Beyond Jedox
When Daniel joined, the firm had almost no FP&A infrastructure in place. The company was running on Jedox, a tool they had never fully owned internally.
“We inherited an environment that we had used a third-party consultant for. Whoever we were working with on their end didn’t fully have an understanding of how the implementation went or how the models worked to begin with.”
The lack of flexibility quickly became a problem. The team needed a platform they could control themselves, customize easily, and adapt as their FP&A function matured.
Jedox didn’t have an easy Excel interface where we could easily specify exactly what we wanted to drill down into. It was all web-based, which wasn’t as easy to use, wasn’t as flexible, and it just didn’t look great either.
After evaluating other platforms, including Anaplan, Vena, and Cube, Daniel and his team chose Datarails.
“Datarails seemed like the easiest platform to use and most user-friendly. Having an Excel-native tool, where we could specify exactly what we want and make it look exactly the way we want was really, really important.”
Flexible, User-friendly, and Excel-native
With Datarails connected to NetSuite, the firm began building a centralized FP&A environment designed around flexibility and scenario planning.
One of the big benefits of Datarails is the ability to take the NetSuite data and morph it into whatever makes sense, without having to change your GL or chart of accounts. If you want to enrich any specific data point, you can do it in Datarails and not worry about messing with the ERP.
That flexibility allowed the team to move beyond basic budgeting and build a much more robust planning environment.
We wanted to have multiple scenarios, not just a budget, but several different forecasts for different situations. Datarails has been really helpful with that.
The team built a detailed revenue model for management fees, layered in multi-scenario forecasting, and created customized reporting structures tied directly to prior-year actuals and operational spend.
For Daniel, the biggest transformation wasn’t necessarily time savings. It was the ability to continuously enhance what finance could deliver. Rather than simply automating existing work, Daniel found himself raising the bar on what was possible. Building more sophisticated models, adding scenario layers, and thinking about how financial data could be presented to stakeholders across the firm.
You start with something, you build something nice, and then you realize, ‘I can take this to another level.’ You just keep iterating and keep going.
Single Source of Truth
As the firm’s FP&A processes matured, Datarails became the operational foundation for finance.
Datarails keeps you really organized and honest. Everything lives in one place. You’re not navigating through some folder structure that you or someone else built. I know exactly where to look for things and how to change things.
Before, financial reporting meant navigating disconnected spreadsheets and folder structures. Now, the team works from a centralized system tied directly to live NetSuite data.
That consolidation and visibility brought further confidence.
I certainly worry less about the state of things because I know I’ve built a report where I can look at something the way I want to.
Into the AI Era
The next chapter of the firm’s finance transformation is already underway. Daniel recently implemented the FinanceOS AI Connector, allowing AI tools to work directly with live, structured data from Datarails and NetSuite, grounded in the firm’s financial context and reporting structure.
With the FinanceOS AI Connector, we can make something that looks infinitely more beautiful than an Excel spreadsheet, but still have that same exact data. You can speak in natural language to it and have it build whatever you want. The world is your oyster.
Daniel has started building an executive-facing dashboard with real-time net income, cash visibility, KPIs, financial statements, and budget-versus-actual reporting, all connected to live data without opening a spreadsheet.
Next, the team plans to build department-level dashboards that give business leaders direct visibility into spend and performance in real time.
For Daniel, the impact goes far beyond efficiency. It’s about fundamentally changing how financial insight gets shared across an organization.
We can share artifacts within our organization with real-time data from Datarails. We can build out a really nice-looking report and have it roll out live to everyone.
A Foundation for What’s Next
Datarails has evolved far beyond budgeting and forecasting software for the firm. It has become the operational layer that the finance team continues building on as the business grows.
The way I think about it is that Datarails serves as this foundation. Once you build up enough, whether it’s the input reports or the outputs, you get to a point where you do have a really strong foundation for everything else.
That foundation has allowed the team to continue expanding into new areas, including AI-powered reporting and real-time executive dashboards, while also evaluating additional capabilities like cash flow forecasting.
When you are confident in the structure, naturally you just want to add more on top of it. One thing will lead to another and you can get even more results out of it.
