Somewhere in your finance function there is a workbook that takes a day and a half to rebuild every month. The same exports, the same paste targets, the same formulas, the same one person who knows how it works.
It is not a spreadsheet problem. It is a plumbing problem, and plumbing is fixable.
The fix is not a better workbook, or a clever script that one person understands. It is moving the numbers into a system built to hold them.
What this work involves
Connect the source system directly. PlanVector connects to QuickBooks Online and pulls the general ledger on a schedule. That removes the export step, the paste step, and the silent failure where someone grabs the wrong date range and nobody notices for a month. If your numbers live somewhere else, a custom connector can be built for any service with an available API, and for early adopters that is part of implementation rather than a separate charge.
Reconcile before anything else happens. This is the part most automation skips, and it is the part that determines whether anyone trusts the output. Every load gets checked against the trial balance. If it does not tie, it does not load — and you get told why rather than getting a clean-looking report built on a bad pull.
Structure it once, reuse it everywhere. Actuals, budget, and forecast in one consistent shape, so the board package, the department reports, and the grant schedules all draw from the same place. One version of the numbers, not four that nearly agree.
Leave it running. Scheduled, logged, and loud when something fails. A new hire gets a login, not an oral history.
Where this tends to pay off fastest
- Monthly board or committee packages assembled by hand
- Grant and program reporting that slices the GL differently than the P&L does
- Multi-entity or multi-location consolidation done through copy-paste
- Any report where the honest answer to “where did this number come from” is a shrug
Why it runs on PlanVector
Every automation engagement lands in PlanVector, the financial operating system I build and run. A custom script or a macro-heavy workbook starts decaying the day it is delivered. A maintained platform does not, for four reasons.
The connections stay current. Accounting systems change their APIs. A one-off integration breaks quietly when that happens and waits for someone to notice. I maintain PlanVector’s connections centrally, so a fix ships once and every client has it.
Security and access are handled. Everyone signs in as themselves with two-factor authentication. Data is encrypted and backed up off-site every night. Access is granted and removed in one place, instead of living in whoever was last emailed the file.
It is there when you need it, wherever you are. PlanVector runs in a browser. There is nothing to install, and no file to track down before a board meeting.
There is one copy. The numbers live in a central place. Nobody asks who has the latest version on their desktop, because there is no desktop version.
Every consulting retainer includes the first year of PlanVector and basic implementation. The rates are on the pricing page.