Case Study

Polar advertising technology company
saves big by outsourcing bookkeeping

Toronto-based Polar is a cutting-edge advertising technology company – so it’s not surprising that its leadership has taken an innovative approach to managing the books. While Polar started with an in-house bookkeeping team, it switched to Scalability two years ago, which saved about 50 percent on bookkeeping costs.

This allows Polar CEO Kunal Gupta to devote his energy to building the business. “There are a lot things I don’t want to do – and bookkeeping is one example. It’s very important that it be done right but business leaders don’t want to deal with it.”

The Company

Polar’s Social Display makes it easy for advertisers to take existing social media ads and run them on websites as paid display ads, saving the cost of redesigning the ads. More than 5,000 advertisers worldwide have leveraged Polar’s technology to run over three billion ads in the past year. The Toronto-based firm has about 30 employees.

The Problem

For several years, Polar had three staff members who were responsible for bookkeeping and financials, among other duties. “It was overkill – way more than we needed,” says Gupta.

The Solution

Polar turned to Scalability to handle its bookkeeping. The firm went from three people working on financials to zero.

Scalability shifted Polar from desktop accounting software to the cloud-based accounting package Xero. “Scalability helped set up Xero as our accounting software and it’s been very helpful, effective and efficient,” Gupta says. “The Scalability team is well versed in the tools and we have started to improve our reporting processes thanks to it.”

Rustin Smith of Scalability provides sage advice to help Polar navigate business complexities. At the same time, he is clear in his communication about areas where he does not have expertise. Polar must deal with tax authorities in the United States, UK, Australia and Canada – and the firm counts on external experts to help. “Rustin stays in his lane, which I appreciate,” Gupta says.

The Result

Gupta says the switch to Scalability has delivered three achievements:

1.       Savings of about 50 percent over having an internal accounting team

2.       Greater efficiency as the firm adopted Scalability’s proven processes

3.       Better management of relations with external organizations, such as government tax agencies and insurance providers

“The Scalability team is smart, knowledgeable, hard-working and efficient,” Gupta says. “They have become an extension of our team.”

To learn more about how Scalability can help your organization achieve its goals, please contact us for a free consultation.