Charging Station Company Greenlane Infrastructure Accelerates Their Launch Plans with SPRCHRGR

1.     Background

Founded in 2023 through a $675 million joint venture between Daimler Truck, BlackRock Climate Infrastructure, and NextEra Energy, Greenlane Infrastructure (Greenlane™) is a pioneering technology and energy company supporting the transition to commercial ZEV usage by creating a high-quality, emissions-free charging network for commercial freight vehicles across North America. 

 With ambitious expansion plans and a complex multi-entity corporate structure to protect their intellectual property while acquiring, developing, and operating a growing portfolio of real estate assets, Greenlane needed robust, scalable financial management right out of the gate – which led their founding team to engage with SPRCHRGR very early on. 

 2.    Challenge

Greenlane’s founding team wanted to align their people, processes, and technology on a massive scale but couldn’t do everything all at once – they needed interim accounting and finance expertise while they worked to insource their own full-time team for the long term. They also understood that the business needed a sophisticated software solution that could scale with its growth and streamline its financial processes but wanted their incoming finance team leaders to participate in key decisions like ERP system design.

“We knew from working with SPRCHRGR in the past that they bring a problem-solving mindset,” says Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of Greenlane. “We brought them in to hit the ground running, get our books ready for the next phase, and support our finance transformation before we built out our own internal team. We needed accounting experts with the ability to think several steps ahead. They also helped us execute an ERP investment to accelerate our infrastructure expansion plans.”

 3.    Solution

Phase 1: Crawl

Enter SPRCHRGR, who engineered a solution to keep pace with Greenlane’s vision using a thoughtfully phased approach. The first order of business was to remove Greenlane from spreadsheets and prepare fully reconciled financial statements, accounting for everything that had already been spent across the different entities.

 Next, we relieved some bottlenecks that were holding back the founding team by selecting and implementing an interim tech stack to run day-to-day accounting operations across payroll, vendor bill payments, expense reporting, monthly close, and consolidated financial reporting across the multi-entity structure. Anticipating where Greenlane was headed, we chose scalable, transferable tools wherever practical. Meanwhile, Greenlane searched for a full-time CFO with industry experience to guide the company’s financial strategy and lead its rapid growth.

“Greenlane was already breaking ground on their first few locations when they hired us, so this was a plane we essentially had to build while it was already flying!” said Mark Wald, Founder & CEO of SPRCHRGR. “We started off by creating a standardized chart of accounts and organized their initial financial activities into audit-ready books and records for each entity, then prepared consolidated financial reports to enable management-level visibility and decision-making. With thoughtful planning of the interim accounting and software needs, we made it much easier and faster for the next phase we all knew was coming next.”

Phase 2: Walk

Once Greenlane found its new CFO, SPRCHRGR quickly aligned with them on a plan to implement a much more powerful, integrated ERP software. We ultimately selected Sage Intacct to address the company’s already complex financial management needs, and to their financial processes as the enterprise continues to scale into the future.

“We needed a system that would support the planned growth expected over the next few years,” says Angie Stone, Senior Controller at SPRCHRGR. “With Sage Intacct, we could design and build it specific to Greenlane’s unique needs. They needed robust reporting and analytics functionality to support audit and investor obligations. Together, we found the right solution that could scale with efficiency across a large multi-entity environment, which was key to managing the organization as a whole.”

Greenlane’s management team pedigree and large corporate sponsors embraced SPRCHRGR’s “measure twice, cut once” philosophy. We began with a series of intensive planning sessions to document functional requirements, contemplating every foreseeable business function necessary to support Greenlane’s rapidly scaling infrastructure buildout and ongoing operations. We also established robust system specifications regarding access, roles, and approvals to align with Greenlane’s strict IT security policies.

Phase 3: Run

Greenlane added a full-time controller in May of 2024 to collaborate with SPRCHRGR through the ERP implementation project and ultimately take over Greenlane’s day-to-day accounting functions in the new system. While SPRCHRGR’s accounting team continued to operate Greenlane’s day-to-day accounting and financial reporting needs in the interim system, SPRCHRGR’s implementation team worked closely with its controller to complete the implementation for seven related business unit entitles in a twelve-week sprint, from start to finish.

At every step of the way, Greenlane benefited from SPRCHRGR’s adherence to industry best practices:

• Performing accounting functions concurrently in both the legacy system and the new ERP for two full months, then reconciling results between systems to ensure completeness and accuracy before winding down the legacy books and archiving all relevant data for audit support purposes.

• Utilizing a sandbox environment to test new configurations and integrations in the months following initial go-live, without risking the integrity of their production data and business-critical workflows.

• Preparing extensive process documentation and training for Greenlane’s growing team.

• Providing ongoing support of the Intacct ERP solution.

Outcome

Greenlane partnered with SPRCHRGR as a force multiplier to supercharge their growth and success, and we delivered.  As tech-forward problem-solvers, we thrive in fast-paced engagements like this one, where our experience and mindset produce resilient solutions that futureproof our client’s business. Our holistic approach not only addressed Greenlane's immediate needs for financial accountability but also positioned them for future expansion – enabling them to focus on the mission of driving a cleaner future with a powerful, reliable network of charging stations across North America.

“We are pleased with the broad range of support we received from SPRCHRGR,” says Greenlane’s Financial Project Manager, a key stakeholder in the project from start to finish. “Their diverse team really helped professionalize the back-office systems and workflows that run our growing enterprise – and they did so in a way that is scalable and handles complexity. We’ll continue to rely on SPRCHRGR to manage our ERP platform with technical support, custom reporting, and other ad-hoc services for years to come.”

SPRCHRGR is a great wingman for ambitious teams and growth-minded businesses. We love to start early, adapting our role and service offerings as our clients’ needs evolve. Partner with us to cosource or outsource your critical business processes and to implement and manage the complex systems they run on.