Parachute Home improves financial reporting efficiency by 90%+ with Aleph

TL;DR

• A previously implemented solution was plagued with data discrepancies and delays which led to a lack of trust. Aleph restored that trust with accurate, on-demand financial data that they can rely on. 

• Monthly close reporting was reduced from 1-1.5 days to 20 minutes thanks to Aleph’s flexible data models and direct Excel and Google Sheets integrations. “There are tons of instances where Aleph saves us two hours here, three hours there, eight hours here.”

• Using Aleph has expanded outwards to improve visibility and collaboration with other stakeholders. Web-based dashboards allow department heads to monitor their budgets, spend, and how they're tracking in real-time. 

About Parachute Home

Parachute Home—also known as simply Parachute—started in 2014 as an online-only, direct-to-consumer brand focused on creating impeccable bedding. Parachutes's products were a hit in households worldwide, allowing them to expand into a wide range of essential home products and eventually into brick-and-mortar with 26 retail locations across the United States. 

Growing a D2C brand at Parachute’s scale requires their financial reporting and planning to be as impeccable as their bedding. But that wasn’t always the case before switching to Aleph. Keep reading to hear how Aleph turned their financial reporting nightmares into sweet dreams. 

Building a trusted source of truth for financial data 

Data is the foundation of finance, on which all reporting and planning is built. A team's ability to access accurate financial data is a mission-critical part of the job, yet far too many companies struggle with this—including Parachute before switching to Aleph. 

Parachute started its data journey with a popular FP&A tool that proved to be too slow and rigid. 

“Our NetSuite sync would run at midnight and take 3-4 hours,” says Gregory Silva, Parachute's Head of Finance. “So if accounting made changes to the books mid-day, we’d have to wait until the next day and hope the sync worked. Except it broke consistently.”

Multiple months and two third-party consultants later, Parachute was still battling issues that were more troublesome than just data delays. Silva calls out that “it was not intuitive how to build the formulas to call the numbers down in such a way that matched our matrix.” 

But by far the biggest issue for any finance professional is trusting the data you rely on to do your job. Data integrity makes or breaks one's ability to efficiently monitor and support the business. 

“Simple things were off like our balance sheet not balancing”. says Ariana Egli, Senior FP&A Manager. “We never felt like we could pull a number and give it to our CFO and feel confident that it was correct without going into NetSuite and cross-referencing and checking.”

Parachute was at an inflection point of growth. Retail expansion had accelerated, and the finance team couldn’t keep up. They needed a flexible, reliable FP&A platform to scale their processes at the same pace as the business. That’s when they discovered Aleph…

Eliminating manual, time-consuming processes

With data syncs and errors no longer a blocker, it was time to automate Parachute’s reporting processes that were slowing them down—starting with their monthly close process. 

Before Aleph, closing a month required downloading and merging dozens of exports to plug actuals into their models. 

“We were downloading 26 P&Ls, one for each store,” says Ariana. “And then there was the balance sheet and department-level income statements. So 30+ files had to be manually exported and brought into Excel. It would take a full day just to do that. And if we found a mistake, we'd have to repeat that process all over again.”

Reducing monthly close reporting by 90%+ percent was a massive win, but Aleph also drove efficiencies across the board. 

“There are tons of instances where Aleph saves us two hours here, three hours there, eight hours here. For example, I do a report with the fulfillment team that used to take three or four hours, and now it takes me 45 minutes,” says Greg. “All of these little hitters save us a good chunk of time.”

Improving visibility and collaboration across the organization

Part of Parachute's process involved preparing monthly store-level performance reports for its retail team. "That took several hours every month," Ariana says. "And then, on top of that, they would come to us with many data requests."

Ariana leveraged Aleph’s Workbooks feature to build on-demand dashboards. This not only automated the entire process but also allowed the retail team to monitor performance throughout the month. 

“We’ve been able to implement similar dashboards for other department heads,” says Ariana. “Greater visibility and accountability into their budgets, spend, and how they're tracking has been a big focus for us. This level of transparency has been really positive.”

Thanks to quick data pulls, flexible reporting, and self-serve dashboards, Greg and Ariana are now able to be more proactive and collaborative. 

Dreaming about the future

Parachute continues to rely on Aleph to execute its close and reporting processes. “But this is just the beginning,” says Greg. "We just started all of our forecasting with Aleph in December and January. It’s been great." 

The results have already been spectacular, but there is undoubtedly more good news to come and greater efficiencies to uncover as time goes on. Stay tuned. 

If you’re in the market for impeccable bedding and household essentials, go check out www.parachutehome.com. 

If you’re in the market for impeccable FP&A software, request a demo or try Aleph for free.