CASE STUDY · INVESTOR-GRADE BOARD REPORTING
From 8 to 10 days of manual board reporting to board-ready insight in under two minutes
How Lawyers on Demand moved from fragmented reporting and manual reconciliation towards a repeatable reporting environment that gave finance more time to investigate performance.
Legal servicesThen backed by BowmarkSix-month engagement, 2023 to 2024BEFORE
8 to 10 working days
AFTER
Under two minutes
One reporting environment, generated on demand
Same board pack, same three sources. The manual middle is what disappeared.
ENGAGEMENT
AT A GLANCE
- Company and sector
- Lawyers on Demand, legal services
- Sponsor
- Bowmark-backed at the time of the engagement
- Size and dates
- Six-month engagement · 2023 to 2024
- Delivery
- Founder-led by Tejas Parikh · Power BI, Excel
8-10 days → under 2 minutes
Board pack cycle
£350k
Unbilled revenue identified
24-36 pages
Board pack rebuilt
Revenue that had been sitting unbilled inside a manual, spreadsheet-based process, surfaced once all three sources reported from one place.
The pressure
The finance team was spending 8 to 10 working days assembling a 24 to 36 page board pack from three separate data sources. The issue was not only the time involved. The reporting cycle left limited capacity to investigate performance, explain variances and develop forward-looking commentary.
“Our reports provide a clear picture of what happened, but they fall short in uncovering the underlying reasons behind these events, or offering actionable recommendations for what steps we should take next.”
What was wrong underneath
Fragmented data
Fragmented data across multiple sources.
Manual reconciliation
Manual Excel reconciliation and manipulation.
Formula risk
Formula and consistency risk in the reporting process.
Unclear ownership
Roles in the month-end process were not clearly defined, so it was never obvious who owned which step.
Capacity absorbed
Finance capacity absorbed by production rather than analysis.
The pack was accurate by the time it went out. What it lacked was any capacity left to explain it.
What ABCL changed
ABCL did not begin with a tool. The first step was understanding the data landscape, the bottlenecks and where the process was breaking, then agreeing a route forward with the finance team.
01 · ALIGN
Mapped the reporting process, data sources, hand-offs and manual interventions.
02 · DESIGN
Defined the reporting flow and how Power BI and Excel would work together.
Excel stayed in the process deliberately, because commentary is where finance adds its judgement.
03 · BUILD
Created a Power BI reporting environment and dynamic Excel board-pack output.
All three sources were pulled into a single reporting environment, with the Excel pack connected to it so commentary could be added and shared without rebuilding anything.
04 · EMBED
Worked with stakeholders to demonstrate the new reports and build adoption.
The reports were taken to the people who would use them, so the new process was adopted rather than merely delivered.
Before and after
Before
After
Business and decision impact
The faster process created capacity for analysis rather than report assembly. The improved visibility also identified approximately £350,000 of unbilled revenue that had previously been lost inside a manual, spreadsheet-based process.
What happened
- What happened
- Why it happened
- What we should do about it
The board pack stopped being a record of the month and started being the basis of the conversation about it.
In the client’s words
“We're now able to refer to and interrogate a Power BI report throughout and after month end to see the latest position and then use that same data to automatically generate an Excel board pack. This removes lots of manual steps and processes which will save lots of time that can be better used to understand the business even more and write even better commentary.”
Paul Rochester
Head of FP&A, Lawyers on Demand
Why this matters in an investor-backed business
Faster, more consistent reporting strengthens visibility, reduces avoidable surprises and allows finance to spend more time supporting decisions rather than assembling them. In an investor-backed business, a board pack that lands early enough to be challenged is worth more than one that is merely accurate. For an investor, that shows up as board reporting that can be challenged in the meeting rather than after it, and a finance function whose numbers hold up when a buyer's advisers start asking.
Portfolio relevance
The pattern repeats wherever a finance team is assembling the pack by hand from several sources. The cost is rarely the hours. It is that the people closest to the numbers have no capacity left to explain them by the time anyone reads them.
TRUE FP&A impact
Trusted Data
One reporting environment drawing from all three sources, replacing manual reconciliation.
Up-to-date Insights
A pack generated in under two minutes rather than over 8 to 10 working days.
Engaged Decision Support
Capacity returned to explaining performance rather than assembling it.
Responsive Planning
Not part of this engagement.
The takeaway
A board pack that takes 8 to 10 days to build is not only a reporting problem. It is a capacity problem. The team that knows the numbers best spends the month producing them and has little left for the analysis the board actually needs.
Rebuilding the reporting process returned that capacity to the finance team, and gave the board a pack that could be interrogated rather than only read.