Accounting and advisory firm Cherry Bekaert expands into Microsoft Dynamics with ArcherPoint, Suite Engine acquisition

Assurance, tax, and advisory firm Cherry Bekaert has acquired Microsoft partner ArcherPoint and their Suite Engine ISV business.

US-based ArcherPoint is a veteran solution and services provider for Dynamics 365 Business Central and NAV, as well as LS Retail, Microsoft 365, Azure, and Power Platform. The company has employees in the US, Canada, and India and serves clients in North America and Europe.

ArcherPoint will join Cherry Bekaert’s Digital Advisory group to form their Dynamics 365 services team. Until now, the firm has offered other SMB ERP solutions from Sage, CRM-related solutions via Salesforce, and services for a range of other Microsoft products including Power Platform, Azure, and Teams. 

The acquisition of ArcherPoint enhances Cherry Bekaert’s ability to advise clients on the best business applications for their needs, according to Roy Nicholson, Growth & Digital Services Leader.

“Our strategy is to expand our ERP capabilities. With the acquisition of ArcherPoint, this is our first entry into Business Central. They're going to form our Business Central delivery capability,” Nicholson told MSDW. 

The deal comes at a time when Cherry Bekaert has been refreshing its strategy across audit, tax, and advisory, Nicholson explained. One tenet of that strategy is a new focus on small and mid-market clients with $250 million in revenue or below and on the office of the CFO. He explained:

[As a firm] we see that ERP has been a foundational capability for us to bring all of our capabilities to market to help our clients modernize, improve operational efficiency, and grow. We think we can then bring other capabilities like automation, cybersecurity, accounting advisory, tax credits. There are multiple things that we can then bring to our clients around that capability. So it's really being a strategic advisor for our clients as they grow.

For ArcherPoint, the prospect of an acquisition was uncertain, according to CEO Greg Kaupp. Several years ago, Kaupp oversaw the firm’s transition to an employee-owned model. As the company has continued to grow, now delivering $32 million in revenue annually, interest from potential acquirers hinged at least in part on their ability to transact in a way that worked for ArcherPoint’s employee-owners. 

When we originally started talking with Cherry Bekaert, I was very open about our unique structure. Not only were we employee owned, but then we had a phantom stock plan in Canada and India that was designed to mimic how the ESOP worked for US employees. [And] we had a somewhat unique, well, probably very unique, corporate governance structure called Holacracy. And what I appreciated about my interactions with Cherry Bekaert from day one was that it didn't scare them. They were incredibly thoughtful. We had a number of companies that had expressed interest. And when talking with the team from Cherry Bekaert, we kind of laid out, here's who we are. And if we haven't scared you away yet, here are some of the challenges we'll need to work through.

Working through the deal meant providing transparency to the whole organization, Kaupp said. He recalled:

They went away and did their homework and came back with something that was honestly unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was so thoughtful, so well researched. I was just blown away. Because we're an ESOP, but even more because it's kind of our culture, we're pretty open and transparent about whatever's going on. So I said, we're going to be sharing this entire process from signing of an LOI through deal close with everyone in the company. And again, what I appreciated from [Cherry Bekaert CEO Michelle Thompson] to Roy to everyone we interacted with … was that they leaned in with us to figure out, hey, how do we take advantage of that? So Michelle actually came and spoke to all of our employeesshortly after we signed the LOI.

Thompson told MSDW that she does not shy away from different business models when evaluating acquisitions. 

We do have situations where we're doing acquisitions and the business models are different, and we have to figure out how we go from that to this [while] preserving what makes it unique... We always approach these [deals with the attitude that] we can find the right solution. We can find that we're not going to let a business structure keep us from finding a solution that's really good for both of our clients and for our people. And so from that perspective, we just looked at it as a team. We are a team together. How do we find a solution on this?

Suite Engine offers solutions powered by Dynamics 365 Business Central. Their solutions include payment processing, ecommerce channel management, residential development management, and heavy equipment dealer management systems.

“By leveraging Cherry Bekaert's vast capabilities and resources, we can continue providing seamless support for our client’s business processes through our carefully crafted solutions for Business Central," said Tom Marshello, director of Suite Engine.

For the ArcherPoint and Suite Engine teams, the post-acquisition world will look very much the same, the company representatives said. As the core of Cherry Bekaert’s Dynamics team, ArcherPoint will continue to operate as a unit. Nicholson added that his team is already fielding questions from the incoming sales team on how they can integrate their activities with the rest of the firm’s go to market operations.

“It's really exciting to be able to execute on that,” Nicholson said.