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Snapshot of Teikametrics
Integrations
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Key Challenges Faced
Lack of consolidated and updated data for analysis and reporting across the US and India entities
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Manually aggregating the data to calculate all the metrics needed for reporting took too much time
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Multiple, shared spreadsheets made version control difficult and real-time visibility impossible
When Allison Gillespie, Director of FP&A at Teikametrics, first encountered Drivetrain, her team was struggling with some challenges that were impacting the company’s reporting cycles in a big way.
First of all, data consolidation across their two entities (US and India) was a hugely cumbersome and mostly manual process. Secondly, they had reached that point in the business where using spreadsheets just wasn’t cutting it anymore.
One of the challenges Gillespie was dealing with—the one that led her to search for an FP&A solution—was the effort required to consolidate Teikametrics’ financial data. The company’s US accounting team was using Quickbooks while the team in India was using Zoho Books. Now, any finance leader who has to consolidate data across multiple ERPs will tell you that this process can be a nightmare.
In order to run the numbers every month, Gillespie had to follow a time-consuming and manual two-step process (in a manner of speaking).
Only then could she use the data for analysis and reporting.
Since finance and accounting look at the balance sheet and P&L statement in different ways, the latter team would run the same process of data consolidation for their own analysis—in parallel. As a result, both the finance and accounting teams would end up spending several hours to a full day on redundant, manual, and time-exhaustive work.
Every month, all the different departments in Teikametrics would send their own Excel spreadsheets, leading (of course) to the inevitable version control issues inherent in working with shared Excel files. Without a purpose-built solution for FP&A, Gillespie had to rely on spreadsheets to do the different kinds of analysis financial reporting requires.
It was a constant challenge as Gillespie would spend a couple of days every month on manually prepping the data for financial analysis and reporting. This process also included identifying and resolving any discrepancies and errors to create the most up-to-date (and accurate) version of every report.
What she needed was a system that would provide a single source of truth for all data in-real time—one that would automatically consolidate all the data from each department and allow department heads to review their data and correct any errors.
In addition to all the challenges associated with financial reporting, Gillespie was also struggling with reporting on all the SaaS metrics the company needed to track because the SaaS data was maintained by the BI team in Databricks.
Getting the data she needed for analysis and reporting on the company’s SaaS metrics, was a multi-step, manual process. First, she had to manually export the monthly financials out of Quickbooks and Zoho Books into Excel (yet another tool) and work with them to get the data into a format she could use. Then, she had to request a download of the MRR data from Databricks into Box where she could access it. Once received, Gillespie would spend another full day manually downloading the data from Box and incorporating into her Excel spreadsheet to create her formulas and calculate the metrics.
Gillespie knew that if she could find an FP&A platform that could streamline Teikametrics' data consolidation and financial reporting processes—and also foster cross-functional collaboration—it would free up time for everyone involved to concentrate on the high-value analytical work that seemed like a perennial fixture on their to-do lists. Real-time visibility for strategic (business) decision-making was the secondary requirement from the tool.
After demoing several tools, Gillespie found what she was looking for in Drivetrain. She had used other FP&A solutions at previous companies she’d worked for. But none of them seemed to strike that perfect balance among power, flexibility, and ease of use.
Drivetrain helped Gillespie and Teikametrics not only transform the financial reporting process, but also the way different teams—including finance, accounting, sales and marketing, even the leadership team—operate.
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Drivetrain is 2025 compared to the [FP&A software] I used in the past, which seemed to be stuck in 1980. It was so old school and not easily manipulated.
Drivetrain’s ability to handle complex data consolidation handily solved one of Gillespie’s biggest pain points. She was also excited to learn that Drivetrain could support the creation of custom metrics, something other vendors (rather surprisingly!) told her wasn't possible on a single platform. And creating them was easy.
Custom metrics was a particularly high priority for Teikametrics’ Director of Data Strategy and Business Intelligence. Ultimately, that’s what tipped the scale in favor of Drivetrain.
Soon after onboarding to Drivetrain, Gillespie also discovered other use cases, above and beyond her FP&A and accounting needs. For example, she learned that she could build a commissions model on the platform. Using the data from Salesforce and applying some custom rules, Drivetrain can easily calculate the payouts for Teikametrics’ sales teams. To be honest, Teikametrics hadn’t purchased the software for this purpose, but were happy to use it to that end.
At the organizational level, Drivetrain has also enabled Teikametrics to replace siloed, manual workflows with a more efficient and centralized platform that truly encourages data democratization and facilitates cross-functional collaboration.
Drivetrain helped Gillespie and Teikametrics not only transform the financial reporting process, but also the way different teams—including finance, accounting, sales and marketing, even the leadership team—operate.
Knowing the strategic benefits that having access to real-time data can provide, Teikametrics’ leaders wanted to not only democratize data, but also develop (what they refer to as) “a connective tissue” between multiple departments.
[Drivetrain] is really allowing the business to get their own data. Not all people within the company, but all the departments are in Drivetrain and using it. It’s just more transparent and everyone's looking at the same data.
Drivetrain has become that “connective tissue”, ensuring that everyone—from the CFO to the team leads—can access the latest numbers and financial reports (both past and current) whenever they need to.
During each monthly reporting cycle earlier, what used to entail hours of manual reporting, explanation, and back-and-forth between Gillespie and the department heads has become a more streamlined process, making it easier for everyone to get the information they need faster and saving an estimated two hours per day in Gillespie’s schedule.
It is just a matter of logging in to review the numbers, slice and dice the data per their specific needs, even leave comments on the reports as and when required. This has enabled them to take more ownership of their analysis and develop budget variance reports, analyze headcount reporting, and more.
As the sole FP&A lead at Teikametrics, Gillespie’s regular workdays were consumed by the time-intensive and complex data consolidation and financial reporting tasks. She really did not have the bandwidth for the more strategic projects that required her attention.
One of the most transformative impacts of Drivetrain has been in freeing up Gillespie’s time to focus on more value-added work. She now has the bandwidth for a couple of projects that have been on her “to-dos” for a while.
One of the projects involves building a centralized repository of the business’ financial health and performance data, along with the pace at which it has scaled since its inception. The other project focuses on benchmarking and analyzing their own e-commerce (customer) trends vs. Amazon’s marketspace trends, especially around seasonality and performance drivers—sort of using an investor-like lens to generate detailed insights and discover potential opportunities.
Besides these, Drivetrain has enabled her to focus her energies more on the business, for example, building out the services utilization model.
In Drivetrain, I can create my own metrics. I can change my own rules. With the other FP&A tool, I had to use a consultant to just update the backend code. Drivetrain is just wonderful!
Director of FP&A
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