Sycuan Cuts Close Time and Gains Strategic Focus with Planful

Sycuan Casino Resort, located near San Diego and operated by the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, began as a one-room Bingo Palace in 1983. Following a $260 million expansion, it has grown into a full-service resort, featuring a 12-story luxury hotel, entertainment venues, a golf course, spa, and over 15 bars and restaurants — alongside its expansive casino.

While the resort continued to expand, Finance and Accounting were ready for tools that could match the scale and pace of the business. They had been managing thousands of GLs across 80+ departments using green-screen terminals, manual reporting, and time-consuming processes, leaving little time for analysis or strategic support. That’s when the team turned to Planful and Adra® by Trintech, gaining the speed, visibility, and confidence they needed to support the business more strategically.

Sycuan’s Finance and Accounting teams were under pressure. “We were pulling our hair out every single day,” recalled Darren J. Griffith, Director of FP&A at Sycuan. “Every month, we were meeting with 80 to 100 operations teams of two or three people each, with thousands of GLs and all the related transactions. It was a lot for our team of two to four people to handle. We needed efficiency so we could drive conversations and create a more strategic mindset.”

For Accounting, which still used green-screen terminals, it wasn’t much smoother. “We had to print reports and manually retype the data into Excel,” said Joseph Villarino, Director of Accounting. “By the time we finished collecting data, there wasn’t time for anything else.”

Modernization was clearly required, but it had to come with crucial efficiency, visibility, and collaboration between Finance, Accounting, and stakeholders across its operations.

“It was all Excel and meetings, but the insights we gained were very shallow,” said Allana Hill, FP&A Manager at Sycuan. “We couldn’t work effectively with the operations to accomplish our plans.”

The team knew it needed a solution that would bring efficiency, visibility, and stronger collaboration across Finance, Accounting, and the business. Their must-haves included:

• Ease of use
• Excel compatibility
• A finance-owned platform
• Scalable planning capabilities, especially for workforce planning
• A vendor that would act as a long-term partner to both FP&A and Accounting

After evaluating multiple options, Sycuan selected Planful for its familiar Excel experience, finance-owned control, and ability to scale planning across Finance and Accounting without adding complexity. It was the only solution that checked every box — and then some.

Several of Planful’s financial performance management capabilities stood out to the Sycuan team:

• Planful Spotlight for Microsoft 365 helped the team refresh board decks “really, really quickly,” according to Darren.
• Planful’s Workforce Planning solution was a key differentiator. Darren noted that its built-in workforce-specific capabilities “elevated Planful over other planning tools.”
• Adra by Trintech was a deciding factor for Joseph, saying, “When we came to Planful, someone pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, come look at this. We have this Adra add-on that helps with our balance sheet reconciliations and task management.”

Beyond capabilities, Darren recounted experiences from past software deployments where vendors disappeared after implementation. “With Planful, the relationship was a difference-maker. Even now, they’re always just checking in, asking about our pain points and what else they can help with.”

With Planful in place, Finance and Accounting had the tools and support they needed to move faster, work smarter, and spend more time guiding the business forward.

Sycuan’s Finance and Accounting teams now use Planful to support planning and reporting for 80 to 100 teams monthly. They’ve gained a highly efficient process that eliminates the need for many of the in-person meetings that were previously required. When they do need to connect with the business, Planful provides deep insights, allowing discussions to be more strategic and focused.

“Commentary in Planful is almost like a variance analysis for us,” said Darren. “We communicate through Planful, which creates a lot more efficiency. Now there’s no need to have monthly meetings with every team and take them out of the business.”

Instead, operators log in directly, add context, and collaborate in real time.

“We’re gathering detailed commentary in Planful from our operators, which helps both of us understand the numbers and what’s happening on their P&L,” said Allana. “It’s a great connection between FP&A and the organization—and before Planful, we didn’t have the time to make that happen.”

On the Accounting side, Adra by Trintech adds structure and transparency, using automation to support its monthly close process while streamlining balance sheet reconciliations.

“The Adra task manager is a part of Planful’s solution, letting us see our month-end tasks, who’s assigned, who’s the reviewer, and approver. Then I can check my dashboard to keep the process moving instead of spending hours walking around the office to get updates from people,” Joseph said.

“Trintech’s balancer lets us create a reconciliation in a standard template instead of 20 different spreadsheets in different formats. Everything’s in one place, and we’ve got a complete audit trail. Our auditors were really impressed.”

Together, Planful and Adra have already helped Sycuan reduce its monthly close by up to a full day, and the team expects even more improvement as they expand their use of the platform.

Looking ahead, Darren, Allana, and Joseph are exploring top-down forecasting, scenario modeling, cash forecasting, and Workforce Pro. With a newly established workforce planning team in place, they see an opportunity to better manage hourly staffing needs, balance full-time and part-time ratios, and drive more efficient labor planning.

“We’ve built such a strong foundation with Planful,” said Allana. “It allows us to get rid of manual tasks and focus on the value we can add as creative individuals. If you need a tool that gives you efficiency, Planful is it.”

And for Joseph, the impact isn’t just about process — it’s also about people.

“The biggest impact has been less stress,” Joseph concluded. “Planful just makes things easier because now we have insight, understanding, and time. With the extra time, FP&A and Accounting can work together to find more efficiencies instead of tracking down information.”