During Adra^® by Trintech’s recent customer conference, Trintech Connect, Jennifer Beougher, Chief Financial Officer of Ruby Slippers, spoke about the company’s accounting automation journey — detailing their former financial close complexities, why they selected Adra as their financial close solution, and the return on investment (ROI) they experienced.

Ruby Slippers’ Accounting Automation Journey

Their Manual Financial Close Challenges

Ruby Slippers is a restaurant company that specializes in brunch with 18 locations. Before they implemented Adra, Ruby Slippers was growing rapidly and utilizing a financial system that wasn’t scalable for their business. A single accounting manager supervised the account reconciliation and financial close processes, as well as manually assigning tasks and tracking them from spreadsheets. Feedback and updates were done in person or through phone calls and emails, which consumed time that could have been used to complete the processes.

The use of manual processes and spreadsheets delayed Ruby Slippers’ financial processes considerably.

“Before Adra, our bank reconciliations weren’t getting done until week three or four of the close, which affected the numbers being reviewed.” – Jennifer Beougher, CFO of Ruby Slippers

Their account receivables, corporate card and gift card reconciliations were personally performed by the CFO and a 3^rd-Party. Additionally, they had to manually pull data for auditors and found it difficult to identify changes in the General Ledger balance.

Something had to change not only to close in a timely way, but to reduce the risk that was being incurred by their manual reporting methods that gave them no insight into any potential errors.

Ruby Slippers Selected Adra as Their Financial Close Solution

“Time is money. We were able to save whole days of our close. And when you’re in a high growth company, having that time every month allows our high-value resources to switch and do value-adding tasks.” – Jennifer Beougher, CFO of Ruby Slippers

After moving their financial processes to Adra, Ruby Slippers experienced accounting automation ROI and benefits in:

• Defined workflows
• Automatic, cyclical data integration
• Shortened time to close by 3 days

Now, Ruby Slippers utilizes an online close checklist that is distributed to all team members that clarifies the workflows of the financial close, and their responsibilities. The close is completed by business day six, rather than day nine, and the Profit & Loss statement is submitted to management by day 11.

Bank reconciliation data is loaded twice every week, with plans to load it daily in the future, and bank reconciliations are completed by day five — five days earlier than when they were closing without Adra. Ruby Slippers’ accounting team eliminated the use of a 3^rd-Party for their reconciliations, and now have the ability to complete complex transaction matching and reconciliations through Adra^® Matcher in-house in half the time.

These benefits also significantly reduced risk for their business by increasing accuracy, saving time, and allowing teams to focus on more strategic activities, such as formulating initiatives that decrease financial risk overall.

“There’s less surprises for me at the end of the quarter, because now I can see what’s happening every month.” – Jennifer Beougher, CFO of Ruby Slippers

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For Ruby Slippers, implementing accounting automation was crucial to support their growth and direction for the future. Not only did they experience major ROI, but they also empowered their accountants to provide more value through strategic insights which resulted in a more profitable future for their company.

Written by: Ashton Mathai