Cloud Specialist Streamlines Cost Controls with Integrated HR and Finance

For global enterprises that rely on cloud solutions, trying to monitor, measure and manage consumption of cloud services – and control costs – is an extraordinarily difficult task. 

Founded in 2012, CloudBolt tackles this challenge with automation, analysis and optimization, based on groundbreaking toolsets and technologies. CloudBolt solutions help enterprises maximize return on investment for both public and private clouds, helping to accelerate innovation while keeping tight control of costs.

Sandy Burns, VP Finance and Controller, explains: “CloudBolt can help our clients crush cloud waste and enable continuous savings.” 

With the growth of cloud computing, CloudBolt is experiencing huge demand. As the company grows, it has to keep its operations lean, efficient, and effective – particularly for super-busy HR and finance teams who need to move fast and don’t have time for paperwork. The answer? Paylocity.

For example, with the Paylocity for Finance suite, the finance team can now automate accounts payable operations with real-time visibility and control. As an integrated HR and finance platform, Paylocity helps CloudBolt to manage both payroll and non-payroll spend in a single system, grounded in the employee record, and tightly integrated with the general ledger, helping to eliminate manual processes and unblock approval bottlenecks across the organization.

 

The Challenge: Understanding and Managing Costs in a Super-HIgh-Growth Company

With a lean finance team of three and a HR team of just one, CloudBolt looked to streamline expense management, reduce administration workload, and control costs.

Manual Processes Impact Efficiency 

Working in a fast-moving, high-growth environment, CloudBolt staff are empowered to make rapid decisions. Corporate credit cards provide a fast and convenient way to purchase the services and resources that teams need. However, processing credit card receipts, posting financial data and analyzing expenditure absorbed significant time and effort for the finance team. Chasing up paperwork was a distraction for staff when there were more urgent issues at stake.

Finance Team Face Significant Workloads

With double-digit revenue growth each year, CloudBolt is highly focused on operational excellence. Managing expenses is only one part of the finance and controlling team’s responsibilities, and reducing the workload and streamlining processes would be essential to help the team meet the company’s scale-up ambitions.

Analyzing Costs was Difficult and Slow

Beyond simply processing expenses, CloudBolt is keen to optimize its operating costs by consolidating suppliers and negotiating better terms. Without detailed insight into expenditure, it was hard to optimize spend or set appropriate controls. The ability to extract, analyze and act on spend data would become increasingly important as the company grows—and manual processes would not be able to scale.

Multiple HR Systems Create Complexity

Rapid growth was also increasing the pressure on Yessenia Alvarez, CloudBolt’s HR and Payroll Manager. “We’ve been growing the team in some locations,” she explains. Previously, the company relied on various HR tools, including Paychex for payroll, along with separate recruiting, onboarding, and learning platforms. Working across different systems created added work for Yessenia and confusion for employees. “We kept HR policies, handbooks, holiday schedules and more in shared folders, but people were constantly asking where to find things," adds Yessenia.

 

The Solution: Using Automation to Boost Productivity

Using Paylocity helps CloudBolt to streamline HR and finance processes, with integrated data flow from virtual credit cards through to finance systems.

Taking Advantage of Integration

In the past, CloudBolt relied on physical credit cards, and chasing receipts by email was a time-consuming process. Switching to virtual credit cards transformed the way CloudBolt monitors and manages expenses. Transaction data is fully integrated with the Corporate Cards module within the Paylocity for Finance suite, enabling rapid, online approval of purchases.

“Previously, we often had to follow up with people multiple times for credit card receipts, and even then, we didn't always get them,” says Sandy. “With Paylocity, we’ve implemented functionality that automatically shuts off a credit card when a receipt isn't received within so many days. That means we avoid back-and-forth communication about receipts and drive accountability back to managers.”

Simplifying and Streamlining HR Operations

On the HR side, Paylocity has enabled CloudBolt to consolidate systems and optimize workflows. "What attracted us to Paylocity was how everything was in one place, especially for us in HR," adds Yessenia. “The system is fully integrated, with data flowing seamlessly from Recruiting into Onboarding and Payroll. From there, we can easily assign harassment prevention and cybersecurity trainings to new hires through the Learning module.” Plus, integrations between Paylocity and the company’s benefits and 401k providers help to simplify enrollment processes and eliminate manual data entry for Yessenia.

Keeping Resource Levels in Check

In a high-growth company, it’s vital to enable the business to move fast without letting operational expenses get out of control. For the finance and HR teams, automation is essential to avoid significant increases in headcount.

Sandy elaborates: “Integration between HR and finance with Paylocity ensures that personnel changes in departments are fully reflected, and we are able to identify if we have people in the right department along with their cost. By looking at metrics such as compensation per headcount, we can compare with budget to see if costs are flowing properly, without extra administrative workload.”

 

The Results: Automation Releases Time for Value-Add

Integration between systems enables the finance and HR teams to focus on analysis and optimization, and scale the business without increasing resources.

Connecting with Finance

Prior to adopting Paylocity, CloudBolt used Excel spreadsheets to transfer credit card transactions from its expense management tools into its Sage ERP system. Now that the company has migrated to virtual credit cards, transaction data is loaded into Sage automatically, simplifying and streamlining workflows. “Now everything is real-time and integrated with our Sage system,” remarks Sandy. “Paylocity helps us gain a lot of efficiencies by not having to input the data manually.”

Enabling Scale for a High-Growth Company

Ensuring that today’s operations will scale for tomorrow’s company is a key consideration for the finance team. For example, the ability to access both HR and expense records in one platform and have data flowing automatically between HR and finance will ensure that CloudBolt can continue its journey without administrative drag.

In fact, the built-in analytics tools are one of the highlights of Paylocity for Yessenia, who pulls data from the platform for monthly and quarterly reports. “We can filter by date, month, department and company location—whether it’s our US or international operations,” explains Yessenia. “For reporting, Paylocity just takes so much of that manual aspect away from your day-to-day. Likewise, in the case of benefits, I'm able to just validate the data and everything updates in the payroll system. It definitely gives me back a lot of time that I need to do other things."

Highly Positive User Adoption and Feedback

With experience of both large corporations and agile startups, Sandy knows the value of engagement in the user community. “With other systems, I've always had end-users complain that they are hard to use. With Paylocity, I don't hear complaints; I even had an end-user say that he would advocate using Paylocity more. That's high praise coming from a software engineer!”