Our client, a Canadian financial institution, provides a range of financial products, including mortgages, credit cards, and retail lending. Like many large organizations, they needed a fast and reliable way to assess their financial health and compare actuals against annual forecasts. However, their reporting process was entirely manual, Excel-based, and time-intensive, requiring significant effort to consolidate and validate financial data each month.

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Generating these reports took at least a week to complete and involved repetitive work to tailor expense views for different business units. The process was not only inefficient but also prone to errors, creating risks in financial decision-making.

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To improve efficiency and eliminate manual errors, the client sought to automate their financial reporting. They explored Alteryx, a low-code analytics tool capable of transforming complex data processes without requiring advanced technical expertise. While they lacked the in-house skills to develop the solution themselves, they knew automation was the key to scaling and streamlining their reporting workflows.

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Time-Consuming Manual Workflows

The client’s monthly expense reporting was entirely manual and Excel-based, requiring analysts to consolidate data from multiple sources, transform it into the correct format, and generate reports. The process was highly repetitive and labor-intensive, making it an ideal candidate for automation—but the internal team lacked the technical skills to implement it.

Complex Data Inputs and Custom Reporting Requirements

Expense reporting required integrating multiple data sources with varying formats while generating customized reports for different business units. The complexity of manually structuring and filtering the data for each report demanded specialized expertise and significant time investment every month.

Need for a Scalable, Maintainable Solution

While the client recognized that automation could streamline the process, they needed a user-friendly and maintainable solution. The new system had to be simple enough for business users to operate without advanced technical skills, ensuring long-term adoption and scalability.

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To address inefficiencies in the monthly expense reporting process, Compass Analytics developed an automated solution using Alteryx, incorporating Analytical Apps and Batch Macros to create a scalable, user-friendly workflow.

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The Analytical App provided a simple interface, enabling business users to select input files, specify the reporting period, and initiate the report generation process. To standardize report outputs, the Alteryx workflow leveraged the blob tool to read a predefined template file, ensuring all business units received consistent, structured reports.

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Once the data was selected, automated cleaning and formatting steps prepared it for reporting. To eliminate manual effort, Batch Macros dynamically filtered and distributed reports, segmenting data by business unit and outputting results to structured Excel files.

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The final output integrated seamlessly with pre-built Excel templates, automatically populating pivot tables and dropdown filters. This allowed users to easily drill down into financial details across different levels of the organization. Additionally, dynamic filtering enabled flexible data exploration, ensuring key stakeholders had access to tailored, real-time insights.

The solution developed by Compass Analytics enabled the Canadian financial institution to automate its monthly expense reporting, replacing a time-consuming manual process with a user-friendly, efficient workflow. By eliminating inefficiencies and standardizing report generation, the company significantly reduced reporting time and improved decision-making capabilities.

Seamless Automation for Faster Reporting

The new automated process eliminates manual effort in consolidating monthly expense reports. Previously, analysts spent over 40 hours per month manually structuring data in Excel—this has now been reduced to just minutes. The time savings allow the finance team to shift focus to ad-hoc analysis and higher-value initiatives.

Tailored Reports for Business Units

The solution dynamically filters and customizes reports based on each business unit’s specific requirements. Rather than manually preparing dozens of individualized reports, the automated workflow ensures that each key business leaderreceives accurate, structured expense data for their unit—without added effort.

User-Friendly and Maintainable Solution

Designed for ease of use, the solution features a graphical interface where users simply select the appropriate files to generate reports. Built on Alteryx’s low-code framework, the system requires no advanced technical expertise, ensuring that the finance team can easily maintain and adapt the solution as business needs evolve.

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