Case Study: Financial Services
OpenFin Cuts Month End Close from 15 Days to 1
Bespoke contracts, manual billing, and a 15-25 day close process made it difficult for OpenFin to scale.
The client
Ocrolus is the OS for Enterprise Productivity
OpenFin allows for the deployment of finance applications via the web, using the latest in web technology while still allowing for end users to have that heavy, thick UI that they’re used to. Prior to adopting the Ordway billing and revenue automation platform to manage their invoicing, customer billing communications, and revenue schedules, they were manually struggling to keep up.
The challenge
15 days to close the books was just too long. OpenFin needed a more developed revenue management platform
Every month, the OpenFin team was spending 15-25 days to close the books. Because they sell their software platform to large financial institutions, each customer contract is complex and unique. This complexity led to a lengthy close process that revolved around manual spreadsheets that tracked their bespoke contracts.
Getting accurate invoices out to customers was also difficult due to their highly manual order-to-revenue workflow. OpenFin’s VP of Finance was constantly error-checking the numbers, and taking too much time to close the books. Their process wasn’t going to scale, and it was becoming a drag on growth.
”Each month, [there] was a ton of work and calculation that needed to be done. We decided we needed a more developed revenue management tool.”
Jeff WoglomVP of Finance
The solution
Replacing manual Google Sheets-based revenue schedules, and automating recurring billing for complex contracts
After evaluating others in the market, including SaaSOptics and Zuora, the team at OpenFin decided the Ordway billing and revenue automation platform was the only software available that could manage both the complexity of their bespoke contracts, and produce the revenue schedules and business insights they required to take the business to the next level.
The other aspect of the Ordway platform that OpenFin quickly discovered is that it would empower them to scale their business without needing to scale bodies to support the business. For their SaaS business, driving growth while keeping headcount low, means a bigger valuation for all their employees.
The results
Order-to-revenue automation produces a 90% reduction in time to close the books and absolute comfort in their numbers
In addition to automated recurring billing, OpenFin reduced the number of days it took them to close the books from 15-25 days to 1. This additional time, and ability to report on real-time revenue data, means the Finance team can now spend their effort on future-looking activities as opposed to constantly double-checking the past.
In the end, Ordway is helping OpenFin accelerate the end-to-end flow in pricing and closing deals, managing bespoke contracts, invoicing, collecting payments, generating accurate revenue schedules, and producing insights to protect and grow their business. They know that whatever change and complexity comes, their finance stack will be a resilient foundation for the next decade of growth.
Next-generation revenue management workflow automation at OpenFin includes:
- Automatically set up recurring, bespoke SaaS contracts in Ordway with proper terms, discounts, billing frequency, etc
- Send OpenFin-branded emails and invoices to customers
- Reporting on SaaS metrics
- Send monthly summary journal entries to the general ledger
- Home office with Ordway
”The biggest benefit of Ordway is just this absolute comfort in our numbers and knowing that they’re accurate.”
Jeff WoglomVP Finance
