How ConGlobal automates presentation-quality ERP reports for multiple entities with Excel and Solution 7 by Zone

ConGlobal, previously known as ITS Technologies and Logistics LLC, is the leading full-service supplier to the intermodal industry in the United States and Latin America. The company faced challenges in reporting and consolidating financial statements for its complex international operations. With NetSuite already handling their finances, ConGlobal needed a solution to transform their ERP data into polished, presentation-ready Excel reports for stakeholders and improve reporting accuracy, financial transparency and decision-making.

The Challenge: Manual data processing in ERP and Excel slowing down financial reporting for stakeholders

When you’re the finance department for a $400 million global company with operations across three divisions in the US, Mexico and Costa Rica, with 22 legal entities and different currencies – reporting is a tough job. If you do not set up systems to automate tasks, streamline manual processes and ensure data consistency across all entities, bottlenecks will appear. 

Since 2008, ConGlobal’s finance department has relied on NetSuite OneWorld to manage its finances and operations for multiple subsidiaries, all in their native currencies. But as the business grew, so did the financial reporting needs.

By 2014, the team was looking to improve reporting accuracy and financial transparency by creating more reports for stakeholders. Executives, the board of directors, operations, as well as banks and lenders, needed accurate financial information in a presentation-ready format to understand how the business was performing and make informed strategic decisions.

Tasked with tracking the company’s finances, creating consolidated financial statements, reporting results across multiple entities, and keeping key stakeholders informed with visually appealing, easy-to-understand reports, ConGlobal’s finance team reached a breaking point. While NetSuite ERP excels at producing WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") reports and enables detailed data exploration, ConGlobal needed to create polished, presentation-quality reports with graphs and charts using the finance team’s preferred environment - Microsoft Excel.

The biggest challenge?

ConGlobal didn’t have a tool to automate this process. The finance team had to do everything manually. They created reports and dashboards using Excel with no automatic synchronization between the workbooks and NetSuite. Each time, the team had to export data from NetSuite and manually populate the respective fields in Excel, then update the reports in their Word and PowerPoint working files.

Manually inserting data into Excel led to frequent mistakes, consuming valuable time spent fixing formulas, formatting, filtering and cross-checking to ensure accuracy. With the complex business structure and reporting in different currencies, the finance team’s workflow proved inefficient and unmanageable – it couldn’t scale to handle the complexities the team struggled with each month.

ConGlobal needed a solution that would automate the reporting workflow as much as possible giving back time for the finance team to focus on tasks like financial analysis, planning and budgeting.

“NetSuite excels in producing WYSIWYG reports with the ability to drill through to the details. We wanted to also create presentation-quality reports, with graphs and charts, using the language we speak in the back office – Microsoft Excel” – Joe Brunetti, Former Chief Financial Officer at ConGlobal (formerly known as ITS Technologies and Logistics, LLC) 

The Solution: Leveraging existing Excel skills to build NetSuite reports with Solution 7 by Zone & Co

ConGlobal’s finance team was already well-versed in using Excel for their daily tasks. They needed a solution that integrated with both Excel and NetSuite to automate much of their reporting process – and time was of the essence.

The tool had to transform NetSuite data into polished, presentation-ready Excel reports for stakeholders – on autopilot – with live synchronization between the two at the click of a button. This would in turn speed up month-end reporting for ConGlobal’s finance team and eliminate human errors. Given the increasing complexity of reporting requests, the team needed something intuitive and user-friendly. They required a solution capable of:

• Using live NetSuite data to create consolidated financial statements and professional reports for a complex structure of three international divisions and 22 legal entities with various currencies in Excel, allowing for division-specific and cross-division reporting.

• Meeting banks' requirements for covenant calculations and complex metrics in specific formats.

• Integrating smoothly with both Excel and NetSuite ERP, leveraging the finance team’s existing Excel skills.

• Automating month-end reporting to reduce human errors, increase accuracy and speed up the reporting process.

ConGlobal considered various reporting solutions but found most options either too expensive and complex or too basic with limited features. Solution 7 for Excel financial reporting and planning for NetSuite (now known as Solution 7 by Zone & Co) was the perfect fit for their needs due to its balance of power, simplicity and affordability.

“Everyone either offered expensive reporting solutions that needed special help to run or very light systems with limited graphing and dashboards. Only Solution 7 was just right, offering a powerful yet easy-to-use product at an affordable cost.” – Joe Brunetti, Former Chief Financial Officer at ConGlobal (formerly known as ITS Technologies and Logistics, LLC) 

Why was Solution 7 by Zone & Co the right choice?

• Excel extension: Solution 7, a NetSuite SuiteApp, is an extension of Excel, with its own tab within the application. Its functions look and behave like Excel’s own native functions, and there’s no need to learn NetSuite’s back-end.

• Real-time reporting of NetSuite data in Excel: Solution 7 uses NetSuite SuiteAnalytics Connect to pull real-time data into an Excel spreadsheet. Once a transaction is posted in NetSuite, it appears automatically in ConGlobal’s Excel reports, with no middleware or admin required. 

• High-quality reports with multi-currency handling: With Solution 7, ConGlobal’s finance team can build and publish high-quality, complex NetSuite reports and financial forecasts for their entire organization, including international divisions. The tool handles multi-currency data and provides full drill-down and drill-back functionality to NetSuite. Reports are always presentation-ready, and no pre-formatting is needed.

• Easy customization and scalability: Solution 7 allows for easy customization and additions, handling increasing data volumes and new divisions and entities without compromising performance or accuracy. And customization doesn’t stop at the standard features. With the support of the Solution 7 team, companies can develop new, bespoke app capabilities and create brand new lists and functions to pull data from custom NetSuite fields and record types. 

• Ease of navigation: When using Solution 7, the team can easily navigate the NetSuite data structure live in Excel, creating plug-and-play refreshable reports without IT involvement or technical expertise.

• Quick onboarding: Training is minimal. The installation process involves simply downloading and running the setup. ConGlobal’s finance team, already proficient in Excel, needed only 20 minutes of training to get started.

This ease of use allowed ConGlobal to hit the ground running and immediately start creating the high-quality Excel reports they needed using live NetSuite data.

The Result: Streamlined and enhanced reporting with NetSuite ERP, Excel, and Solution 7 by Zone & Co

By using Solution 7 by Zone & Co to report financial results based on live NetSuite data, ConGlobal can now generate consolidated statements and reports in Excel across the company – no matter the currency. This two-way, real-time data integration has unlocked several key benefits, such as:

Consolidated and granular division reporting: Solution 7 acts as a magnifying glass. The finance team uses the app for in-depth analysis, including cross-divisional comparisons, company-wide analysis and drill-downs for specific data points within reports. For instance, they can create reports that compare total income from the US versus Latin America, even if US income comes from multiple entities. Plus, the banks require covenant calculations and complex metrics in specific formats – and this is something ConGlobal can now easily accommodate.

Customizable and shareable report templates: Solution 7 empowers ConGlobal's finance team to create and reuse custom report templates and share them within the team or across departments. This way, individuals can use them “as-is” or modify them as needed when creating new reports. The team also uses Solution 7 beyond its standard functionalities to pull data from custom NetSuite fields and record types created as part of their NetSuite implementation.

Drill-down capabilities for deeper analysis: Solution 7 pulls data directly from NetSuite in real time and refreshes Excel reports with a single click, making the entire process straightforward and easy. Its intuitive and user-friendly, familiar interface within Excel enables the finance department to instantly create reports with charts and graphs, add calculations, and tailor them as needed. Previously, complex questions from stakeholders often required multiple reports or extensive analysis. Now, with a single click and the confidence of accurate data, the team can quickly answer any questions from executives, investors, or the board of directors without waiting for batch processing.

Report distribution, also for Word and PowerPoint: Solution 7 allows ConGlobal to schedule reports for automatic distribution while maintaining the flexibility to adjust schedules as needed. Completed reports can be easily pushed out earlier or later than planned, based on specific business requirements. And because the solution is based on Excel, part of the Microsoft Office suite, the team can easily pull reports into Word or PowerPoint to create presentations. 

Increased reporting volume with new insight capabilities: By leveraging Solution 7, ConGlobal has significantly expanded its reporting capacity. Previously limited by time constraints, the finance team can now generate a broader spectrum of reports within the same timeframe and focus on accuracy, formatting, distribution, and roll-up. This increased output allows them to explore new reporting avenues and uncover hidden trends and patterns within the data – arming them to make data-driven decisions, and plan, budget and forecast with greater confidence.

“In the past we couldn’t find the time to do a lot of reporting. Now we spend the same amount of time running more reports and reporting in ways not previously possible.” – Joe Brunetti, Former Chief Financial Officer at ConGlobal (formerly known as ITS Technologies and Logistics, LLC) 

NetSuite financial reporting in Excel for the transportation industry with Solution 7 by Zone & Co

ConGlobal’s success story is the perfect example of how leveraging existing tools and expertise can bring significant efficiency improvements without requiring a major switch to complex software – Solution 7 is so simple to use that no technical knowledge is needed beyond familiarity with Excel and NetSuite.

With NetSuite providing robust financial management, the user-friendly environment of Excel for report creation, and Solution 7’s seamless integration with both platforms, ConGlobal’s finance team was well equipped to generate accurate, timely, and comprehensive reports to keep key stakeholders informed.

By automating the previously manual workflow, Solution 7 not only enhanced the team’s efficiency but also empowered them to become strategic partners for executives, sales, marketing, and other departments, delivering higher-quality financial insights across the organization. This newfound agility enables ConGlobal to make data-driven decisions with greater confidence, propelling them towards future success.

“The whole process of reporting is now very powerful and intuitive. We can sit down and use a language we already know, Microsoft Excel, to create board-quality reports, complete with charts and graphs, have it refresh, do calculations and tailor it. It’s all very simple, really!“ – Joe Brunetti, Former Chief Financial Officer at ConGlobal (formerly known as ITS Technologies and Logistics, LLC) 

3,000+ businesses like yours trust Zone & Co to combine the full power of NetSuite with the ease and flexibility of Excel for all their reporting needs. Start your free trial of Solution 7 today and experience instant, error-free financial reporting.

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