The Challenge

ILIA Inc.’s finance team required a Planful environment that aligned precisely with their organizational structure and reporting needs. While the team already had experience with Planful, they were looking to streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and reduce long-term reliance on external consultants—all without slowing down core finance operations.

The Top Down CPM Approach

Top Down CPM assigned a dedicated Solution Architect to serve as a single point of contact, providing both high-level guidance and deep technical expertise throughout the engagement. This ensured consistency, clarity, and momentum from start to finish.

Using proven best practices, Top Down CPM built out ILIA’s Planful infrastructure in a way that directly reflected the company’s specific business structure. Rather than forcing the team into a generic configuration, the platform was designed to support how ILIA actually operates—allowing the finance team to move quickly from setup to meaningful analysis.

Beyond initial configuration, Top Down CPM worked closely with the team to guide them through key features and workflows. Even for seasoned Planful users, the engagement uncovered new and more efficient ways to build monthly reporting and planning processes, improving both speed and usability.

The Results

By accelerating setup and applying tailored best practices, Top Down CPM significantly reduced the time ILIA spent getting Planful up and running. This allowed the finance team to focus sooner on what mattered most: leveraging Planful for accurate reporting, forecasting, and decision-making.

Perhaps most importantly, Top Down CPM empowered ILIA’s small finance department to become self-sufficient. With a deeper understanding of Planful’s capabilities and optimized workflows in place, the team reduced its ongoing dependence on outside consultants—creating lasting value well beyond the initial engagement.