The Real Cost of Running Finance/Operations Loose

Moving Benefit Cloud from First Citizens + AMEX to Ramp — and building the brain of the business.

Monday, July 20, 2026 · Andrew Antczak · Tyler Priest · Roman Hawkins

days to a smarter finance stack

First: your world today

Let's map what you want off your plates — and what winning actually looks like. This slide is editable — tap any dashed field. reset

What are you looking to offload?

Responsibility	Owner today	Hrs / wk
Expense admin, receipts & card paydowns	Andrew
Books, QBO & outside-firm coordination	Tyler
Payroll & benefits administration
Bills, banking & vendor management

What keeps you up at night?

Cash timing around payroll weeks?
Two clients carrying 90% of revenue?
Opaque transactions — like a $6,720 recurring ACH?

Your perfect world — what does success look like?

What would you never touch again?
What number do you wish you could see every morning?
What does “this worked” mean 90 days from now?

Today: seven systems, no single source of truth

Tax
Verdant Strategies

Accounting
Bookkeeping At Ease

Payroll
Green Leaf Business Solutions

Insurance
Anthem + outside broker

Legal
LegalZoom (minor)

Banking & cards
First Citizens + AMEX

“We're growing a bit too much to be handling all of this so loosely.”

— Andrew Antczak, CEO

Even QuickBooks access is controlled by an outside firm — the CEO can't grant a read-only login to his own books.

The hidden invoice: your time

Case study — the read-only QuickBooks login (last week, this engagement):

Jul 12

Andrew asks Tyler for QBO access — neither can recall which firm controls it

Jul 13

Fallback agreed: manual Excel exports of the financial statements instead

Jul 16

Still unresolved — Tyler “going back and forth with the team”

Today

Six days in. No login, no exports, no visibility.

days elapsed

people involved

read-only login at stake

Every report, every close, every diligence request runs through bottlenecks like this one.

Your last 90 days, at a glance

Travel — $12.2K (34%)

Advertising — $10.1K (28%)

Software / SaaS — $6.6K (19%)

Meals & transport — $3.4K (10%)

Other — $3.1K (9%)

AMEX spend by category — $35.4K over 91 days

$35.4K

AMEX spend · 200 charges (~$141.7K/yr pace)

$58.6K

avg checking balance earning ~0%

$238K

payroll out · 7 biweekly Pay Fusion runs

−$52.4K

cash change over the window ($62.6K → $10.2K)

Day-one portal finds: 4 unlabeled ACH debits of exactly $6,720 (unidentified recurring vendor) · $53K in manual AMEX paydowns · Anthem creeping ~$5,967/mo

Source: your AMEX (Apr 13–Jul 12) and First Citizens (Apr 6–Jul 10) statements.

Opportunity Costs

Annual value of the switch (USD) — from your statements

Founder time reclaimed

$54,600

Yield on idle cash

$2,521

Card cashback

$2,126

Card & bank fees cut

$845

~$60K / yr

in dollars, time & mental real estate

Where the numbers come from

$141.7K/yr card spend pace (your actual $35.4K over 91 days) @ 1.5% cashback
$58.6K average checking balance @ ~4.3% treasury MMF vs ~0% today
AMEX Business Platinum $695 annual fee + ~$150 digital banking fees
5–7 founder-hours/week on finance admin — plus the mental real estate — @ $175/hr (6 hrs/wk × 52 = 312 hrs/yr)

All figures except the founder-time model computed from your 90-day AMEX + First Citizens statements. Grows with you: every new $100K of spend adds $1.5K back.

The upside compounds as you grow

$2,126

$9,000

Card cashback (1.5%)

$2,521

$21,500

Yield on cash (~4.3%)

Today At scale

$30.5K / yr

in hard dollars at scale — 6.6× today's $4.6K

The scale scenario

$50K/mo card spend ($600K/yr) — 4.2× today's pace → $9.0K cashback
$500K average cash balance @ ~4.3% treasury MMF → $21.5K yield
None of this requires new effort — the rails from the 90-day plan just carry more volume

Rates variable; yield assumes Ramp treasury MMF (~4.3% as of Jul 2026). Excludes founder-time value entirely.

First Citizens + AMEX vs. Ramp

	Today	With Ramp
Card rewards	Points, category caps, redemption overhead	1.5% unlimited cashback on every swipe
Card fees	Annual fee on most AMEX business cards	$0 — no annual or per-card fees
Idle cash	Standard business checking, ~0% APY	Up to 2% checking · ~4.3% treasury MMF
ACH & wires	Per-transaction fees	Unlimited, included with Bill Pay
Receipts & coding	Manual matching, chasing employees	Automated — 99% coding accuracy
Your books	Month-end statement exports	Real-time QuickBooks sync

Rates variable and set per customer. Sources: Ramp 2026 datasheets; ramp.com/treasury. First Citizens can remain as a linked depository account.

Ramp, by the numbers

average savings for Ramp customers

3×

faster monthly close

$10B+

saved across 50,000+ businesses

27.5M

hours given back to teams

2.4×

faster invoice processing

< 1 hr

for your team to learn it

Source: Ramp 2026 Overview & Bill Pay datasheets.

What changes — and what doesn't

Stays

Rachael Wright — keeps doing her thing, now with cleaner data
Verdant Strategies for tax filings
First Citizens relationship — can remain as a linked depository account
Your team's day-to-day tools and workflows

Changes

AMEX spend migrates to Ramp cards — cashback from day one
Operating cash moves to Ramp business account — starts earning
Receipt chasing and coding — automated away
Month-end mystery becomes a live portal — the brain of the business

Appleton runs the entire migration. Your total lift: a handful of approvals and about two hours.

The 90-day plan

Days 1–30

Ramp transition

Ramp account opened & underwritten
Cards issued; AMEX spend migrated
First Citizens linked; funding flows set
QuickBooks sync live

Days 31–60

Learn the business

Map every vendor, contract & recurring charge
Rebuild the close process; first close on Ramp
Reporting cadence with Andrew & Tyler
Wish-list items scoped into the roadmap

Days 61–90

Build the brain

Portal build: live revenue, expenses, cash flow
Compliance calendar & KPI views
Real-time visibility replaces month-end mystery
Portal live by day 90

How the 90 days actually run

DAYS 1–30

DAYS 31–60

DAYS 61–90

Underwriting & account setup

Cards issued · AMEX spend migrates

First Citizens / AMEX wind-down

QBO sync & first close on Ramp

Financial ops deep-dive & vendor audit

Portal (“brain”) build

Portal live · 90-day review

Kickoff (day 1) · ● Spend fully on Ramp by day ~30 · ● First close on Ramp by day ~55 · ● Brain online by day 90

Day 90: what good looks like

Every dollar in and out visible in real time — no more waiting on exports
Cards earning 1.5% back, idle cash earning yield, fees gone
Books closed within 5–10 days of month-end, our standard — for some clients, ownership structure demands 2 business days, and we deliver it
A portal built around Benefit Cloud — the brain the company grows on

Today's asks

Green-light the 90-day plan & kickoff date
QBO Excel exports (BS, cash flow, YTD P&L)
Name card admins & account signers

Where Appleton separates

Automate and centralize everything routine — building the infrastructure and processes that make Benefit Cloud exit-ready. And exit-ready means acquisition-ready.

The advisors — where we separate

Pricing & revenue models

Investor raises & diligence

Scenario planning & forecasting

M&A advisory & deal support

Special situations & exit readiness

▲ automation buys back the hours — this is where they go

The machine — automated & centralized

Cards & bankingAP & bill payReceipt codingClose & reconLive portalCompliance

The technology is the offering. The judgment is the difference.