Kelsey Walker, Account Manager at Zero-Max has been on a mission to take on the role of technology disruption agent since joining the company four years ago. 

“My main focus is implementing new technologies and working on automation.” 

Kelsey Walker
Account Manager

Challenge:

Zero-Max was previously using an Excel add-in for financial reporting. They were having a lot of problems with it and needed a cost-effective replacement to better handle their financial reporting needs without complexities. At the same time, they wanted to avoid high costs associated with larger full-scale FP&A platforms.

Walker and her two team members oversee all the accounting functions at the firm – including AR/AP, financial close, sales tax, and payroll, and more. 

Walker was on a mission to bring automation to financial reporting, including the need to go paperless. 

Solution and benefits for the Zero-Max team powered by Datarails

Walker described her old tool as “Finicky”. She had a hard time connecting the company’s complex data with this outdated add-on. It was very slow and when she tried uploading files into it, more often than not it wouldn’t connect and crash. 

“We jumped on CONNECT by Datarails because we liked a lot of the functionality it offered and how fast it is to connect our layers of data.”

Kelsey Walker
Account Manager

With CONNECT, the Zero-Max finance team immediately saw these benefits:

  1. Improved Connectivity: Unlike their previous solution, CONNECT by Datarails offers seamless and reliable connectivity, allowing users to refresh data quickly without cumbersome processes.
  2. User-Friendly Formulas: The formulas are intuitive and easy to understand. This reduced the learning curve for other users.
  3. Drill-Down Capability: The ability to quickly and easily drill down into financial data has been a significant improvement, according to Kelsey.
  4. Deeper Analysis: The ability to do in-depth ad-hoc analysis will help the team perform deeper analysis and reporting. 
  5. Customizable Data Buckets: Creation of custom data categories that don’t exist in their ERP, offers unprecedented and flexible reporting options.
  6. Less tedious reporting: CONNECT’s abilities save Kelsey and the entire finance function at Zero-Max countless hours – previously spent on tedious reports such as their margin and mix reports. 
  7. Data Visualization: Though not there yet, step two for Walker is to take full advantage of the tool’s dashboards and widgets to make their data easily visible to all stakeholders. 

“It’s always there and open, you can just hit refresh anytime. It’s very fast, easy, and reliable.” 

Kelsey Walker
Account Manager

Conclusion 

Walker adds that her vision for the usage of the tool is in line with the growth of the business and the success of the finance team in delivering to the company’s strategy. She says: “Anything that’s tedious, anything that’s taking you more than 5 minutes, and you’re doing it again and again, let’s talk about it and automate it.” 

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