SUCCESS STORY
Aligning Process to Unlock Capacity and Integration at Sorren
13
legacy firms unified into one national organization
Scheduling meetings reduced from 2 hours to just
15
minutes
Achieved
80%
of targeted improvements in one year
Sorren is a rapidly growing national accounting firm formed by the merger of 13 legacy firms across the United States. With 26 offices around the country, the firm offers assurance, tax, accounting and advisory services to clients in government and non-profit, healthcare, construction, real estate, auto dealerships, manufacturing, technology, agriculture, and several other industries.
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Sorren began working with Boomer Consulting, Inc. on a Process Consulting engagement in August of 2024, shortly after the firm acquired several additional firms.
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“It was actually my second day on the job,” recalls Ryan Gregory, CPA, CEO of Sorren CPAs, P.C. and National Assurance Managing Partner of Sorren, Inc.
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“It worked out perfectly because it gave me the opportunity to meet key people from all of our offices across the country right away. It was a little like drinking from a fire hose, but it was a great way to understand where we were.”
The Challenge
When Sorren’s legacy firms came together, they brought strong cultures and capable professionals. However, each office had its own technology, process and ways of working.
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“We were a collection of firms that had been in existence for a long time, and the way work was structured and executed varied widely,” Gregory recalls.
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The variability extended across several operational dimensions:
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Different audit methodologies and software platforms
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Inconsistent role titles and responsibilities
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Disparate scheduling practices
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Even basic terminology differed from office to office.
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“One firm might define audit fieldwork one way, another firm defined it differently,” Gregory says. “So when we talked about fieldwork, people weren’t always talking about the same thing.”
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Operational inefficiencies also put pressure on capacity and profitability. Highly skilled professionals were spending time on tasks that could be delegated to other roles.
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“We needed to make sure production people were working at the right levels and not spending time on things that could be handled elsewhere,” Gregory notes.
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Resource sharing across offices was difficult. Even when one office had excess capacity, it was hard to shift work around when people were using different systems and following different workflows.
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Left unaddressed, these issues could have slowed integration and limited growth.
Services Used
“One of the beautiful outcomes is that leaders just showed up.”
“What Boomer focuses on—the ‘why’ behind the change—was critical. By reinforcing that constantly, it helped people understand the purpose and buy into the changes.”
The Strategic Shift
Sorren’s leadership team recognized that achieving the firm’s vision required intentional process alignment. They made a strategic decision to create a unified process framework across the organization.
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To guide this effort, Sorren engaged Boomer Consulting’s Process Consulting team. The relationship built on a prior connection with one of the legacy firms.
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Boomer’s facilitation approach quickly proved valuable in navigating the complexity of multiple firms coming together.
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“Their ability to listen really stood out,” Gregory says. “There were a lot of voices in the room, a lot of different perspectives. The Boomer team did a great job facilitating the conversation and getting everyone involved.”
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Even without deep technical expertise in assurance work, Boomer Consulting helped Sorren translate diverse input into a structured framework.
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“You could see them listening, adjusting their approach and bringing it all together,” Gregory adds. “Their ability to adapt to what the firm needed was incredible.”
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That collaborative environment helped create early momentum and buy-in from professionals across offices and levels.
Standardized roles, titles, and responsibilities across offices​
Identified tasks to be shifted to appropriate roles
Mapped core assurance workflows
Defined consistent terminology for engagement phases
Established clearer scheduling and communication cadences
The Execution
The engagement began with a series of facilitated working sessions designed to align the firm on foundational elements before tackling process mapping.
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One of the first discoveries was how much basic terminology varied between legacy firms.
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“We thought we would jump right into process alignment,” Gregory recalls. “Instead, it took us a day just to get titles mapped out because every firm used different titles.”
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Over the course of several working sessions, Sorren and Boomer Consulting:
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Standardized roles, titles, and responsibilities across offices
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Defined consistent terminology for engagement phases
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Mapped core assurance workflows
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Identified tasks to be shifted to appropriate roles
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Established clearer scheduling and communication cadences
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One early operational improvement focused on scheduling coordination. Previously, scheduling involved constant emails and ad-hoc communication. The new process introduced structured meetings and shared decision-making.
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“We moved to Monday morning scheduling meetings,” Gregory explains. “Instead of constant messages throughout the week, everyone gets together, sees the full picture and makes decisions together.”
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To support implementation, Sorren also established internal “process champions” in each office. These team members help monitor adoption and share feedback during weekly check-ins.
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“What Boomer focuses on—the ‘why’ behind the change—was critical,” Gregory explains. “By reinforcing that constantly, it helped people understand the purpose and buy into the changes.”
To support implementation, Sorren also established internal “process champions” in each office. These team members help monitor adoption and share feedback during weekly check-ins.
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The Impact
Sorren began seeing improvements in efficiency, workflow coordination and capacity management.
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One of the most notable improvements came in engagement turnaround time.
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“We saw the length of time an engagement took shrink dramatically in some offices,” Gregory says. “People weren’t picking up and putting down work as much, and we were thinking about engagements more like project management.”
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In one office, the improvement was especially clear.
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“Historically, they would have work bleeding into the summer months. By May or June last year, they had capacity because they’d finished the work sooner.”
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Other areas where Sorren noticed benefits include:
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Operational efficiency: Fewer scheduling meetings and coordination hours. Weekly scheduling meetings in some offices used to last two hours. Now those same meetings take 15 minutes.
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Improved profitability: Reduced inefficiencies and wasted efforts. Better alignment between work performed and staffing levels.
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Workflow transparency: Greater visibility into scheduling and workload across teams.
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Team experience: Reduced operational friction. Increased clarity around responsibilities and expectations.
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Gregory estimates that Sorren achieved roughly 80% of its targeted improvements within the first year. Building on this effort, they plan to engage Boomer Consulting to refresh and refine their processes in the coming months as part of an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.
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“What we built 16 or 18 months ago isn’t perfect anymore,” Gregory says. “But it’s a great foundation, and we want to keep improving it.”
Sorren's membership in Boomer Circles
The Leadership and Growth Effect
Perhaps the most significant impact has been on leadership and capacity.
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Before implementing the process framework, Gregory was deeply involved in operational details across offices.
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“As a leader, I had to be involved in every little detail early on because there was so much variability in how things were being done,” he explains.
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With standardized processes, aligned roles and empowered teams, leadership can now focus more on strategy and growth.
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“Now, the teams themselves can work together across offices without needing me involved in everything,” Gregory says.
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The process work also surfaced new leaders within the firm.
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“One of the beautiful outcomes is that leaders just showed up,” Gregory notes. “People who were involved in the process improvement effort stepped up and continued to excel in those roles.”
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The improvements have also strengthened Sorren’s broader integration strategy. Unlike many multi-office firms that allow legacy firms to continue operating independently, Sorren’s leadership intentionally pursued a unified operating model.
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“Sometimes firms acquire other firms and let them operate the way they always have,” Gregory says. “We didn’t want that. We wanted to be one firm, doing things the same way.
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With that strong process foundation now in place, Sorren is positioned to continue integrating new firms as opportunities arise, improving efficiency and scaling its operations. And Boomer Consulting is looking forward to supporting that evolution, helping leadership guide the firm into the next phase of operational maturity.