How a Leading Real Estate Digital Marketplace Streamlined Financial Planning & Enhanced Forecasting Through Model Integration Advanced Financial Modeling

About The Client

Industry: Real Estate and Technology

Scope: The client is a leading online real estate marketplace that connects home buyers, sellers, and renters with real estate professionals, providing property listings, market insights, and home financing tools. The client operates a digital platform that aggregates real estate listings from multiple sources, offering users data-driven insights, home valuation tools, and connections to real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and other service providers.

Client Challenges

• The client had an existing, extremely complex payroll model with unclear drivers and logic that made it impossible to conduct variance analysis and confidently update
• The client had multiple, disconnected revenue models that were tedious to manage in Excel and Google Sheets
• These challenges created issues with providing clear and in-depth variance analysis, resulting in reduced capability to provide and identify actionable insights to the business

Key Project Elements & Deliverables

Systems & Tools Used: NetSuite for ERP, Adaptive Insights for budgeting and forecasting, and Excel for ad hoc financial analysis

Timeline: 3 months to implement the solution with 1 consultant

Data Integration: Consolidated data from NetSuite, Ultipro/UKG, Excel dashboards, and internal operational systems into Adaptive Insights for holistic budgeting and forecasting

Key Deliverables: 

• Streamlined headcount and payroll financial model
• Integrated core business unit financial models into Adaptive Insights
• Centralized, expedited, and improved accuracy for annual budgets and quarterly forecasts
• Enhanced planning framework with clear drivers and assumptions

Project Objectives & Business Needs

Key Project Objectives: 

Business Needs: 

• Understand and simplify the planning drivers, assumptions, and process for headcount and payroll models
• Integrate core revenue and operational models into a centralized platform
• Enhance forecasting and budgeting capabilities
• Improve transparency and consistency in financial planning

Solution Outline: The project involved rebuilding and streamlining the company's payroll and headcount model, based on transparent and clear assumptions and drivers:

1. Financial Workflow Automation: Migrated 8 of the 11 core business models from Excel / Google Sheets to Workday Adaptive Insights
2. Transparent Models: Built payroll and headcount models with clear drivers and assumptions that could measure and identify past, current, and future business outcomes
3. Centralized Planning Platform: Integrated various Excel / Google Sheets based financial models leveraging Workday Adaptive Insights, providing increased automation and accuracy
4. Business Layer Separation: Provided a clearer view of the business by separating baseline (BAU) operations from adjustments and layered initiatives

Solutions & Outcomes

Solution Outline
The project focused on streamlining the financial close process, improving reporting accuracy, and automating key financial workflows:

Project Outcome Summary

1. Time Reduction: Shortened the financial close timeline by ~30%, enabling the finance team to focus on value-added analysis rather than manual data reconciliation
2. Improved Reporting Accuracy: Standardized KPI tracking and variance analysis, reducing financial discrepancies and ensuring all teams worked from a single source of truth
3. Enhanced Decision Support: By integrating multiple planning scenarios, Nordstrom's leadership gained a clearer view of financial performance across different time horizons
4. Workforce Planning: Improved tracking of headcount and capitalized labor costs supported better budget management and resource allocation