Audited by the IRS, this Firm Used Shoeboxed to Validate Transactions

Brooklynn Chandler Willy is CEO and President of Texas Financial Advisory, a wealth management firm. Founded in 2008, the firm works with pre-retirees and retirees to help build financial plans to get them to and through retirement.

A graduate of St. Mary’s University School of Law, Brooklynn is also a Registered Financial Consultant (RFC), Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA), Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), and carries Life Insurance Licenses for multiple states.

The background: Using Shoeboxed for client’s financial statements

At the wealth management firm she runs, Brooklynn was using Earth Class Mail to handle the financial statements that her clients would mail to her. However, it wasn’t a good fit for what she needed it to do.

“I was using Earth Class Mail, where they would take the mail and scan it, but it was not working well. All the mail was 100 pages all scanned into 1 PDF, and it was taking up too much time to break up the PDF based on the individual. Which could be for 48 different accounts.”

Brooklynn found Shoeboxed, a receipt scanning service, provided a better way to generate individual PDF scans per client, which her team then transferred to the firm’s CRM.

Meanwhile, she was still keeping business receipts in Ziplock bags. “I had been paying for Shoeboxed, but not really using it [in that way]. I was pregnant, and I let some things slip.”

The challenge: Dealing with an IRS audit

When the Internal Revenue Service audited Brooklynn, she sprang into action. “I had all the receipts,” Brooklynn recalls. “I just hadn’t been sending them off. So [when I got audited], I sent them all off to Shoeboxed, and they scanned them up.”

Brooklynn recounts how the auditors would ask her about certain transactions on bank statements and how she would use Shoeboxed to pull up the receipts as proof.

Shoeboxed's Magic Envelope

This service is an envelope (with pre-paid postage within the US) that users fill with physical receipts and mail to Shoeboxed's office. The receipts are then scanned, human-verified, logged into users' accounts, and safely stored.

“[Shoeboxed] actually saved me during my IRS audit because they would look at the bank statements and then see a transaction and then ask me for the receipt. And I could go and type in the amount or whatever it was, and it would pull up on Shoeboxed.”

—Brooklynn Chandler Willy, CEO

The search function is now one of Brooklynn’s favorite Shoeboxed features. “It was very nice to be in an IRS audit across from an IRS auditor and to have him pinpoint something from a bank statement and … you could pull it up right there [on Shoeboxed]. That was pretty cool.”

The results: $50,000 savings per year & the satisfaction of going digital

Today, Brooklynn has two Shoeboxed accounts: “I have the business’s financials and then I have the business’s client statements.”

We asked Brooklynn to quantify the value she gets from Shoeboxed, and she replied, “To have someone full-time do what I have Shoeboxed do, I probably would have to pay them a salary and benefits of $50,000 a year—it’s a full-time job.”

“Shoeboxed helps us stay in check and stay organized. It allowed us to become paperless. Even though we’re still getting … paper, we’re able to turn it around, get it off our plate, and scan it into our CRM and QuickBooks. There’s satisfaction in that.”

—Brooklynn Chandler Willy, CEO

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