Services

Interim/Outsource Accounting & Finance 

In today’s job market, it can be a struggle to find and keep the right people, especially if you need only part-time or seasonal assistance at certain positions. Personnel turnover can lead to lapses in internal controls, missed deadlines, and an overall lack of financial transparency for management and decision makers. Morrison has the expertise and availability to help you navigate these challenges and to bring consistency and reliability to your accounting and finance operations.

Our interim/outsource services include:

• Filling CFO, controller, bookkeeper, and similar roles on either an ongoing or temporary basis. 
• Providing assistance and direction in meeting year-end closing needs, bank and other reporting requirements, and other deadline or project-driven goals. 
• Clean-up of accounting records and/or assistance in preparation for external audits or tax preparers.
• “Special projects” to fill specific and often unique project-specific needs.

Budgets & Financial Modeling

Whether for management, external purposes (e.g., financing), or compliance requirements, budgets and financial forecasts done right are critical to planning and managing an effective organization. Whether you have a budgeting process currently in place, need an overhaul, or are starting from square one, Morrison can help you create a budget to plan for the road ahead.

Our budget & financial modeling services include:

• Creating or refining a budgeting processes to help organizations plan and monitor operating results, and to satisfy the needs of lenders, investors, and other stakeholders.
• Assisting with analysis of budget vs. actual results to help create a core understanding of operations and to help management identify unexpected trends and variances.
• Creating or refining cash forecasting models.

Accounting Policies, Procedures, Internal Controls & Compliance

Effective internal controls, accounting procedures, and timely compliance with financial institution covenants can prevent a lot of problems but can be difficult to assess internally. Our experienced professional accounting team can assess, document, revise or completely redesign your approach to these key disciplines.

Our internal control & compliance services include:

• Documenting current accounting procedures and controls.
• Revising or designing accounting procedures and internal controls, as needed.
• Designing and implementing procedures to prepare and submit financial institution compliance reports.
• Assessing current staff and departmental organization, and assisting with staff transitions.

Business Plans & Feasibility Studies

Whether you are considering starting a new business venture or are looking to introduce a new product or service, Morrison has the extensive planning and feasibility experience necessary for internal decisions, lender requirements, investors, grant proposals, and other needs. Morrison can help with nearly any planning challenge, including comprehensive feasibility studies and business plans that address financial, marketing, engineering and other key aspects of potential ventures.

Our planning and feasibility services include:

• Preparing feasibility studies and business plans for management decisions, financial institution (borrowing) requirements, and potential investors. These reports can be used to assess the feasibility of new operating facilities (e.g., marketing, food processing, manufacturing, cold storage, etc.) or for new product introductions, product extensions lines, marketing projects, and many other purposes.
• Preparing multi-year financial projections using our proprietary projection model.
• Assessing market potential of new products, including quantitative and secondary market research.

Competitive Grant Writing

With a success rate more than three times the national average for most grant programs and over $50 million in awards, you can rest assured knowing you are in the right hands. Morrison plans every grant project thoughtfully, with a keen attention on finding the ideal funding source to offset needed costs in a manner that maximizes the scoring potential for submitted proposals. 

We manage the grant proposal process every step of the way: we strategize with you to ensure your project is not just eligible, but that it is competitive; we create proprietary templates to help gather the information from your team that we will need to write a successful proposal; we ensure you have the proper registrations and certifications; we review proposed project budgets and even design work plans to meet grant requirements; we conduct research and leverage your own information to tell a compelling story; we advise in developing project partnerships and securing letters of support; we prepare forms for signature; independent reviewers on our team review everything top to bottom multiple times; and best of all, we submit proposals, loading everything into electronic submissions systems, checking again for completeness, and clicking send. We take the worry off of your plate and work as an extension of your organization, putting thought and care to ensure we submit the most competitive proposal we can. 

We often receive comments from agencies and reviewers that our applications stand apart and rise to the top. 

What makes the Morrison approach different? Our grant writers are more than just good writers — we know your industry and we know how the world outside the grant realm works. We stay up to date on everything from the price of steel to the consumption rates of California wine (we’d be great Jeopardy contestants). In our lives outside of Morrison, we sit on boards ourselves and review and approve multi-million dollar budgets. We also serve as independent reviewers on grant programs and use the insights gained to strengthen our own grant proposals.

Our Competitive Grant Writing services include preparing competitive grant proposals annually through the following programs:

• USDA Value-Added Producer Grant 
• USDA Local Food Promotion Program and Farmers Market Promotion Program 
• USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Grant Program 
• USDA Risk Management Education Program
• USDA Specialty Crop Research Initiative 
• USDA Fertilizer
• Production Expansion Program
• Various state Specialty Crop Block Grant Programs, including in California, Oregon, and Michigan
• California Energy Commission Food Production Investment Program

In addition, we often leverage our skills to write in one-time programs, or programs that have less consistent funding cycles. Among others, these have included various CalRecycle, California Energy Commission, and US Department of Energy programs; and other state and federal programs. We can leverage our grant writing and project management skills to write nearly any grant application you’re interested in. 

Strategic Grant Planning

Sometimes grant opportunities sound appealing, but they might have requirements that can end up being too big of a burden for organizations and companies. Some grants can pay only for equipment and will require companies to pay for labor; others won’t pay for equipment at all, and will only cover personnel costs. In a given year there may be five opportunities that your organization is eligible to apply for, but only one that will pay for the costs that your company has prioritized for that fiscal year. 

Grant programs don’t have to be an exact fit, but going after every grant opportunity without a solid strategy could commit you to executing projects that aren’t a priority or that don’t make good business sense. Not seeing the full scope of grant funding available could also result in your organization missing out on opportunities and spending more of your own money. 

Our Strategic Grant Planning services include working with key members of your team to plan for and methodically and strategically pursue grant funding. We work with leaders across your organization, gathering your marketing team, director of operations, grower relations personnel, and even your board to learn your strategic goals for the next three to five years and match the right grant programs with those initiatives, providing you with a roadmap that includes details on grant requirements, resources needed, and timing of program due dates. Don’t have a strategic plan? No problem. We can help with that too and include grant strategy as part of our efforts.  

Grant Administration

Once you have successfully received a grant, keeping up with the agency’s required reporting and compliance measures can be intimidating for any organization, especially considering that the success of future grant applications can sometimes rest in your ability to demonstrate effective administration of past grant awards. For that reason, and to alleviate the burden that can come with grant compliance, Morrison works with a number of clients to provide grant administration services. 

Grant administration can often be written into grant proposals, so you can have an outside party like Morrison manage the entire grant project, including confirming vendors, managing collection and payment of invoices, and interfacing directly with the granting agency. 

Our Grant Administration services include:

• Monthly reimbursement requests
• Quarterly, semi-annual, and annual reporting requirements 
• Budget and work plan modifications