Power BI Financial Reporting Automation For A Global Footwear Brand
Remarkable by Formulate transformed a global footwear brand's financial reporting by replacing manual, spreadsheet-based reconciliation with a real-time, automated Power BI solution; delivering a single source of truth, near-zero risk, and a 10x reduction in processing costs.
Sector
Enterprise | Retail & Consumer
Technology
Automation, Microsoft Power Automate, Microsoft Power BI
Tags
financial, enterprise
Reduction in processing costs
Near elimination of reconciliation risk
Reduction in time to produce month-end reports
The Opportunity
Support Increasing Transaction Volumes And Complexity
As part of its global growth strategy, a leading footwear designer recognised the need to modernise its finance operations to support increasing transaction volumes and complexity.
As part of its global growth strategy, a leading footwear designer recognised the need to modernise its finance operations to support increasing transaction volumes and complexity.
This presented a clear opportunity:
Introduce a scalable automation and governed data platform to support global growth.
By introducing automation and a governed data platform, the organisation could:
- —Reduce the cost and effort of reconciliation
- —Make informed decisions at speed
- —Improve accuracy and confidence in financial reporting
- —Create a scalable foundation for continued global expansion
The Challenge
Prioritising Challenges From Highly Manual And Time-Consuming Processes
The existing reconciliation process was highly manual, time consuming and insecure and increasingly fragile.
Finance teams were managing tens of unversioned spreadsheets stored across multiple locations, with files routinely emailed between stakeholders, overwritten without change history and manually consolidated at the month end.
Days per year reconciling month end reports
Spreadsheets and platforms
"What we found was a single incorrect input could impact multiple downstream reports, undermining financial outputs and slowing decision making across the business."
Owen Davies
Formulate Managing Director
This legacy approach created several critical challenges:
- —No single source of truth leading to inconsistent reporting
- —Frequent errors that were difficult to trace, with issues cascading across reports
- —High operational effort, requiring repeated cycles of checking, rework, and follow up
- —Delayed financial visibility, particularly when discrepancies surfaced late in the reporting cycle
- —Significant financial and compliance risk, due to lack of auditability and control
The Solution
Redesigning The Reconciliation Process
Formulate redesigned the reconciliation process end-to-end, replacing fragmented spreadsheet workflows with a fully automated, governed data pipeline built on Microsoft Power Platform.
The Outcome
The impact of the transformation was immediate and measurable.
What was once a fragmented, high-risk process is now a scalable, automated capability supporting the organisation's continued global growth.
Decision-making improved through access to real time, trusted data.
Manual reconciliation effort was effectively eliminated, delivering a 10x reduction in processing costs and freeing finance teams to focus on higher value analysis.
Reduction in Time Spent on Financial Reporting
Financial reporting became faster, more accurate, and fully auditable.
Reduction in Operational Risk
Operational risk associated with reconciliation dropped to near zero.
01.
Automated Data Orchestrated With Power Automate
A structured workflow was implemented using Microsoft Power Automate to manage data ingestion, validation, and exception handling.
—Data was collected consistently from source systems
—Validation rules were applied automatically
—Exceptions were flagged in real time for review
—Manual handoffs and email-based processes were eliminated
This ensured that reconciliation processes were standardised, repeatable, and auditable.
02.
Centralised, Governed Data Layer
All reconciliation data was moved into a secure, centralised database, replacing disconnected spreadsheets with a stable and controlled data foundation.
This introduced:
—A single source of truth for all financial data
—Improved data integrity and consistency
—Full auditability of data inputs and transformations
—Reduced risk associated with local file storage and duplication
03.
Real Time Reporting With Power BI
On top of this data layer, Formulate developed a tailored Power BI reporting suite aligned to the reconciliation lifecycle.
Finance leaders gained:
—Real-time visibility of financial position, with dashboards updating automatically
—End-to-end traceability, with every metric linked back to its source
—Improved accountability, with clear ownership of data inputs
04.
Advanced Analysis and Secure Access Content Creation
The platform introduced interactive, self-service analysis capabilities:
—Drill-through from summary metrics to transaction-level detail
—Rapid identification and isolation of discrepancies
—Period-on-period comparisons to support financial insight
Security was also significantly strengthened through:
—Controlled access to underlying data
—Governed report distribution
—Elimination of sensitive data sharing via email or local files
Designed For Scale
The solution was architected to support future growth, enabling reconciliation insights to be integrated directly into upstream processes such as order management and production planning. This created a foundation for tighter financial control and more responsive operations across the business.