ForeScout Simplifies Financial Reporting Process and Improves Efficiency by 78%

THE CHALLENGE

Network security company ForeScout Technologies was looking for a solution to manage time more efficiently.

Every month, the company’s finance department reviewed numerous revenue statements in the form of Excel files. Some of the reports needed to be reformatted and loaded into other systems. Others had to be interpreted, validated and analyzed by staff before reporting to C-level execs.

Datarails maximized our efficiency and made the current process incredibly effective. It was a big win for us.

Will Lederer R, Senior Finance Manager of Business Systems, ForeScout Technologies

“In my job, I have to do a lot of data validation, and the best way to view the data is to drop it into Excel,” explains Will Lederer, ForeScout’s Senior Finance Manager of Business Systems.

The constant reviewing, checking and comparing of data became an unwieldy chore. Lederer began searching for a better option, and then he discovered Datarails.

THE SOLUTION

ForeScout’s reporting and review processes improved dramatically once the company started working with Datarails. As soon as they connected their files to the Datarails platform, Lederer could immediately compare data to determine if the correct changes had occurred. Since Datarails automatically identified revisions, he no longer needed to manually search for them.

“I’m not a stranger to using Excel,” says Lederer, “but Datarails opened my eyes to what it can do.”

In addition, Datarails ensured that there was a single version of truth, so that it was always possible to determine which file was the most recent. Team members could easily check files before Lederer even received them. At the same time, executives were quickly able to review prior versions.

It was very difficult and time-consuming to always have to manually compare multiple spreadsheets to make sure that there were no mistakes.

Finally, ForeScout tapped into Datarails’ visualizations capabilities to create high-level reports for analysis that could provide a snapshot of the data.

These major enhancements to the reporting process were accomplished even though ForeScout employees continued to work as they always had, using the same Microsoft Excel with which they were familiar with. Datarails increased the team’s speed and accuracy—and their value.

The beauty of Datarails is being able to compare one version with another and see what the differences are.

In addition, says Lederer, “Datarails maximized my power as a professional, because I now no longer have to spend so much time doing repetitive work.”