Customer Stories
Stack Overflow Halves Time to Close with FloQast
Stack Overflow may be one of the biggest sites on the internet you’ve never heard of — unless you know how to code, that is. With over 50 million visitors each month, Stack Overflow is a top 100 site on the internet and the largest community of software developers in the world. A new question is posted to Stack Overflow every 12 seconds, and to date over 10 million questions have been asked by developers on the Q&A platform.
As both users of and contributors to Stack Overflow, the engineering team here is excited that the company now closes their books every month using FloQast. “Stack Overflow has contributed millions of dollars of value back to the engineering world and we’re honored to work with the company behind the community here at FloQast,” said Mark Thomas, Software Engineer.
Stack Overflow has rapidly expanded since 2008 to include tools for businesses to market to developers, recruit employees, and onboard developer hires faster. As a result of that growth, the company now counts over 200 employees all over the world.
As Stack Overflow grew into a mid-sized company with all the accompanying financial complexities, the accounting team started to have trouble closing the books each month. Thus began their search for close management software, led by Jerry Raphael, Vice President of Finance. Having used BlackLine in the past, Raphael assumed that he’d end up with it again, but he remembered that it was very difficult to implement, required a ton of training, and had a clunky user interface. So Raphael was pleased to discover FloQast at a conference hosted by Stack Overflow’s ERP provider, Sage Intacct.
“It’s fitting that we discovered FloQast at the Sage Intacct conference,” said Robyn Wertman, Director of Accounting. “I’ve spent a lot of time recommending FloQast to other accountants, and I often say that anyone implementing Sage Intacct should use FloQast as well.”
Raphael and his accounting team love that FloQast integrates with Microsoft Excel. “The reality is that accountants use Excel every day,” said Raphael. “Spreadsheets are here to stay, and FloQast understands that. It lets us continue to use our existing Excel reconciliations. That, plus FloQast’s intuitive user interface, is a key reason we didn’t need any training to get up and running.” Another perk: Stack Overflow was able to get set up on FloQast in just two days, and Raphael says they could have done it in half a day if they’d worked straight through. He also likes that his team can easily make changes themselves, but still has access to “incredibly responsive” support when they need it.
The biggest benefit? Time to close has dropped by more than half, from 22 days to ten. That makes it easier for Stack Overflow’s accounting team to efficiently manage its growth. As employees are added—in some cases overseas—their close process responsibilities are assigned and managed via the company’s dynamic checklists in FloQast. All team members can instantly see where the process stands using FloQast’s real-time, month-end, close status dashboard. “Stack Overflow’s policy is to hire the best candidate for every position, wherever they’re located,” said Raphael. “So having a completely transparent solution that lets me see who’s done what and when—wherever they may be— is vital.”
Even though Stack Overflow’s close is faster and more efficient, it’s also more accurate. “Everyone talks about speeding up the close, but you also need reliable numbers to share with internal and external stakeholders,” added Raphael. “In some instances you don’t get a second chance to get it right. Those numbers usually go to department heads, boards, and banks, and for some companies are even published. With FloQast, I can sleep at night, knowing all of our accounts are audit ready.”
Curious to know more details about how Stack Overflow’s accounting team halved their time to close with FloQast? Click here to download the full case study as a PDF.
Interested in learning how close management software can help your accounting team close faster and more accurately? Seeing is believing, so schedule a demo today.
