How Keto Brick Reclaims Time and Stays Compliant With Kintsugi

In 2017, Robert Sikes, a ketogenic bodybuilder and co-founder of Live Savage, was looking for a way to simplify his nutrition and take the guesswork out of his meal prep. He was competing as a professional bodybuilder and finding it difficult to keep his diet consistent. He ended up creating a convenient, high-calorie, high-energy 1000-calorie ketogenic meal replacement bar. Initially, he had no plans to turn it into a business, but there was enough demand, and Keto Brick was born.

Keto Brick is a calorie-dense meal replacement and a great source of quality dietary fat. It has grown exponentially over the last 8 years and is now available in multiple states and ships worldwide.

Challenge: Keto Brick finds sales tax compliance "too much"

Robert is a serial entrepreneur with multiple businesses. When he started Keto Brick, he manually managed his sales tax compliance in Arkansas, calculating, registering, collecting, filing, and remitting. At first, it was manageable, but when they started to reach nexus in multiple states, the process became daunting.

Robert likes to keep track of the business's numbers in QuickBooks, but as an entrepreneur with multiple employees, he finds his time stretched. Having his accountant take on sales tax wasn’t really an option, as the accountant was already busy with other aspects of the business. That approach would mean Robert only gets updated numbers periodically, giving him an incomplete financial picture the rest of the time. He realized it was time to automate his sales tax compliance.

Solution: Keto Brick turns to 'highly recommended' Kintsugi

Robert began his search for software tools to help Keto Brick with its sales tax compliance challenges. Any solution would need to integrate with their tools: QuickBooks and Shopify. While he knew other software products could potentially deliver, Kintsugi came “highly recommended,” and he was impressed by how Kintsugi answered all his questions.

The Kintsugi team was very easy to talk with and relate to. He watched the demos and participated in the onboarding calls. By the end, he was convinced he had found the tool Keto Brick needed.

Prior to Kintsugi, Keto Brick used Shopify's sales tax calculations, estimations, and tracking. However, it wasn't that great, and they noticed some discrepancies in how it reported nexus thresholds. The company didn't want to operate with uncertainty, preferring to be as transparent as possible. Robert understood Shopify wasn’t built for that, and he wanted a tool to manage sales tax compliance for Keto Brick.

Kintsugi delivered, and now Robert no longer worries whenever Keto Brick hits nexus in more states because Kintsugi takes care of the registration, filing, and remittance. Getting that workload off his shoulders wasn't just a relief; it was also a "huge time saver" for Robert, enabling him to engage in creative and strategic work for his company.

With Kintsugi, Robert can see his tax liabilities (prior month or quarter) on the dashboard at any time. He can approve it all with one click, and Kintsugi takes care of it. He can go about his business with full confidence that Keto Brick complies with sales tax laws.

Robert has saved dozens of hours after switching to Kintsugi from manually managing Keto Brick's sales tax compliance. He used to spend two hours calculating for Arkansas, and registration would take another hour, causing him to lose at least three hours just for one state.

Keto Brick has hit nexus in multiple states, which means he would have to spend even more time on tax compliance. At least 30 or 45 hours if he must register for each additional state. And he can't afford to lose that much time, not to mention he found the hours spent on sales tax compliance "arduous," "annoying," and "boring."

Robert is also happy with how Kintsugi handles his concerns and is very satisfied with the app's design.

Impact: More Time, Less Worries With Kintsugi

After ditching the manual process and automating Keto Brick's sales tax compliance with Kintsugi, Robert is happy. Following the switch, he has more time to do things he loves that help grow his business.

Here's what Robert enjoys since bringing in Kintsugi for Keto Brick:

More time: Robert spent 2-3 hours on each state where Keto Brick triggered nexus. With Kintsugi managing its sales tax compliance, he has hours to spend on what truly matters to him — the creative and strategic processes to grow his business.

Peace of mind: Besides being a huge time saver, Robert found Kintsugi’s sales tax automation a "stress reliever." It ensures that he is compliant and things are done correctly. Since tax compliance is automated, he doesn't need to worry about missing anything.

Quick answers: Whenever Robert raises a concern, he receives an immediate response from customer support. Also, all the people he spoke with from Kintsugi were easy to talk to and relatable.

Robert is happy, satisfied, and confident with Kintsugi's performance and has no plans to return to the manual process. He recommends Kintsugi to growing businesses, especially those with nexus in multiple states.

About Kintsugi

Based in San Francisco and founded in 2022, Kintsugi is dedicated to taking the stress out of sales tax compliance. Our platform automates the entire process, delivering high performance, reliability, and flexibility as your business scales. Top companies like Alchemy Marketing, Obvi, Control Plane, and Cabi use our app. Sasha Novakovich of Alchemy Cloud just spent three minutes on the platform and understood their sales tax exposure. Ravi Melwani, VP of Finance & Operations at Obvi, cuts sales tax compliance time from 2 hours to 2 minutes with Kintsugi.

We can do the same for you. Sign up or book a demo now.