The Challenge:
A software company building AI-powered tools for multifamily property operators faced a familiar internal contradiction: a business built on automation was running its own financial reporting on manual exports and one-off analysis.
Every management question about the numbers routed through the finance team directly, with no way for leadership to get answers on their own. As the demand for reporting grew, the plan under consideration was straightforward but costly: hire additional FP&A staff to keep pace.
How Liv Data Helped:
Liv Data started with an assessment rather than a staffing recommendation, on the premise that the right technology decision should come before any hiring decision.
AI Readiness Assessment
- Evaluated where the company’s finance function actually stood, rather than assuming a standard reporting buildout would apply
- Built a roadmap identifying specifically where AI would change the work and where it would not, before any tooling was selected
Implementation Instead of Hiring
- Implemented Snowfire in place of adding FP&A headcount, configured around the specific KPIs the finance and executive teams actually reviewed rather than a generic reporting template
- Cleaned up the underlying data so the automated output could be trusted directly, without requiring manual double-checking
Direct Access for Leadership
- Put an AI-driven reporting layer in front of management, allowing leaders to query reporting directly instead of routing every question through the finance team
- Replaced manual data pulls and static spreadsheets with automated, real-time reporting
The Outcome:
- The planned FP&A hires were no longer necessary
- Existing finance resources became materially more efficient without adding staff
- Management now gets answers directly, without waiting on a hand-off from the finance team
- A company that sells automation and real-time insight to its own customers now applies that same standard to its internal reporting
Why It Worked:
Assessing where AI would genuinely change the work — rather than defaulting to a hiring plan to solve a reporting bottleneck — let Liv Data solve the underlying problem with a fraction of the ongoing cost a new hire would have represented, while giving leadership faster, more direct access to the numbers they needed.
