Automating Financial Planning & Analytics: A Case Study on Tyler Technologies

Tyler Technologies, based in Plano, Texas, is a leading provider of end-to-end information management solutions and services for local governments. An S&P 500 company, Tyler partners with clients to empower the public sector - cities, counties, schools, and other government entities - to become more efficient, more accessible, and more responsive to the needs of their constituents. Over the last decade, Tyler has grown significantly through 24 software solution acquisitions, developing a broad portfolio of SaaS businesses supporting communities. Today, Tyler's revenues have grown from $300 million to $1.6 billion, and the company continues to grow through further acquisitions.

Tyler Technologies, a leading provider of end-to-end information management solutions and services for local governments, faced significant challenges following a period of substantial growth. The company had acquired numerous software solutions companies, increasing its revenue threefold. This growth, however, presented a series of challenges, particularly for the finance team. The team was struggling to keep up with the increased business demands, obtain necessary data for efficient analysis and reporting, incorporate acquisitions into their systems, and maintain consistent reporting. The company's structure, built through a series of acquisitions, meant that each division had its own Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) team performing planning and forecasting. The data was then sent to the Corporate FP&A team for consolidation, a process that was manual, static, and prone to errors. The lack of a central repository for plans and forecasts further complicated the process. The company needed a new system that would be reliable, speed up consolidation time, standardize all planning and forecasting activities, and have user-friendly drill-down capabilities.

Tyler Technologies chose the Board Intelligent Planning Platform to replace its manual financial reporting processes. The platform offered the best financial reporting and forecasting capabilities and promised to simplify processes, provide a secure and self-service environment for business users, and allow the company to manage its multiple entities seamlessly. The Board team helped Tyler build a foundation of custom screens that captured the company’s multi-entity structure, account mappings, and security profiles. This ensured that data was appropriately mapped and allowed the team to quickly identify if any new data needed to be mapped in Board. The platform also gave the company the ability to plan and forecast for different scenarios, which was critical for comparing different versions of an annual plan or forecast. The implementation of Board led to increased efficiency and speed across finance processes, enhanced forecast analysis and reporting, automated financial processes, and improved connectedness across people and procedures.

• The implementation of the Board Intelligent Planning Platform has brought about significant operational improvements for Tyler Technologies. The platform has centralized the financial process, connecting Tyler’s data with the General Ledger system and allowing the team to have much faster access to run mapping procedures or change existing accounts. This has not only increased efficiency but also instilled confidence in the results. The platform has also enhanced forecast analysis and reporting, allowing the team to easily compare and analyze results and catch issues ahead of time. The automation of financial processes has eliminated errors and reduced the time to consolidate revisions significantly. Furthermore, the platform has improved connectedness across people and procedures, providing a central solution for housing plans and forecasts and empowering users with impactful capabilities for managing forecast data and influencing financial reports.

• Reduced time to consolidate revisions from half a day to just seconds.

• Enabled faster access to run mapping procedures or change existing accounts.

• Provided the ability to plan and forecast for different scenarios, allowing for easy comparison of different versions of an annual plan or forecast.