn’t be happier,” Stoa says.
With Boyer’s guidance and Microsoft’s innovation, Farnam Street Financial plans to continue its digital transformation well into the future. An upcoming Power Bl integration paired with a full adoption of Dynamics 365 Sales will continue to support Farnam’s rapid growth, while further Business Central integrations will improve the company’s location and multi-jurisdiction data.
Together with tools and applications that work as hard as they do, Stoa and his team can lead Farnam into a new era of financial services — and its customers into a new realm of possibility.
