How Collingwood Lighting Scales Financial Operations with Planful

UK-based Collingwood Lighting expanded quickly thanks to acquisitions, and its finance team faced increasing challenges. Juggling multiple ERP systems, currencies, acquisitions, and regions made managing financial complexity critical to their continued success.

To get everything under control and continue growing, they needed a better way to handle it all — so they turned to Planful.

Let’s explore five ways Collingwood Lighting uses Planful to simplify financial operations, improve efficiency, and support future growth by managing the complexities of acquisitions and consolidating financial data across multiple regions.

Read more: Collingwood Lighting Future-proofs Acquisition Consolidations With Planful

Collingwood’s growth required consolidating data from multiple entities using three different ERP systems from prior acquisitions.

With Planful they were able to unify their financial data into a single source of truth, simplifying financial reporting and analysis. This led to a 60% reduction in time spent on consolidations and gave the finance team more time to focus on strategic tasks.

With Planful, Collingwood can streamline the complexities of acquiring new businesses across Europe because the platform smoothes financial transactions and eases handling multiple currencies and intercompany exchanges.

“Planful, for me personally, means I don’t have to worry about redundancy from spreadsheets,” said Jon Blythe, CFO of Collingwood Lighting.

Planful’s ability to streamline consolidations also increases the efficiency of Collingwood’s finance team by 30%, according to the company.

Collingwood ditched outdated manual processes, particularly involving spreadsheets, by modernizing with Planful.

The workload lifted from the finance team allows more time to support future growth into new markets, and Planful’s ability to automate and streamline financial performance management processes further enables Collingwood’s financial operations to keep pace with its expansion strategy.

Planful also provides Collingwood with more accurate and timely financial visibility, empowering leadership with better insights. This allows for faster decision-making that supports strategic growth and enhanced operational efficiency across the company.

With Planful in place, Collingwood’s finance and accounting teams are well-positioned to handle whatever comes next. As the company continues to expand, Planful’s automation and data consolidation capabilities are helping them maintain financial clarity and efficiency.

“My team loves Planful,” Jon concluded. “They’ve been energized by the change. Spreadsheets drained their energy, but now, with Planful, they can focus on asking ‘What’s next?’ It’s been a massive change in our thought process, and it’s really pleasing to see.”

Find out what makes Planful a leader in financial consolidation solutions. Explore our interactive demo to learn how Planful can streamline your financial operations.