Data Everywhere, Answers Nowhere
After over 45 years as a family-owned business, Upchurch was acquired by a private equity group in 2024. The transition ushered in a new era of growth and modernization, with the company acquiring new businesses as frequently as every three to five months.
Leighton joined Upchurch in March 2025. At the time, the company’s core financial, operational, and workforce data lived across Sage Intacct, BuildOps, and ADP, but reporting and analysis were still largely manual, relying on spreadsheets, paperwork, and disconnected files with no central place bringing everything together.
“When I got here, one of the most irritating parts was asking, ‘Where do I go for this?’ I would open two files and think, ‘Shouldn’t these numbers tie?’ Then the answer would be, ‘Maybe check that other file.’”
That fragmentation became apparent when the team had board requests or urgent questions to answer. Responding often meant searching across several files, extracting the right data, and consolidating everything manually in Excel.
Upchurch needed more than another reporting tool. It needed a reliable data foundation that could connect its different systems, support a fast-moving finance team, and make reliable information easier to deliver across the business.
Choosing Transparency Over Hidden Complexity
Upchurch evaluated Planful, Vena, and Datarails. Planful quickly fell out of contention, leaving the team with a close comparison between Vena and Datarails.
The decisive difference became clear inside Excel.
Vena reports included hidden rows containing code. For a finance team trying to eliminate complexity and gain greater confidence in its reporting, adding logic that could not be easily seen or understood was a major concern.
When we saw hidden rows with code in the Vena report, that was a huge red flag. We don’t like hidden rows at all. That would have been a huge pain.
Datarails offered a more transparent approach. Finance could continue working in Excel, with formulas connected directly to the underlying data in Datarails so the logic behind each report remained visible and traceable. The team could preserve the reports and formatting executives already knew while adding automation without introducing hidden complexity.
Instead of forcing Upchurch to adapt its reporting around the software, Datarails could adapt to the way the company already worked.
Three Systems, One Source of Truth
Datarails brings together Upchurch’s financial data from Sage Intacct, operational data from BuildOps, and workforce data from ADP.
Instead of operating as isolated sources, the three systems now feed Datarails FinanceOS, which serves as a unified operating system for reporting, dashboards, and analysis. Finance has one trusted environment from which to understand performance and share reliable information across the business.
Datarails gives us one place for all the information we need from our different systems. Having all of that data together for reporting has been awesome.
That foundation has also made reporting more dependable. Instead of comparing different files and trying to determine which number is correct, finance can work from reports connected directly to its underlying data.
Datarails is our one-stop shop and source of truth. It has definitely made our jobs easier.
From Two Days to One Click
Leighton estimates that Datarails has reduced reporting time by at least half and potentially as much as 75%.
Tasks and requests that once needed finance to search through several files can now be handled from one connected environment. At the same time, the team can preserve the reports executives already know and prefer.
We can take an existing Excel report, keep the numbers and formatting exactly the way an executive likes to see them, automate it with Datarails, and publish that exact report to a dashboard.
One monthly executive report previously took a controller approximately two days to update. Leighton rebuilt it as a Datarails dashboard, where changing the reporting month automatically refreshes the results.
He is now repeating this process across the organization, working with leaders to understand the information they use to run the business and turning those existing reports into live, reliable dashboards.
Board requests and ad hoc items used to mean going into several different files, pulling the data, and consolidating it in Excel. Now, it’s seamless with Datarails.
A Reason to Look Forward to Budget Season
Upchurch’s previous budget was built entirely in Excel, with little automation and limited account-level detail. The process was tedious and required substantial manual work.
With Datarails, the team is building its next budget at a detailed level using connected templates and a controlled process tied to the same data foundation as its reporting.
For Leighton, the change is significant enough to make even budget season feel exciting.
Last year, budgeting was meticulous. Everything was in Excel, with no real automation. With the templates and tools in Datarails, I’m genuinely excited for budget season.
As Upchurch continues to acquire companies and strengthen its finance infrastructure, Datarails gives the team a foundation powering its growth.
Datarails has been incredible. I don’t think we could be any more pleased.
