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Touch Bistro

Case study

Monthly financial statements went from 3 to 5 days of evenings and weekends to about 20 minutes, ready the day the books close.

Touch Bistro's controller used to build IFRS statements in Excel after a long close, and FP&A spent more than a day copying and pasting budget-vs-actual reports. With MCC, the statements run in Vena, a standard reporting package goes to the CFO before close, and FP&A plans in separate OpEx, headcount and revenue models.

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  • 3 to 5 days → 20 minutes

    Monthly IFRS statements

    Full statements on the first live run, the day the books closed

  • About 4 weeks

    Working time to go live

    Two months on the calendar around month-end weeks, then one month in parallel

  • 30 pages

    Monthly reporting package

    Built with MCC, it answers the CFO's questions before they're asked

In their words

“Last year, we worked with Charlie and MCC to automate our IFRS financial statements and monthly reporting in Vena. Previously, generating statements took 3-5 days with late nights and weekends. Now, it runs in under 20 minutes - saving time, reducing errors, and ensuring consistency. We also automated our reporting package, allowing earlier insights and better review before close. Charlie and his team supported us every step of the way.”
Sarah Delehanty, Controller, Touch Bistro

At a glance

Company
Touch Bistro
Industry
Restaurant POS and management platform: software, hardware, payments
Entities
Multi-region, multiple currencies
Timeline
About two months, roughly four weeks of working time, then one month in parallel
Platform
Vena
Source system
NetSuite (chart of accounts redesigned first)
Scope
IFRS financial statements, monthly reporting package, OpEx, headcount and revenue planning

Why now

Touch Bistro is private-equity backed, with pressure on margins. Finance wanted better, faster reporting without adding cost, while reporting had become evening and weekend work and the FP&A model took minutes to open.

Before and after

BeforeAfter
The monthly IFRS income statement, balance sheet and cash flow were built in Excel after close, often as evening and weekend work.The full statements run in Vena in about 20 minutes, and the CFO gets them the day of close or the next morning.
There was no standard reporting package for the CFO and FP&A, so questions went back and forth ad hoc.A preliminary financial reporting package, now about 30 pages, presented the day before close.
Anything spotted after close meant reopening the books and redoing manual reports.The CFO and FP&A see results during close, so issues get fixed before the books close.
FP&A and financial reporting numbers didn't always agree, which frustrated the CFO.Both teams work from the same data.
FP&A spent just over a day copying and pasting budget-vs-actual reports for each department, and the OpEx and headcount model took 7 minutes to open.Separate OpEx, headcount and revenue models in Vena. The headcount model was running a little over a month in.

What we built

  1. Automated the monthly IFRS statements in Vena from NetSuite, including the rules for the IFRS adjustments.
  2. Built the preliminary financial reporting package with the controller's team, released piece by piece each month.
  3. Ran one month in parallel with the manual process before the official launch.
  4. Rebuilt FP&A planning as separate OpEx, headcount and revenue models.
  5. Trained the team with Vena University plus Touch Bistro-specific sessions, so new staff can become super users.

Who worked on it

  • Charlie LiuChief Happiness Officer

Statements still built by hand after every close? See whether this fits.

“Reporting just doesn't take any of my time anymore, to be honest.”
Sarah Delehanty, Controller, Touch Bistro

Their advice to another Controller

“they can tell you what's around the corner before you kind of go around the corner.”
Sarah Delehanty, Controller, Touch Bistro

Monthly reporting moved out of manual Excel and into Vena, and now it flags when someone changes a closed period in NetSuite.

“I found inconsistencies from how I was doing things before, and now this forces a level of consistency. And frankly it better highlights when I find things that we have gone back and changed in NetSuite in closed periods. All of a sudden, wait a minute, this looks different than how I reported last month. So it helps me catch things that we shouldn't have done.”

Jim Jenkins

CFO, Essex Finishing

Essex Finishing
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A complex revenue model and SaaS metrics, built cleanly in the platform

“We were really impressed with Charlie and the Monte Carlos team for their expertise as finance practitioners. They were able to execute quickly and understand our complex revenue model, various customer segments, and key SaaS metrics. Their help in building models and calculations in a clean and efficient way within our platform was greatly appreciated.”

Matt Blagden

FP&A Manager, Activeprospect

Activeprospect
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A project expected to be complicated turned out smooth

“The project that we thought was going to be really complicated turned out to be a very smooth project, and I’m very happy with the results. We were able not just to bring the data we needed for seamless reporting, but also to upgrade and improve our capabilities. The greatest part was the communication and flexibility - having open communication and feeling comfortable asking questions was definitely the key to the success of everything.”

Luiz Carvalho

Director of FP&A, Beck

Beck
Read Beck's story