Making Connections Count at the Trintech Connect 2024 North America User Conference

Blog post

After an 8-year hiatus, Trintech was thrilled to bring back its North America User Conference this year in the vibrant city of Fort Worth, Texas. The Trintech Connect North America User Conference, held September 24-26, gathered nearly 400 Trintech customers, partners and Trintech experts to connect, collaborate and chart the course for a new era of financial excellence. From new customers just beginning their transformation journey with Trintech to customers of 20+ years sharing their experience and success using our solutions, we met with one purpose: to make connections count.

Line dancers from Texas Roadhouse performing at the Trintech Connect Opening Session

The 3-day event kicked off in true Texas-style with a lively performance by dancers from long-time Trintech customer (20+ years), Texas Roadhouse. Then Trintech’s CEO, Darren Heffernan, opened with a reflection on our journey and evolution over the last two years and shared some strategic goals and initiatives that are driving our future. His ask for all attendees, “While you’re with us, give us feedback, engage with our partners, make connections, and expand your network. Your challenges are the same as other companies in attendance. Let’s learn from each other.”

Trintech CEO Darren Heffernan on stage at Trintech Connect North American

Continuing our opening session, Sunil Padiyar, Trintech’s Chief Technology Officer, delivered a compelling session on how AI is revolutionizing financial closes processes. His presentation focused on generative AI, describing how it differed from “regular, old AI.” “Generative AI is like Clark Kent with a Superman cape,” he said. “Clark Kent starts flying when he puts on the cape. Generative AI makes AI fly.”

Padiyar demonstrated to attendees Trintech’s new LLM CoPilot assistant, showing how it significantly streamlines the journal entry process. “Trintech is working to expand this LLM, trained specifically on financial close and customer data, into every product to boost productivity.”

Next, Trintech’s Chief Marketing Officer, Tamir Sigal, and Chief Strategy and Product Officer, Michael Ross, shared highlights of Trintech’s product releases over the past year and gave a glimpse into the features that are coming soon. They also shared their excitement about Trintech’s new partnership with Workday, which offers a streamlined integration between Workday Financial Management and Trintech’s solutions. While Trintech is ERP agnostic, this is an exciting development for Workday users.

Other sessions for Day 1 included impactful presentations by Cheryl Levesque with Forvis Mazars, a Trintech partner and platinum sponsor of the event, and Carrie Goose with long-time customer Texas Roadhouse, highlighting how the restaurant chain strives for continuous improvement of its financial close processes. The session highlighted Texas Roadhouse’s success implementing risk-based Dynamic Account Maintenance (DAM) for its reconciliation process with the help of Forvis Mazars and Trintech. As Carrie Goose, Director of Accounting with Texas Roadhouse shared, “If it takes more than 2 minutes, we want to automate it.” She shared that by applying DAM rules to their reconciliation process, they have:

  • Reduced monthly reconciliation time by 46%
  • Eliminated 1,100 reconciliations annually
  • Saved 750-1,000 labor hours per year
Cheryl Levesque with Forvis Mazars and Carrie Goose with Texas Roadhouse discuss their partnership with Trintech

She credited Forvis Mazars in guiding their success, saying, “Without Forvis Mazars, we would still be programming rules today.” Her advice for others interested in implementing DAM, “Make the leap. Use a skilled implementation partner. I told my vice president that this was the first time I’ve used a consultant and got more than I bargained for.”

Ending the Day 1 presentations, Johann Cabe with Ferraro Foods, an Adra customer, and Chris Howard with Planful, another Trintech partner and platinum sponsor of the event, shared how the combination of Planful and Adra helped Ferraro Foods shave six days off its close process, going from 10 days to only four days. As a quickly growing company, he said that prior to their implementation, “Every acquisition and new location just became another tab in a spreadsheet.”

Johann Cabe with Ferraro Foods and Chris Howard with Planful discuss their partnership with Trintech

Cabe shared, “Adra Matcher made us realize how greatly inefficient we were.” Before Adra Matcher, he said every staff accountant spent four hours per day matching transactions. Today, that’s down to one hour per day. Adra Task Manager has been a huge help, too. He shared, “Adra Task Manager provides a central location for all tasks, making it easy to see missed or outstanding tasks. It allows accountants to be more proactive about tackling issues. Adra gives them the motivation to make changes on their own.” He also had this advice for companies who have yet to start their automation journey, “New talent in the workforce expect this kind of technology. They don’t want to see spreadsheets in an organization.”

Trintech Connect continued with two more jam-packed days with 65+ breakout sessions offering tips, tricks and best practices for Trintech customers. Attendees were given a sneak peek into the roadmaps for future developments and offered plenty of opportunities to make connections count through user group roundtables and partner sessions. Event sponsors Forvis Mazars, Planful, KPMG, Bakerfield Solutions, Protiviti, Clip Money, and The Recon Group also offered sessions on maximizing the value of their Trintech investment.

As Katie Vogel with Northern Tool, a long-time Cadency user shared, “I’m most excited to meet with other users, particularly those using the same ERP as me, so we can share ideas and tips with each other.” 

But Trintech Connect wasn’t all work and no play. Attendees were given a proper taste of Fort Worth, also known as Cowtown, with evenings out around town. The fun began on night one with a welcome reception, sponsored by Forvis Mazars, on a rooftop patio where they enjoyed Instagram-worthy sights like adorable miniature donkeys serving drinks.

Guests at Trintech Connect enjoyed a welcome reception on a terrace patio, complete with miniature donkeys serving drinks.

Night two kicked things up a notch with a customer awards ceremony Billy Bob’s Texas, the World’s Largest Honkytonk, which also included a private bull-riding show and line dancing lessons.

Trintech Connect attendees enjoying themselves at Billy Bob's Texas.
Trintech employees Jesse LaJoye and Clodagh Swennumson on stage at Billy Bob's Honkytonk
Bull riding at Billy Bob's Honkytonk in Fort Worth, TX, part of Trintech's customer awards celebration

The event concluded with a fun night out at Second Rodeo Brewing Company in the famous Fort Worth Stockyards, where Trintech’s CMO, Tamir Sigal, thanked everyone for their attendance and engagement before announcing the location for next year’s Trintech Connect North America User Conference: Orlando, FL!

Photography: Zachary Lucy LLC