Finagraph helps accounting firms, financial institutions save 20 hours per engagement and improve work-life balance with Azure SQL Database

Accounting firms and financial institutions face increasing pressure to provide secure and efficient services in the modern technological age. Accountants must extract and organize data from many accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, but doing so often requires spending long hours manually moving data submitted via PDF, email, and fax into an easy-to-use format for analysis. Though there are tools available to ease parts of that process, many accounting firms are slow to adopt them due to concerns about security and compliance surrounding sensitive financial information.

Finagraph’s mission is to provide accountants and other financial professionals with tools to transfer and format sensitive data securely and compliantly. Finagraph used Microsoft Azure as the foundation for its technology to help accountants work more efficiently, giving them more time to provide the financial analysis and advisory services that offer the greatest value to their clients.

Spending long hours extracting and formatting data from multiple accounting systems

Finagraph was founded by James Walter, a former Microsoft leader who helped build Xbox and Windows and saw the opportunity to use time-saving technology like Azure to make life easier for financial and accounting professionals. “I started the company to find ways to get actionable financial information from the hands of business owners into the hands of financial professionals who could do something really interesting with it,” says Walter, CEO of Finagraph.

In the past, accountants and finance professionals gathered data from a variety of formats that made it challenging to quickly transfer that data into internal systems and use it to help clients. They would often spend long hours—including late nights and weekends—wrangling data into a readable format that would work with their individual firm.

This method was challenging not only because of the time required but also because accountants had to focus on routine tasks rather than the work they are trained to do. “One reason we’re providing this service is because accounting professionals don’t want to do this manual work,” says Carmela Orsini, Marketing Director at Finagraph. “They want to provide value to clients with analytical work, not back-and-forth data entry.”

Manual processes can lead to challenges for accounting firms including staff burnout, increased costs, unhappy clients, and unscalable processes. Finagraph saw the opportunity to help accounting and financial professionals improve work-life balance, spend more time on the work they enjoy, and provide better services to clients. It turned to Microsoft for help implementing its solution.

Saving accounting firms 20 hours per engagement using Strongbox and Azure SQL Database

Walter founded Finagraph in 2011 to create tools for financial firms. During COVID-19, he uncovered the opportunity to specifically support accounting firms. From experience working with Microsoft, Walter knew that the company provided scalability, security, and compliance—all things that Finagraph was looking for. “Azure offers immediate scalability, it can handle all the security requirements of our customers, and it has a great team behind it,” says Walter.

Using Azure SQL Database to provide scalable storage, Finagraph created Strongbox to help accounting firms extract and format data automatically. Accounting firms work with clients who each use a different accounting system. Strongbox is designed to extract, clean, and validate data from these systems and ERPs and deliver that data in a standardized format directly into Microsoft Excel, a tool every accounting professional is familiar with.

Since launching Strongbox, Finagraph has helped firms save multiple hours per customer engagement. One firm working with Finagraph reported that Strongbox was the difference between their team working a 60-hour week versus a 40-hour week. “Smaller firms save 20 to 30 hours per engagement with a customer,” says Orsini. “Larger firms working with more complex transactions are still saving four to six hours per engagement, at least. If you multiply that across 200 team members, each firm’s time savings are substantial.”

Now firms can help more clients without overextending valuable team members. Each employee can provide more analysis and advisory services to customers, making for a more fulfilling work experience.

Expanding tools for accounting professionals to multiple countries using Azure DevOps

Driven by demand from existing clients with global footprints, Finagraph realized that its product could serve more than just clients in the United States. With tools like Azure DevOps, which helped its staff collaborate more efficiently and automate builds and testing, Finagraph began to support accounting firms around the world starting in 2020.

Finagraph set up operations in nearly 70 countries in less than six months with minimal investment. “We expanded from the United States to a global presence for less than the cost of an IT person,” says Walter.

Finagraph was aware of its need to maintain compliance with requirements that differed by country, and it trusted Microsoft to help with that. “As we were seeking compliance while opening up in new markets, we had to figure out how we, as a smaller company, could comply with these requirements,” says Cheryl Abrahamson, Vice President of Corporate Operations at Finagraph. “We’ve been able to lean on Microsoft Azure in building out our security infrastructure as we grow not only nationally but internationally.”

Moving toward more robust automation in Strongbox with Azure

Finagraph is continually working with Microsoft to create more efficient services for clients. It is currently rolling out new features that help customers map accounts and save customizations as templates in the user interface rather than reformatting data every time they work with a particular system or client. It is working toward adding additional accounting systems and upload options to Strongbox so that firms can have a broader coverage of clients.

Finagraph is achieving its goal of supporting accountants and financial professionals by giving them better work experiences and work-life balance. “There is a significant accountant shortage in the country right now,” says Orsini. “Firms are having a hard time keeping enough employees on their teams without burning them out from the workload. But having a tool that removes some of this manual work is helping them keep up with demands even without extra head count.”