Kodiak Cakes: ‘Confident We’re 100% Closed With FloQast’

Wholesome folks and hard work drive the culture and pace at the fast-growing food brand Kodiak Cakes, based in Park City, Utah. And when frustration and delay caused by the month-end Close grew unsustainable, the Kodiak Cakes accounting team decided to fix it with FloQast. Not only has the month-end Close gone from 10 days to seven, but accuracy and transparency have also improved, giving the team the workflow, tracking, and reporting to confidently claim they’re “100% closed.”

At Kodiak Cakes, everyone is encouraged to enjoy good food, appreciate the great outdoors, and always give their best.

It’s a philosophy that empowers employees to put a piece of themselves into their work every day and has helped turn the flapjack and waffle mix maker into one of the fastest-growing and most recognizable food brands in the world, as well as one of the most admired places to work in Utah.

Assistant Controller Sonja Matson has been with the company for six years and is all in on the brand, the products, the company, and truly giving her best. To stay true to their commitment to excellence – and handle the new waves of growth and expansion – Matson and her colleagues knew they had to fix a month-end Close process that had grown too chaotic, stressful, and time-consuming.

“We were using checklists in Excel, juggling multiple versions, and we were never quite sure what was completed or not, and so the Close dragged on forever,” Matson said. “As soon as we saw the demo of FloQast, we were like ‘How do we get this, and get it approved?’ so we made the case that we could close faster and be more accurate with FloQast and it worked.”

The No-Brainer Decision Between More People vs. Automation

Matson recognized automation was her only hope of speeding up the monthly Close at Kodiak Cakes. After in-depth discussions and demos at SuiteWorld, Oracle’s largest annual gathering of the NetSuite community, the decision was made to go with FloQast.

“It was a no-brainer then, and we didn’t even know about everything FloQast could do,” Matson said. “Throwing more people at the problem was not going to help. We had to bring the automation and organization of FloQast if we were going to make a real difference in our Close process.”

The integration with Oracle NetSuite was quick and easy, and the FloQast customer success team handled every detail of the implementation. The results around timeliness and accuracy were immediate.

“With FloQast’s direct links into NetSuite, not only can we be sure that we have the latest numbers, but we can also trust that they’re correct,” Matson said.

Staying Ahead of the Close Schedule with Everyday Productivity and Accountability

Matson and her team of 11 are in FloQast daily, checking tasks, doing mid-month reconciliations, and ensuring that issues are cleaned and resolved throughout the month instead of at the last minute. The head start and extra visibility prevent upstream bottlenecks from becoming downstream delays.

FloQast has also been helpful in reporting the health and position of the company to outside investors, Matson shared.

“Our executive team wants to know where we’re sitting by the 8th of the month and now we can do that with FloQast,” Matson said. “With the month-end Close now finished in seven days, our CFO has more time to be fully prepared and has everything he needs to speak intelligently and confidently about the business.” – Sonja Matson, Assistant Controller

While the ultimate goals of achieving a faster month-end Close and improving information accuracy have been accomplished, Matson also sees FloQast as an ongoing training and performance improvement. 

“I’ve started taking screenshots of our analytics dashboards to show the volume and velocity of our progress throughout the month for all team members,” Matson said. “People are competitive and want to do better, so the public sharing of where we’re at motivates us to push beyond our thresholds and benchmarks. It’s a nice little nudge without having to say ‘hey, hurry up’ or call someone out directly.”  – Sonja Matson, Assistant Controller

Matson said Slack and OneDrive integrations have also added efficiencies with easy tagging for reviews and sign-offs. Team members don’t have to try multiple methods of communication or steps to secure approvals.

“FloQast has consolidated everything in one place for all of us, including for CFO and auditors, so no one has to search for journal entries, transactions, or numbers in NetSuite,” Matson said. “Accounts are linked, reconciliations are documented, and everything has notes in case of questions. FloQast is amazing and we love it.”