Multi-Department Finance Dashboard in InsightOut Delivers 240% ROI for Wolf & Company

Solution

With each discovery call, the Data Solutions team gained a clearer picture of each department’s workflows and data sources. “A collaborative approach is the key to a project like this,” said Ron Quidatano, VP of Operations in the Data Solutions practice. “It’s exciting to put a solution in front of people and watch them begin to imagine what could be.”

Together with their stakeholders in finance, marketing, and talent development, Data Solutions designed a new future-state solution: one real-time financial reporting dashboard that meets the needs of three very different user groups.

The project plan followed Wolf Data Solutions’ proven agile methodology, emphasizing continuous collaboration and iterative development. Following discovery, the team conducted weekly meetings that included both visualization reviews and project status updates. Each week featured:

• One 60-minute session for reviewing and refining data visualizations with stakeholders.
• Live, interactive user acceptance testing results reviews where users could provide real-time feedback.
• One 30-minute administrative meeting for project status and planning.

“The approach we take is simple and agile,” Quidatano said. “An agile approach means you’re constantly showing your clients the progress and working to incorporate their feedback. And if the client doesn’t see something real until six months later, that’s not agile,” he cautioned. “We find an agile approach keeps us better aligned with our clients’ needs. Better alignment leads to better efficiency, and ultimately a better ROI on the project.”

“The Wolf Data Solutions team was easy for the Finance department to work with,” confirmed Magee. “We formed a great partnership and met every week to get it done.”

During each weekly meeting, end-users watched the dashboard come to life. “Our goal is for clients to begin interacting with an initial version of the platform within two sessions,” said Quidatano. “After that, we’re in the user acceptance testing phase, and we’re making changes based on their feedback.”

As development progressed, the team discovered additional needs unique to each user group. For the Finance department, the Data Solutions team created the ability to drill down from high-level executive reports, all the way to individual ledger entries. The solution also automated the previously manual process of data extraction from Business Central, and the hourly data refreshes give the platform near real-time accuracy.

Additionally, the automated dashboard centralized and streamlined tracking for L&D expenses. The real-time access to financial data enabled the Talent Development department to monitor their budget with greater accuracy and efficiency. Finally, for the Marketing department, the team created specialized views to identify unbudgeted campaigns, track variances, and log explanations.

InsightOut’s flexibility allowed these customizations to be integrated seamlessly into the platform without disrupting the core functionality needed by all teams. This collaborative approach allowed each user group to request functionalities specific to their needs, with the reassurance that their financial data is accurate and consistent.

Result

This financial dashboard was built to accommodate diverse user needs within a single platform. At the executive level, it provides decisionmakers with a comprehensive 50,000-foot view of the firm’s performance relative to the budget. At the same time, the Finance, Marketing, and Talent Development departments can review more granular details for deeper analysis.

This multi-team approach promoted data accuracy and consistency across each function. All teams now access the same authoritative data source – simply filtered and presented according to their specific operational needs.

“Partnering with InsightOut to build an automated dashboard for tracking our Learning & Development expenses has been a game-changer for our Talent Development team. We’ve moved away from messy, error-prone Excel spreadsheets and now have real-time visibility into budgeted versus actual costs. This platform has empowered us to make faster, data-driven decisions, stay aligned with our financial goals, and focus more on strategic initiatives. InsightOut’s solution has brought clarity, efficiency, and confidence to our budgeting process.”
— Anna G. Thompson, Senior Manager, Talent Development, Wolf & Company, P.C.

Additionally, the automation of manual workflows created a more tangible return on investment. Prior to this solution, the Finance department spent between 10 and 15 hours a month pulling reports, and the Marketing department estimated losing 8 hours every month manually merging travel and expense reports with event campaign reports. Between these two teams alone, InsightOut’s data automation saves Wolf & Company up to 7 weeks of full-time equivalent per year – a 240% return on investment realized over 3 years.