Enhancing Productivity and Cost Optimization with Jirav

Koalafi is an innovative, fintech startup firm based in Richmond, Virginia with thriving offices in the Northern Virginia region, specifically Arlington. Specializing in the lease-to-own industry, Koalafi primarily focuses on facilitating point-of-sale lease-to-own and loan financing solutions for end consumers through domestic retail partnerships. Their primary clientele consists of dealers operating in the furniture, mattress, and appliance sectors, and they are actively exploring opportunities to expand into new verticals.

As a prominent player in the fintech industry, Koalafi has been harnessing cutting-edge technology to revolutionize the leasing and financing landscape. With a remarkable track record spanning over eight years, the company has successfully built a robust customer base across 40 states in the United States, boasting more than 100,000 active leases.

With a commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, Koalafi continues to redefine the lease-to-own and loan financing experience, empowering consumers and driving growth within the industry.

Like many small to mid-sized businesses, Koalafi relied heavily on Excel for their financial planning and budgeting processes. This approach led to several challenges, one in particular relating to turnover within the finance function. Every new employee struggled with understanding and navigating the various existing spreadsheets and formulas, due to the lack of standardization and the inherent difficulties of managing Excel-based financial planning and budgeting processes.

Based on the cumbersome nature of Excel and its susceptibility to formula errors, Koalafi struggled to manage tasks like uploading staffing lists, incorporating payroll information, and making projections. Koalafi’s data preparation consumed nearly half a day to ensure accurate trial balances and proper linkage.

Furthermore, Koalafi encountered the challenge of budgeting across departments, which emphasized the necessity for a more interactive financial planning and analysis (FP&A) tool. The lack of consolidation within Excel impeded Koalafi’s ability to have multiple, active plans simultaneously and restricted the opportunity to re-forecast and compare budgets or facilitate informed decision-making.

Koalafi needed a comprehensive solution that could integrate with QuickBooks and serve as a one-stop shop to consolidate actuals and report budget vs. actuals. As a business with substantial revenue of over $500 million, it was crucial that the tool supported revenue and cost of goods sold (COGS) forecasting for a business of this scale, while seamlessly budgeting their selling, general, and administrative expenses (SG&A).

Fewer than 3 weeks after implementing Jirav, Koalafi streamlined the consolidation process through a direct feed of information which automatically refreshed overnight. Once the books are closed and consolidated in QuickBooks, the information flows right into Jirav, ready for use within minutes. This swift integration drastically reduced the time spent on FP&A processes for Koalafi; a process that previously took half a day could now be accomplished in just 15 minutes.

With the recent completion of the quarter close, Koalafi engaged in budget vs. actuals meetings with its nine department heads. These meetings were facilitated within Jirav, allowing ‌department heads to access reports directly. With the reports containing figures for the current month or year-to-date actuals, Koalafi had a comprehensive overview of their department's performance.

Koalafi leveraged Jirav to automate their upload system for staffing information and plans, eliminating the need for manual input and reducing the risks of errors. To achieve this, Koalafi customized Jirav's tables to align with their specific business requirements, establishing key drivers that enable data-driven decision-making.

Jirav provided a comprehensive range of dashboards that facilitated the analysis and interpretation of metrics quickly. To counter the difficulty of building complex Excel spreadsheets, Jirav’s pre-configured dashboards combined disparate data sources to generate budget assumptions, like the number of new leases originated and the associated data costs. This functionality streamlined budgeting for Koalafi, since data extraction from vendors for customer underwriting represents one of the company's significant expenses. By smoothly integrating multiple sources of information, Jirav enabled Koalafi to make accurate budgetary estimates, resulting in more precise financial forecasts.

Jirav simplified the process of accessing and customizing reports for Koalafi, offering a straightforward download of information tailored to meet the specific needs of each department.

Jirav provided a comprehensive view of Koalafi’s overall performance, by combining distinct data sources to generate budget assumptions, forecast new lease originations, and assess data costs. This equipped stakeholders with up-to-date insights to facilitate informed decisions, like the creation of a budget line totaling $4 million for sales.

By using Jirav, Koalafi simplified complex calculations that previously required manual Excel formulas. The time and effort required for data analysis was significantly reduced, leading to accelerated decision-making capabilities.

Through careful budget-framing, Koalafi was successful in driving down SG&A expenses and operating expenditure (Opex) costs. As the company scaled higher, they were able to achieve lower costs and lower margins, thus presenting a favorable cost management outlook.

Furthermore, Koalafi experienced improved accuracy and efficiency in staffing management. The team had access to essential metrics for decision-making purposes as they closely monitored the Full-time Equivalent (FTE) count, examining FTE costs by department. This analysis provided insights into resource allocation and potential areas for improvement.

The reporting module provided accurate outputs to measure metrics and year-to-date performance. The new reporting process allowed management to easily access and track the metrics that mattered most to them, like the cost to acquire new customers, without wasting time on redundant activities.

Jirav enhanced Koalafi’s internal operations by reducing the time spent on redundant tasks and creating an environment for robust financial planning. Koalafi’s results demonstrate the effectiveness of implementing Jirav to transform both financial and operational processes. With a substantial reduction in administrative workload that allows employees to allocate more time to strategic tasks, Jirav supports businesses to manage staffing information, reduce recruitment costs and employee turnover, and enhance work stability and financial savings.

Jirav helps businesses embrace automation, data integration, and visualization to achieve tangible results, including increased efficiency, cost savings, and enhanced decision-making capabilities.