However, with Solver, this challenge can be transformed entirely.

The Burden of Lengthy Reporting Processes

The month-end close is notorious for being time-consuming. Accountants often find themselves buried in spreadsheets, manually collating information from various sources, validating figures, and preparing reports that may not even meet client expectations. As deadlines loom, stress levels peak, and the pressure to deliver quality work within tight timeframes can hinder overall productivity.

Why Speed Matters

The ability to provide timely reports is crucial for any accounting practice. Clients rely on up-to-date financial information to make informed decisions, and delays in reporting can lead to missed opportunities or inaccurate assessments of financial health. Moreover, quick turnaround times enhance your credibility as an advisor—demonstrating your ability to provide actionable insights when they matter most.

Solver: The Solution to Faster Reporting

Solver offers a powerful solution that automates the reporting process, significantly reducing turnaround times. Here’s how it accomplishes this:

1. Automated Data Refresh

   With Solver, you no longer need to manually update each report. The platform connects seamlessly with your accounting systems, such as Xero, ensuring that data is refreshed in real time. When numbers change, dashboards and reports update automatically, providing clients with the most current information.

2. Centralised Reporting

   Solver’s centralised reporting capabilities mean you can create and manage multiple reports from a single source. No more juggling multiple spreadsheets or disparate data sources. With everything consolidated in one platform, the risk of errors is minimised, and reports can be generated swiftly.

3. Customisable Templates

   Solver allows you to design customizable report templates that cater to your clients’ specific needs. Whether it’s a detailed financial statement or a high-level executive dashboard, these templates can be reused, saving time and ensuring consistency in reporting.

4. Interactive Dashboards

   The visually compelling dashboards created in Solver enable clients to engage with their data dynamically. Clients can gain insights at a glance and explore different scenarios without having to wait for lengthy report preparations. The ability to interact with their financial data not only enhances their understanding but also improves their decision-making processes.

Outcomes of Faster Reporting Turnaround

By implementing Solver for automated reporting, accounting practices can experience a range of beneficial outcomes:

Increased Efficiency: Accountants can allocate their time to higher-value tasks, such as strategic planning and client relationship management, rather than getting bogged down in manual reporting.

Enhanced Credibility: Delivering timely, accurate reports builds trust with clients. When they see that you can provide insights quickly, their confidence in your expertise increases.

Improved Client Satisfaction: With easy access to real-time data and insights, clients feel more engaged and empowered in their financial management, leading to higher satisfaction levels.

Ability to Seize Opportunities: Faster reporting means clients can make timely decisions, whether that involves capital investments, budgeting, or addressing potential financial issues. This proactive approach can significantly enhance their overall business performance.

Conclusion

In an environment where timely decision-making is crucial, adopting a solution like Solver can transform the month-end reporting process from a burden into a seamless operation. By automating reporting and providing clients with immediate, visually compelling insights, accounting firms can not only boost their efficiency but also enhance their credibility as trusted advisors.

As you look to optimise your accounting practice, consider how Solver can revolutionise your reporting processes, enabling you to deliver timely insights that keep your clients ahead of the curve.

Imagine a chain of stores: some days may have a public holiday, a planned closure, or a special promotional event. Costs and staffing requirements vary day by day. Aggregating these variations into a single monthly number can obscure critical insights. This is where Solver’s daily budgeting capabilities shine.

How Solver handles daily budgets

By default, Solver stores transactions against a Period ID, which works well for traditional monthly budgeting. For daily accuracy, however, you can use the Date field under More Fields instead of the standard Period dimension.

Budget write-backs

Using the Date field ensures that budget transactions are written back to the exact day, not just the start of the month. Solver’s write-back functionality allows you to store budgets by period, week, or day. When using daily budgeting:

• Transactions are written back to the exact date you enter.
• The corresponding Period ID is automatically selected based on that date.
• Excel formulas ensure dates are recognized correctly, avoiding errors during the write-back.

This enables a single source of truth for budgets while maintaining flexible input and daily granularity.

Practical benefits

• Accurate staffing and cost planning: Adjust budgets for weekends, public holidays, or special events.
• Better forecasting for closures or promotions: Daily detail highlights trends that monthly summaries can hide.
• Flexible reporting: Even with daily entries, you can still roll up to week- or month-level reporting using Solver’s grouping and filtering features, such as the FYWeek field.

Getting started

To handle daily write-backs in Solver:

1. Remove the standard Period column from your budget write-back layout.
2. Drag the Date field from More Fields into your layout. (Dates require a specific format; contact us for guidance.)
3. Enter transactions with the exact day you want them recorded.
4. Save the budget — Solver will post it to the appropriate day, week, and period.

With this setup, your budgeting becomes both precise and actionable, allowing you to respond to daily operational needs while keeping reporting accurate and flexible.

What if every client could get dashboards that really wow them, along with budgets that actually make sense, and reports that tell a story — all without extra spreadsheet chaos?And the best part: clients will want to pay for it, because they can see the value themselves.From what I’ve seen, the desire to deliver real insight is huge — the missing piece is the tool that actually makes it possible without straining resources. That’s where Solver comes in.

Clients can finally engage with their own data — safely. You can give them a login just for their entity, let them explore reports, or even enter and tweak their own budgets, while staying fully in control. Clients love seeing their numbers update live and reflecting their decisions. They immediately appreciate the value — and that’s something they’ll happily pay for. They love dashboards that tell a story.

In this example, clients enter their anticipated Fixed Asset purchases and sales in a simple format. Fixed Asset, Accumulated Depreciation, Depreciation and Gain/Loss are then automatically updated in the General Ledger if desired.

 

Budgeting in Xero works for basics, but it is very limited. Solver makes them meaningful. Whether it’s driver-based budgets, multiple “what-if” scenarios, rolling forecasts, daily budgets or cash flow and balance sheet projections, everything ties straight into professional reports. Clients suddenly get it — they see how the numbers tell a story, and they recognize the benefit. The options are endless.

Solver also automates reporting in a way that feels magical. When numbers change in Xero, dashboards refresh, narrative reports update, and clients always see the most current information. Month-end reporting is faster, cleaner, and visually compelling. Clients aren’t just receiving numbers on a page; they’re getting insight that helps them make real decisions. That’s tangible value.

Narrative reporting in action. commentary updates automatically to give the viewer the opportunity to better understand their data.

If your practice uses a consistent chart of accounts across clients, Solver multiplies efficiency. Build one model, roll it out across dozens of clients, tweak as needed, and publish reports with a single click. It’s scalable advisory without scaling your workload, and clients get polished, professional outputs they immediately recognize as worthwhile.

 

Licensing is straightforward. There’s a base investment to get started, and then each additional user ranges from $15–$100 per month, depending on the license type. Spread that investment across your client portfolio and the economics work. Practices can add a professional margin while clients receive dashboards, budgeting tools, and reports that genuinely improve their business. They see the benefit — and happily pay for it.

The result? Advisory that actually sticks. Insight clients can act on, scalable templates that save time, and reporting that isn’t just functional but impressive. Practices get efficiency, repeatability, and a new way to demonstrate value — and clients get clarity, confidence, and results they can see.

For a taste of the different ways Solver can be used, check out my LinkedIn articles for more detail. If you’d like to explore how it could work for your clients, I’d love to hear from you.

In the competitive field of property development and management, companies often face the challenge of navigating complex financing processes for major construction projects. One such company sought to streamline their operations and improve their financial modeling to better manage interest payments associated with their bank loans.

Challenge

The development company relied on operational data sets that were distinct from their General Ledger data. This separation posed difficulties in accurately modeling financing, particularly regarding bank facilities and swap rates, which are critical sources of funding. The actual interest rates were tied to the Reserve Bank’s 90-day Bill Rates, and understanding how to incorporate swap rates into the financial model was initially daunting.

Solution

Solver Cloud emerged as a powerful tool to address these challenges. With its flexibility and specialist capabilities, it enabled the development company to build a comprehensive funding model.

The solution involved creating three budget templates along with a final Profit & Loss report:

1. 90-Day Bill Rates Template: This template served as the primary driver for the other two templates.
2. Bank Facility Template: Updated with the latest 90-day Bill Rates.
3. Banking Swap Rates Template: Also updated concurrently with the new rates.

The process was straightforward: once the 90-day Bill Rates were saved, users could open the Bank Facility Template, apply the new rates, and save the data. This was replicated for the Swap Rate Template, ensuring both interest templates accurately reflected the total interest costs in the General Ledger.

Implementation of Input Flow

A significant enhancement provided by Solver Cloud was the introduction of the Input Flow function. This feature streamlined the data entry process. With Input Flow, users only needed to enter data in the 90-Day Bill Rates template. The Bank Facility and Swap Rate templates would automatically update their calculated values at the database level, significantly reducing the number of steps required and increasing data accuracy.

Results

The implementation of Solver Cloud allowed the development company to efficiently manage their financing model, resulting in:

• Enhanced accuracy in interest cost calculations.
• Streamlined processes that reduced manual entry and potential errors.
• Improved overall efficiency in financial operations.

Conclusion

By leveraging Solver Cloud, the property development company successfully transformed their approach to financing major construction projects. The solution not only simplified the modeling of interest rates but also provided a robust framework for ongoing financial management, ultimately leading to better decision-making and improved operational efficiency.

Outcomes

Saved 8-12 hours, reducing month-end reporting from 5 days to 3.

Eliminated 8-12 hours of manual processing for one accountant, resulting in reduced pressure during month-end financial reporting.

Tertiary education institutions face unique challenges when it comes to managing complex operational data, particularly with multiple courses in which students enroll. The need for efficient data management and financial oversight is critical in this environment.

Challenge

Unlike early childhood care (ECC) settings, tertiary education requires sophisticated tracking of various operational data sets, including courses, properties, and payroll. Integrating these diverse data sources into a cohesive financial management system was a significant challenge. Without a streamlined approach, the institution struggled to maintain accurate financial reporting and budgeting processes.

Solution

Solver Cloud, combined with its Data Warehouse capabilities, provided the institution with the tools necessary to address these challenges. The Data Warehouse allowed for the integration of various operational data sets, ensuring that any data saved had a direct impact on both the operational and General Ledger data sets.

Key features of the solution included:

1. Budget Templates: Solver Cloud enabled users to create budget templates that followed a structured process. For instance, in payroll management, users could run multiple iterations for wage increases and finalize the data before summarizing it by entity, cost centre, and other relevant categories.
2. Automated Updates: Once the final payroll data was saved, a separate template could be executed to automatically update the General Ledger with the budget values, ensuring consistency and accuracy across financial reports.
3. Enhanced Template Design: Solver Cloud’s attributes for grouping and sorting allowed for the clever design of templates. Users could create nested expanding groups, significantly reducing design time compared to traditional ERP reporting tools, which often require hard-coded columns and rows.

Results

The implementation of Solver Cloud yielded remarkable benefits for the tertiary education institution:

• Streamlined Financial Processes: The integration of operational data sets into a single system allowed for more efficient financial management and reporting.
• Improved Budget Accuracy: The ability to run multiple iterations and automate updates reduced the risk of errors and enhanced the accuracy of financial data.
• Time Savings: The clever design capabilities of Solver Cloud minimized the time spent on template creation, allowing staff to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Conclusion

By adopting Solver Cloud, the tertiary education institution transformed its approach to financial management, gaining better control over complex data sets. The solution provided a robust framework for budgeting and reporting, ultimately supporting more informed decision-making and operational efficiency.

Challenge

The development company relied on operational data sets that were distinct from their General Ledger data. This separation posed difficulties in accurately modeling financing, particularly regarding bank facilities and swap rates, which are critical sources of funding. The actual interest rates were tied to the Reserve Bank’s 90-day Bill Rates, and understanding how to incorporate swap rates into the financial model was initially daunting.

Solution

Solver Cloud emerged as a powerful tool to address these challenges. With its flexibility and specialist capabilities, it enabled the development company to build a comprehensive funding model.

The solution involved creating three budget templates along with a final Profit & Loss report:

1. 90-Day Bill Rates Template: This template served as the primary driver for the other two templates.
2. Bank Facility Template: Updated with the latest 90-day Bill Rates.
3. Banking Swap Rates Template: Also updated concurrently with the new rates.

The process was straightforward: once the 90-day Bill Rates were saved, users could open the Bank Facility Template, apply the new rates, and save the data. This was replicated for the Swap Rate Template, ensuring both interest templates accurately reflected the total interest costs in the General Ledger.

Implementation of Input Flow

A significant enhancement provided by Solver Cloud was the introduction of the Input Flow function. This feature streamlined the data entry process. With Input Flow, users only needed to enter data in the 90-Day Bill Rates template. The Bank Facility and Swap Rate templates would automatically update their calculated values at the database level, significantly reducing the number of steps required and increasing data accuracy.

Results

The implementation of Solver Cloud allowed the development company to efficiently manage their financing model, resulting in:

• Enhanced accuracy in interest cost calculations.
• Streamlined processes that reduced manual entry and potential errors.
• Improved overall efficiency in financial operations.

Conclusion

By leveraging Solver Cloud, the property development company successfully transformed their approach to financing major construction projects. The solution not only simplified the modeling of interest rates but also provided a robust framework for ongoing financial management, ultimately leading to better decision-making and improved operational efficiency.

Outcomes

In Tertiary Education, integrating financials, courses, properties, and payroll into Solver Cloud significantly streamlined the budgeting and forecasting process, reducing it from days or weeks to a matter of hours.

Managers overseeing courses, property, and payroll can now view the company-wide financial picture, and when department heads receive their budgets, the input template is already 90% populated. They only need to enter their direct expenses, resulting in a major process improvement.

Solver Cloud has proven to be a valuable solution for a large provider of Early Childhood Centres (ECC) in New Zealand. These centres rely on funding from both parents and the Department of Education, which is paid in advance based on projected attendance. However, this funding model necessitates careful analysis and reconciliation against actual attendance figures.

Challenge

The ECC provider faced challenges in managing funding effectively, particularly due to variations in child attendance. For example, holidays like Easter often result in multiple days of no attendance, complicating the reconciliation process. Additionally, accurately calculating key performance indicators (KPIs) and ratios of funding revenue to teacher and building lease costs required precise data management.

Solution

Solver Cloud addressed these challenges by providing robust analytical tools and data management capabilities. Key features of the solution included:

1. Real-Time Analysis: Solver Cloud enabled quick reconciliation of funding against actual attendance, allowing the ECC provider to respond promptly to financial discrepancies.
2. Accurate KPI Calculation: By utilizing eligible attendance days within a month, the provider could accurately calculate KPIs and assess the relationship between funding revenue, teacher costs, and building lease expenses.
3. Watch Category Feature: The ability to add a “Watch” category at the Centre Dimension level allowed centres with declining attendance to be grouped separately. This facilitated quick analysis and targeted interventions for centres needing support.
4. Custom Attributes: Solver Cloud’s flexibility allowed the addition of attributes to existing dimensions from the ERP solution. This capability streamlined the grouping and sorting of data, making it easier to create reports and budget templates.

Results

The implementation of Solver Cloud led to significant improvements in the ECC provider’s financial management:

• Streamlined Funding Reconciliation: The ability to quickly reconcile funding against actual attendance improved financial accuracy and transparency.
• Enhanced KPI Insights: Accurate calculations of KPIs allowed for better financial planning and resource allocation.
• Targeted Support for Centres: The Watch category feature enabled timely analysis and intervention for centres experiencing drops in attendance, promoting overall organisational health.
• Improved Reporting Flexibility: The addition of custom attributes facilitated tailored reporting for various stakeholders, including the Board, Finance Team, and Regional Managers, enhancing decision-making capabilities.

Conclusion

By leveraging Solver Cloud, the Early Childhood Centre provider transformed its financial management processes, gaining better insight into funding and operational efficiency. The solution provided the necessary tools to navigate the complexities of ECC funding, ultimately supporting improved outcomes for both the organisation and the children it serves.

Outcomes

By implementing an input screen for daily child attendance at Early Childhood Centres, we enabled real-time tracking of each centre’s breakeven status.

This immediate access to data enabled timely decisions, such as providing support, merging centers, or closing one to save costs. While hard to quantify, this daily awareness empowered quicker recovery actions, eliminating the need to wait for month-end results.

Co-Creation: A Collaborative Approach

We thrive in a Co-Create environment, where knowledge sharing and transfer are integral to our offering. While having Excel skills is beneficial, we recognize that clients with extensive Excel experience often bring valuable insights to the table. Our collaborative approach ensures that you gain the expertise needed to master Solver Cloud effectively.

Accurate Planning and Estimation

From the outset, we conduct an introductory planning workshop to provide an accurate estimate for our services. Our methodology focuses on one-time setup tasks, ensuring efficiency. For template design, however, we want you, the client, to take the lead and master this important aspect of reporting.

Understanding Your Needs

We take the time to understand all the reporting and budgeting templates you require, including both financial and operational aspects. By defining a comprehensive list and selecting the more complex templates for co-creation, we facilitate your learning while allowing you to tackle the remaining templates with our support as Q&A advisors.

Project Management for Success

Effective project management is critical, with each participant playing a vital role. We provide weekly highlight reports that track:

• Tasks completed
• Tasks behind schedule
• Action steps to advance the project
• Budget consumption for services
• Any potential red flags related to scope or costs

Commitment to Continuing Education

As your team evolves, ongoing education becomes essential. We offer additional training sessions for individual staff members via remote sessions at a fixed fee of 50% of our normal consulting rate, encouraging further skill development. On-site training is also available, with travel and accommodation costs covered.

Conclusion

With Turtle Bay’s Solver Cloud offering, you’re not just adopting a tool; you’re gaining a partner committed to your success. Together, we’ll enhance your financial and operational reporting capabilities, ensuring that your team is equipped to thrive in today’s dynamic business environment.

Let’s embark on this journey towards mastery and efficiency together!

The Power of Integration

One of the standout features of Power BI is its ability to connect to the Solver Cloud Data Warehouse. This integration allows users to leverage the robust data management capabilities of Solver while harnessing the visualisation power of Power BI. However, the approach to reporting can greatly influence the effectiveness of your insights, particularly in addressing common reporting issues.

Common Challenges with Power BI Reporting

Over the years, we’ve seen many companies attempt to create traditional tabular reports—essentially columns and rows for detailed financial reporting—using Power BI. Unfortunately, this often leads to large, inflexible reports that are hard-coded and cumbersome to update. These challenges can slow down decision-making and limit the responsiveness of businesses in a fast-paced environment.

The Solver Advantage

In contrast, Solver Cloud offers a sophisticated Report Designer tool that simplifies this process. With features designed to control columns—typically representing periods of the fiscal year—Solver allows for dynamic reporting that adjusts based on the run date. For example, if a report includes Year-to-Date (YTD) actual data alongside forecast data for remaining periods, changing the run date to March would display three columns of actual data (January, February, and March) and nine columns of forecast data (April to December).

If the run date is updated to May, the report automatically adjusts to show five columns of actual data and seven columns of forecast data. This dynamic capability eliminates the need for manual updates that are often required in Power BI, making Solver a more efficient choice for financial reporting and reducing the risk of errors associated with outdated data.

The Power of Nested Groups

Another significant advantage of Solver’s Report Designer is the use of Nested Groups, applicable to both rows and columns. A few years ago, we assisted a client who was using BI360, the predecessor to Solver Cloud. They had a report with an overwhelming 26 hard-coded columns and 330 rows. By implementing Nested Expanding Groups, we were able to condense this report into just three columns and six rows. This dramatically improved rendering time from 21 minutes to a mere 22 seconds, demonstrating how Solver can solve the problem of slow report generation and improve operational efficiency.

In contrast, Power BI lacks this principle of Nested Groups, necessitating hard-coded reports that can be cumbersome and time-consuming to maintain, leading to inefficiencies in the reporting process.

Visualisation Strengths of Power BI

While Solver excels in dynamic reporting and efficiency, Power BI shines in its ability to provide visually compelling, at-a-glance graphical outputs. This makes it an excellent tool for presentations and quick insights, allowing users to visualise data trends and patterns effectively. The ability to quickly interpret data through visuals can drive faster decision-making, addressing the need for agility in today’s business landscape.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while both Solver Cloud and Microsoft Power BI offer exceptional capabilities, they serve different needs in the reporting landscape. By understanding the strengths of each platform, businesses can leverage their unique functionalities to enhance their reporting processes, making informed decisions faster and more efficiently.

Whether you’re looking for dynamic reporting with Solver or engaging visualisations with Power BI, integrating both tools can lead to powerful outcomes for your data strategy, ultimately solving the overarching problems of inefficiency, inflexibility, and slow decision-making in financial reporting.

Contact us today, to start your automated financial reporting journey!

A New Chapter with Deloitte

In 1999, Deloitte recognized the potential in the mid-market sector and acquired Zero One, prompting a family move to Christchurch. It was here that I encountered Enterprise Reporting from a Scandinavian firm, enhancing my expertise in reporting and budgeting solutions. However, my time at Deloitte concluded in 2003 due to conflicting interests after Microsoft acquired Great Plains Software. This transition led to the creation of Turtle Bay, a new venture in Christchurch specializing in Microsoft Dynamics GP, FRx reporting, and Enterprise Reporting.

Merging for Success

The journey continued with Turtle Bay’s merger with Olympic Software in 2005, a partnership that thrived until 2023. During my time at Olympic, I navigated the acquisition of Enterprise Reporting by Microsoft and championed the adoption of Solver BI360 from 2011 onwards, contributing significantly to its success. The transition to Solver BI360’s Cloud version in 2019 marked another significant advancement in my career, fueling my enthusiasm for the ongoing evolution of technology.

Returning to My Roots

In August 2023, following changes in ownership at Olympic, Turtle Bay was revitalized, emerging as a prominent BI360and Solver Cloud partner specializing in sales, implementations, and support. Returning to Central Otago, where my family’s history dates back to the gold mining era of the 1860s, I rediscovered my roots amidst its breathtaking landscapes and distinct seasons.

Life Beyond Work

Outside of work, I embrace the beauty of Central Otago through various activities. Whether trekking scenic trails, fly fishing in serene rivers, riding my motorbike, skiing in the winter, or tending to my year-round vegetable gardens in two greenhouses, I find joy in every season. Cooking and entertaining guests are also passions of mine, as I love sharing the fruits of my labor with friends and family.

As I continue this exciting chapter with Turtle Bay, I look forward to leveraging my experience to help businesses thrive through innovative reporting and budgeting solutions.

Here’s to new beginnings and the journey ahead!