One Size Doesn’t Fit All
Running finance across many industries means dealing with more than just different revenue streams and expenses. Every business has its own language, processes, and systems, from the accounting software it depends on to the terminology its teams use.
“We have become well-versed in a lot of nuances of different industries, that’s for sure.”
The organization relies on several specialized accounting systems. The hotel’s software is designed for hospitality, while the dealership’s system handles everything from vehicle sales and service orders to customer relationships.
Although the team had previously considered consolidating some of these systems, doing so would have meant sacrificing functionality essential to each business.
Instead, the finance team had to find a way to bring together information from systems that weren’t designed to work together.
Preparing reports for the board and owners meant pulling trial balances from different accounting systems, mapping accounts, combining data in Excel, and checking that everything reconciled. With businesses operating across unrelated industries, even producing a consistent picture of financial performance required considerable effort.
Budgeting and forecasting brought another familiar headache: spreadsheets traveling back and forth between teams, with everyone trying to keep track of the latest version.
All that manual work also made it difficult to provide business managers with timely financial information. Without clear visibility into budgets and performance, they couldn’t always make decisions with the full picture in front of them.
The team needed a better way to manage reporting without disrupting the systems each business relied on.
The Right Fit for Every Industry
Sam first discovered Datarails at an MRI software conference. MRI was already one of the organization’s accounting systems, and Datarails’ existing integration immediately stood out.
The team went on to evaluate other solutions, including Spreadsheet Server, but found that they couldn’t offer the same combination of data connectivity with reporting, dashboards, and budgeting capabilities.
The others didn’t have the integration capabilities that Datarails had. It was still going to be a pretty manual process getting the data into these other systems.
Sam BrownCFO and Controller
Datarails could connect the organization’s financial data without requiring any of the businesses to replace their existing accounting systems.
Another important advantage was being able to keep their existing Excel budgeting templates.
The hotel’s and dealership’s general managers were accustomed to their budgeting templates, and their first concern was whether the new platform would change the way they worked.
The question I kept getting was, ‘Is it still the same template that we always use?’ My answer was, ‘Yes, it’s the same spreadsheet.’ They said, ‘Okay, we’re good then.’
Sam Brown
With familiar templates and a more structured process behind them, the team could improve how budgets and forecasts were managed without asking everyone to learn a completely new system.
From Half a Day to One Click
One of the most immediate improvements has been the speed of recurring financial reporting, particularly for the organization’s monthly board meetings.
Sam no longer has to manually pull together the numbers from each accounting system every time a report needs updating.
From a reporting perspective, we have our board meetings usually about once a month, and preparing those numbers has been so much easier, so much quicker. Just pressing a button and the numbers are all there.
Sam Brown
For Sierra, a recurring report that previously took approximately half a day of manual data entry can now be refreshed with a button, leaving her more time to review and analyze the results.
But faster reporting is only valuable if the team can also trust and understand the numbers.
Datarails’ drill-down capabilities allow Sam and Sierra to trace figures back to the underlying data directly from Excel, rather than navigating through different accounting systems, searching individual months, and tracking down invoices.
The drill-downs are where I get a lot of excitement in Excel. Before, I’d have to sign into a system, do 20 clicks into each month, and then go to another system to figure out the invoice. Now, I can drill down and immediately figure out when and where the outlier was.
Sierra SmithSenior Data Analyst
That access changes the conversation with leadership. When questions come up, finance can investigate the details during the discussion instead of going away to research them and returning with another report.
For Sam, it’s also about confidence. An incorrect figure can undermine trust in financial reporting, even when the rest of the information is right. With less manual data entry and the ability to trace numbers back to their sources, the team can spend less time checking the mechanics of a report and more time understanding what it’s telling them.
Better Numbers, Better Decisions
Beyond making finance’s work easier, Datarails is helping the organization’s business managers put financial information to use.
In the real estate business, for example, property managers had limited access to clear, timely reports showing how their buildings were performing against budget or prior-year results. Obtaining that information was often a lengthy process, and some decisions were made without reviewing the numbers at all.
Now, with Datarails dashboards, property managers can quickly check where they stand financially before making decisions, from approving building expenses to deciding whether a project should wait.
I’ve received feedback from the property managers that it’s been helpful for them to make quick decisions. They can log into the dashboard and know right away: Am I under or over budget? Should I do this now? Should I wait?
Sierra Smith
And that’s just the beginning. Sam and Sierra are bringing the same visibility to more businesses across the organization, building dashboards around what each team actually needs to know. From property managers to executive leadership, they’re making financial information a part of everyday decision-making, rather than something people only see when the next report arrives.
