When I joined, the company was doing roughly $100M in revenue. Through organic growth and a merger that formed a multi-billion-dollar combined business, it became something else entirely. Its financial reporting did not come along for the ride.
The problem
The merged company ran on five ERP systems. Each had its own chart of accounts, its own conventions, its own owners. Closing the books took 15 days. Consolidated AR and AP reporting was a manual assembly job, which meant the leadership team was steering a global business while looking two to three weeks into the past.
You cannot cut costs you cannot see. Slow visibility was not an inconvenience. It was expensive in a very literal way: the company was carrying debt it could have been repaying, because nobody could see the cash position clearly enough, early enough, to act.
The approach
Across three roles, from architect to director, my team and I rebuilt financial visibility layer by layer:
- One integration spine. SQL-based ETL integrating the five ERPs, with master data management on Boomi (aligned to Deloitte's strategic recommendations) so entities, customers and accounts reconciled across systems.
- Consolidation on Vena, planning on Planful. The AR/AP consolidation initiative cut reporting times in half. Planful centralized financial consolidation, planning and budgeting, and drove the close from 15 days to 5.
- Anaplan planning data joined to actuals. Budget, forecast, actuals and variance finally lived in one reporting model, connecting FP&A outputs to ERP reality.
- Executive dashboards over a Fabric-based architecture. Real-time operational and financial analytics across global ERP systems, supported by a global BI function my team ran with a 90% two-week SLA and 100% retention.
The outcome
With the consolidated picture in place, Finance could finally see cash clearly and early. That visibility enabled the largest single cost-cutting measure in the company's history: early debt repayment that avoided roughly $40M in interest expense. I did not sign the repayment. Finance leadership did. My team built the visibility that made the decision obvious.
The close went from 15 days to 5. Documentation and reporting supported a $3B post-merger financial consolidation. And a leadership team that had been steering by memory got instruments.
You cannot cut costs you cannot see. Visibility is not a reporting nicety. It is a financial instrument with a measurable yield.
What this means for you
If your close takes weeks or your entities do not reconcile, there is money in the gap. Usually a lot of it. The playbook here, spine first, then consolidation, then executive instruments, transfers to any multi-entity business. Here is how I run it.