The challenge
A multi-office advisory firm closed books across four locations with slightly different spreadsheet templates, local naming conventions, and approval habits. Month-end reporting took two full weeks—mostly assembly, not analysis.
Partners wanted consistent visibility into utilization and margin by practice area, but each office exported data differently. Analysts became translators between systems instead of reviewers of performance.
What we did
We treated reporting as a workflow problem first. Before adding automation, we aligned how each office captured time, expenses, and work-in-progress so downstream steps could trust the inputs.
- Standardized data capture templates and field definitions across offices
- Designed approval checkpoints with clear ownership before consolidation
- Automated recurring reconciliations and variance flagging for analysts
- Built a leadership dashboard tied to the same definitions used in close
Results
Month-end assembly time dropped by more than half. Analysts reclaimed nearly two days per close cycle for review and commentary instead of copy-paste reconciliation.
Leadership now receives a consistent weekly snapshot using the same metrics that feed the formal close—reducing surprises when numbers shift at month end.
How it compounds
With a stable reporting backbone in place, the firm is extending the same workflow patterns to client profitability views and partner compensation modeling without rebuilding from scratch each quarter.