How City Wide Made Financial Reporting Easier Across Its Franchise Network

The Situation

City Wide coordinates cleaning and maintenance services through franchisees across the United States and Canada. After migrating to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, it needed reporting and planning that could serve the individual requirements of dozens of locations.

What Was at Stake

Franchise owners needed clear financial information for decisions. Controllers and accountants needed accurate monthly statements, while auditors needed specific reports without creating more work for finance.

The Turning Point

Solver provided a combination of standard and customised reports alongside planning capability. Each franchise could work with its own budgeting needs within a common reporting environment.

How the Reporting Environment Was Built

Input templates and workflows supported budgeting. Custom reports addressed commissions, margins and other operating questions. The implementation team prepared database views to check that general ledger information was complete and accurate before moving it into the Solver Data Warehouse.

Training helped individual users build reports for their departments.

The Result

Balance sheets, income statements and cash flow reports could be assembled into financial packages in a few clicks. Reporting supported more efficient month-end work and made audit information easier to provide.

The customer described substantial time savings, but the source does not publish a precise number of hours saved.

What They Can Do Now

• Create financial packs for individual locations.
• Budget for margins, recruitment, bonuses and commissions.
• Use customised reports to investigate performance.
• Give auditors the specific outputs they need.

Why It Worked

The reporting design reflected franchise-level decisions and the existing ERP. Data preparation, practical templates and user training supported adoption. Power BI integration was identified as a future plan in this story, rather than an implemented result.

What This Means for Services Businesses in Ireland

For an Irish services group with several branches or operating units, the relevant idea is consistency with room for local detail. Finance can define a common reporting structure while managers contribute assumptions and review the figures that matter to their own area.

The useful evaluation questions are which packs each location needs, how local budgets reach finance and how those outputs reconcile to Business Central.