A monthly close process that gives Finance zero-error submissions
A national telehealth organization runs its engineering resource allocation and software capitalization process in Airtable. Roster data flows in on a regular cadence, roughly 1,600 employees and 200 managers across Engineering, Product, IT, and Data Science tag their time to build versus run work by value stream, and Finance and Accounting get a validated, attestable submission every month instead of a spreadsheet reconciliation project.
The problem
Every month, Finance needed a clean picture of how roughly 1,600 people across Engineering, Product, IT, and Data Science split their time between building new capability and running existing systems. That picture had to tie out for capitalization reporting and quarterly certification, but the source data lived in roster exports and manager spreadsheets with no required fields and no validation.
Persistent data integrity errors blocked Finance submissions outright. Managers missed roles or entered allocations that did not add up, and someone had to chase every exception by email before the close could proceed, all while the organization needed auditable attestations to satisfy internal controls.
What they built
Finance and Accounting, working with Engineering and Product leadership, built an Airtable base that ingests personnel data from Workday on a regular cadence and lets roughly 200 managers enter build versus run allocation percentages per value stream directly against their team roster.
Required fields and preventative validation catch missing roles and out of range allocations before they reach Finance. Automated exception emails route problems back to the manager who owns them, and a quarterly certification true up closes the loop for capitalization reporting.
The outcome
Monthly submissions to Finance now land with zero data integrity errors, replacing a process that used to require manual reconciliation against scattered exports. Manager attestations give Finance and Audit a defensible trail that supports the organization's financial reporting obligations.
Leadership gets real time visibility into resource allocation and total cost of ownership across roughly 124 teams, something the old spreadsheet process never supported, and 33 to 35 automations have taken over the manual chasing that used to eat manager and analyst time every close.
Inside the solution
Engineering Resource Allocation and Software Capitalization
Resource & Capacity Planning
- Roster ingestion and personnel sync on a regular cadence
- Manager allocation entry with build versus run tagging per value stream
- Automated validation and exception emails
- Monthly Finance and Accounting submission
- Quarterly certification true up for capitalization
- Persistent data integrity errors blocking Finance submissions
- Manual follow up on missing roles and over or under allocations
- No required fields or preventative validation at the base layer
- Need for manager attestation to satisfy internal controls
- Zero error monthly close submissions to Finance
- Auditable manager attestations supporting internal controls
- Reduced manual work through 33 to 35 automations
- Real time visibility into allocation and cost across roughly 124 teams
- Engineering
- Product
- IT
- Data Science
- Finance
- Accounting
- Audit
- Workday roster ingestion
- Finance and Accounting systems
Engineering resource allocation and software capitalization
Run your monthly engineering resource allocation close in one base: ingest the roster, let managers tag build versus run time by value stream, and catch missing roles or allocations that don't total 100% before anything reaches Finance. Rollups turn those entries into capitalizable and expensed cost by team, value stream and period, while automated exception routing and quarterly manager attestations give Finance and Audit a defensible trail.
From spreadsheet reconciliation to a certified monthly close
Copy the templates
Wire up the roster feed
Add validation and certification
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Required fields and preventative validation catch missing roles or allocations that do not add up before a record can be submitted, and automated exception emails route the problem straight to the manager who owns it.
Personnel data is ingested from Workday on a regular cadence so managers are always allocating against a current team roster instead of a stale export.
A single base with linked manager entries, validation rules, and automated exception handling. Finance now receives one certified submission instead of reconciling scattered spreadsheets by hand.
Manager attestations create an auditable trail for every allocation, and a quarterly certification true up gives Finance and Audit the defensible evidence they need for capitalization reporting.
No. This is a structured data and workflow automation use case. AI adoption elsewhere in the organization is gated by internal security policy and is being evaluated separately.