How Ferraro Foods Speeds Financial Close by 55% with Planful

Ferraro Foods serves over 8,000 customers across 23 states from five distribution locations.

Managing financial closes became daunting as they juggled data from multiple subsidiaries and various ERP systems. Because of its complex needs, the company was drowning in spreadsheets. Their monthly close stretched to a painful ten days, leaving the finance team overwhelmed and the business waiting for crucial information.

“You may remember the term ‘add-a-tab’,” recalls Johann Cabe, VP of FP&A at Ferraro Foods. “We were famous for that. Every location, every acquisition just became another tab in an Excel file.”

The manual, time-consuming process wasn’t just slow — it was risky. Errors slipped through unnoticed, and the team spent more time fixing mistakes than analyzing data. They knew there had to be a better way, so they moved from spreadsheets to Planful and Adra by Trintech.

Read on to learn how Ferraro Foods implemented these solutions and what Planful’s impact was on its financial performance management processes.

Read more: Ferraro Foods Streamlines Reconciliations and Close Using Planful and Trintech

Johann had previous experience with Planful at another organization and believed it could rescue Ferraro Foods from its spreadsheet nightmare.

“When I started at Ferraro, we did not have a cloud-based solution like Planful,” Johann explains. “But my experience working with Planful and implementing it in other organizations pushed me to move to Planful at Ferraro.”

However, consolidating data was only part of the problem. The team also needed to streamline account reconciliations to ensure accuracy.

“We realized how greatly inefficient we were doing things,” Johann notes. “We discovered that the way we were originally balancing those checking accounts and transactional accounts was taking three to four staff accountants almost half their day. By changing how we approach posting and recording, we significantly improved efficiency.”

With CFO Solutions guiding the way, Ferraro Foods set out to refresh its financial processes.

Implementation began in February 2022, and the company aimed to go live with Planful by May. Although the deadline was tight, the team was confident they could meet it with support from an implementation partner.

“My partner has been CFO Solutions,” Johann says. “They helped me implement Planful at my job prior to Ferraro Foods. They really helped accelerate not only implementing Planful but also implementing the Trintech product.”

Together, they tackled the project in three stages:

• Consolidating financials with Planful: Saying goodbye to unwieldy Excel files, Ferraro Foods moved their financial consolidation into Planful, gaining immediate clarity. “By our May close, we left our ‘add-a-tab’ Excel file, and we were entirely consolidating our financials in Planful,” Johann shares.
• Enhancing forecasting and budgeting: Within three months, Ferraro Foods was up and running in Planful for forecasting and budgeting. “We were probably done in under three months again, and we were doing our budget for the following year in Planful,” says Johann.
• Automating reconciliations with the Adra platform: The Adra platform can be embedded in Planful, making it easy to connect ERP data, streamline close tasks, and automate reconciliations. “Adra Matcher is basically the automated component of our bank accounts and all of the transactions associated with that,” Johann explains.

After implementing Planful, Ferraro Foods experienced significant benefits that transformed financial operations.

Planful now gives FP&A at Ferraro Foods the capabilities, automation, and speed to easily scale, with just a two-person team supporting the entire $1.2 billion organization and nearly ten subsidiaries.

1. Faster close through automation

With Planful in place, Ferraro Foods reduced its monthly close and consolidation cycle to just four and a half days — a 55% decrease from the previous ten days. This significant reduction allowed the finance team to focus on more strategic activities and improve overall efficiency.

“We were able to actually be efficient during our close process, moving to four-and-a-half days,” said Johann. “In reality, it’s closer to four days now because we’ve enabled our team to see the entries they need to post and that activity. Instead of waiting to view those entries until the actual data flows, they’re ahead of it.”

For reconciliations, Johann says, “We’re saving a day’s worth of effort every day.”

2. Three hours saved daily per accountant

Automation freed up significant time for the accounting team. By implementing Adra’s Matcher tool, automated processes saved over three hours per day per accountant on reconciliations.

“Before the Adra Matcher piece, our three staff accountants spent about four hours per day on transaction mapping,” Johann explains. “When we realized how to best implement Matcher, it actually allowed us to save more than three hours of each accountant’s time. So that was a big saving right there.”

3. Access to accurate, real-time data

With Planful in place, Ferraro Foods had a single, reliable source of financial data. With access to up-to-date information, errors decreased, and decision-making improved.

“We have the absolute single source of truth,” Johann states. Now, the team can log into Planful to pull data, reports, and analysis and be confident that the data is accurate. Business units now also gain faster access to the financial performance insights needed to drive success, with Johann stating, “Subsidiaries have instant visibility to see how they’re performing.”

With less reliance on slow, error-prone spreadsheets, Johann says, “The most important thing Planful gives people like me in FP&A: trust in the numbers.”

“The key to our success is collaboration,” Johann emphasizes. “FP&A is all about explaining variances and being able to explain why we are so much under or over budget. Accountants finally see the craziness I have to answer, so they are prepared with that answer.”

With Planful, Ferraro Foods has scaled efficiently. Despite managing a $1.2 billion organization with nearly ten subsidiaries, they operate with just a two-person FP&A team.

“Technology lets us grow our business without adding incremental headcount,” Johann points out.

With efficient systems in place, Ferraro Foods is ready to grow. They can handle new acquisitions smoothly and scale without needing additional staff.

Ferraro Foods transformed its financial close process by embracing modern solutions. Moving away from manual, error-prone methods, they adopted tools that saved time, improved accuracy, and enhanced collaboration.

“Do it,” Johann advises others who are considering similar changes. “It’s humbling from the accounting side to realize that maybe the way you were posting entries was incorrect because the new technology allows you to do much better.”

Ferraro Foods transformed a ten-day ordeal into a streamlined, four-and-a-half-day process by implementing Planful. Automation and real-time data saved time and empowered the team to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the business forward.

Need help modernizing slow, manual close processes? Explore our interactive demo of Planful and Adra by Trintech’s financial close management solution to unlock your team’s potential.