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Improving Financial Reporting and Budgeting Accuracy in Manufacturing

How a Manufacturing Finance Team Improved Reporting and Budgeting Accuracy Without Adding Complexity

Phoenix Mecano | Budgeting and Reporting Software for Manufacturing

The Situation

Phoenix Mecano, a manufacturing business operating across multiple industries including construction, medical, and aerospace, supports a wide range of products, customers, and operational requirements.

This level of variety meant that financial reporting and budgeting needed to reflect a business that did not follow a single, simple structure. Different products, pricing approaches, and operational considerations all needed to be captured in a way that made sense financially.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central provided a strong foundation for financial data, although the out-of-the-box reporting and budgeting capabilities did not fully reflect how the business operated day to day.

The finance team had built processes that worked and delivered consistent outputs, although maintaining them required increasing effort as the business became more complex.

As a result, producing financial reports and managing budgeting processes required more coordination and manual work to keep everything aligned with how the business was actually operating.

What Was At Stake

As reporting and planning requirements became more detailed, the existing approach introduced challenges:

 

  1. Time spent building and adjusting reports to reflect different business needs
  2. Ongoing manual work required to keep budgeting aligned with operations
  3. Effort needed to maintain consistency across reports and planning cycles
  4. Limited flexibility when adapting outputs to different parts of the business

In practice, this meant that reporting and budgeting remained reliable, although maintaining that reliability required increasing effort as the organisation grew.

 

The finance team needed a way to improve accuracy and efficiency while still supporting the complexity of the business.

The Turning Point

Phoenix Mecano began looking for a way to extend their existing system rather than replace it.

 

The focus was on introducing a structure that could:

 

  1. Support more accurate and flexible financial reporting
  2. Improve how budgeting was managed across the organisation
  3. Reduce the need for manual adjustments that had become necessary over time
  4. Reflect how the business actually operates across different industries and products

Solver was selected as the platform to provide this structure alongside Dynamics 365 Business Central.

 

(This project was delivered by the Solver US team.)

What We Did

Solver was introduced as a structured environment for financial reporting and budgeting, designed to sit alongside the existing ERP.

 

The approach focused on:

 

  1. Improving Reporting Accuracy and Flexibility – Reports were redesigned to better reflect the structure of the business, allowing the finance team to create outputs that aligned more closely with operational reality.
  2. Structuring Budgeting Processes – Budgeting was moved into a more controlled environment, making it easier to maintain consistency while still allowing teams to contribute in a way that reflected their part of the business.
  3. Reducing Manual Effort Through Automation – Repetitive tasks involved in preparing reports and budgets were reduced, allowing updates to flow through more efficiently while maintaining visibility and control.
  4. Supporting Different Business Needs Within One Structure – The system was configured to handle the variety across industries and product lines without requiring separate processes for each.

This created a more structured and reliable approach to both reporting and budgeting, without losing the flexibility the business required.

The Result

With Solver in place, Phoenix Mecano established a more accurate and efficient approach to financial reporting and planning.

 

  1. Reports could be created more quickly and with greater consistency
  2. Budgeting processes became easier to manage and required less manual intervention
  3. The finance team was able to adapt reporting to different parts of the business without rebuilding it each time
  4. Overall effort required to maintain accurate financial outputs was reduced

The implementation was completed in a short timeframe, and the finance team was able to begin using the system across departments soon after rollout.

What They Can Do Now

With a more structured approach in place, the finance team can now:

  1. Create reports that reflect how the business actually operates
  2. Maintain consistency across reporting and budgeting without relying on workarounds
  3. Adapt financial outputs to different parts of the business more easily
  4. Run budgeting processes with greater control and less effort
    Support management with more reliable and timely financial information

This allows the team to spend less time maintaining processes and more time understanding and explaining performance.

Solver for Irish Manufacturing

Why It Worked

This shift to a structured reporting and budgeting approach was effective for three reasons:

 

  1. Built Around Business Reality – The solution was designed to reflect the complexity of the business rather than forcing the business into a fixed structure.
  2. Balanced Structure and Flexibility – The finance team gained consistency and control while still being able to adapt reporting to different needs.
  3. Reduced Effort While Maintaining Visibility – Manual work that had built up over time was reduced, while transparency over how reports and budgets were created was maintained.

 

Download the full case study here or request a reporting and forecasting review to see how this could apply to your own setup.