Marketing spend visible in real time for Finance and Marketing
A financial index provider uses Airtable to track allocated versus spent marketing budgets across P-card charges, invoices, event costs, and memberships, automating monthly accrual reporting to Finance and delivering ROI visibility that was previously impossible without manual reconciliation.
The problem
Marketing and Finance teams had no shared view of budget versus actuals. Spend data lived across disconnected bases, tables, and Excel files, with no way to attribute expenses to specific events or campaigns. End-of-year accrual misses were a recurring problem because Finance had to wait for manually compiled spreadsheets.
Monthly reporting to Finance required significant manual effort: gathering P-card charges, chasing missing receipts, reconciling invoices from multiple procurement flows, and compiling everything into an email. Any delay in one input caused errors downstream.
What they built
The team deployed Airtable as the shared budget operating layer for Marketing. Expense intake flows through forms covering P-card charges, invoices, memberships, and event costs, each routed to the correct budget sub-category automatically. Ariba invoice submissions and a document-processing platform for invoice capture are both integrated, reducing manual data entry for Finance and Procurement.
Budget and sub-budget rollups calculate committed versus uncommitted spend in real time. Automated monthly accrual emails deliver Finance the figures they need without any manual compilation. An ROI calculation layer links cost records to Salesforce pipeline data so Marketing can see cost versus pipeline at the event and campaign level.
The outcome
Leadership can check budget versus actuals at any time without waiting for a monthly report. Finance receives automated accrual summaries on schedule, eliminating end-of-year accrual misses that had previously required manual cleanup. Overspend risk has dropped because committed amounts are visible to budget owners before purchases are approved.
Marketing Operations can now see event-level ROI by linking spend records to Salesforce pipeline data, giving the team evidence to inform future budget decisions. The solution replaced Smartsheet and consolidated fragmented spreadsheets into a single Finance interface that both Marketing and Finance teams use directly.
Inside the solution
Marketing Budget, Procurement & Financial Accruals
Finance & Procurement
Finance & Accounting
- Expense intake via forms for P-card charges, invoices, memberships, and event costs
- Budget and sub-budget rollups with committed and uncommitted tracking
- Monthly recurring commitment tracking across vendors
- Invoice submission with Ariba integration and a document-processing platform
- P-card charge capture with receipt attachments
- Event-linked spend allocation by event record
- Automated monthly accrual emails to Finance
- ROI calculation linking cost to Salesforce pipeline data
- Finance interface and marketer portals with role-based views
- Consolidated Finance dashboard with real-time budget status
- No real-time transparency into budget versus actuals
- End-of-year accrual misses requiring manual cleanup
- Scattered data across bases, tables, and Excel files
- Manual monthly email compilation for Finance reporting
- Difficulty attributing spend to specific events or campaigns
- Manual follow-up for missing receipts and invoices
- Real-time budget visibility for Marketing leadership and Finance
- Reduced overspend risk with committed versus uncommitted tracking
- Automated accrual reporting eliminating manual monthly compilation
- Self-serve status tracking for both Finance and Marketing teams
- Clearer vendor and event-level spend reporting
- ROI tracking linking marketing cost to Salesforce pipeline
- Marketing
- Finance
- Procurement
- Marketing Operations
- Ariba
- Salesforce
- OneDrive
- Smartsheet
Marketing Budget, Procurement & Financial Accruals
Track every marketing dollar in one place: budget lines with allocated, committed and uncommitted amounts, purchase orders and vendors, expense intake for P-card charges, invoices, memberships and event costs, and month-end accrual entries Finance can review with their supporting records. Automations open a draft accrual from each new expense, chase missing receipts, and email Finance a monthly accrual summary, while AI columns write the budget health note, expense coding triage, accrual justification memo and event ROI narrative.
How a financial index provider manages marketing spend and accruals in Airtable
Capture every expense through intake forms linked to budget categories
Roll up budget versus actuals and automate Finance reporting
Link spend to pipeline for ROI visibility
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Airtable integrates with Ariba for invoice submission and tracking. Invoices submitted through Ariba are linked to budget line items in Airtable, giving Finance and Marketing a unified view of committed spend without duplicating data entry.
An Airtable automation sends Finance a structured monthly accrual email on schedule, drawing directly from the current budget data. This replaces the previous process of manually gathering figures from multiple sources and assembling them into an email each month.
Spend records in Airtable are linked to Salesforce pipeline records at the event or campaign level. Rollup fields calculate cost versus pipeline automatically, giving Marketing a live ROI view without manual spreadsheet work.
Yes. Airtable Interfaces provide role-specific portals: Finance sees the accrual dashboard and budget versus actuals, while marketers see their own spend status and submission history. Both teams work from the same underlying data without needing access to all records.
Airtable automations flag records with missing attachments and send reminders to the submitter. Finance and Procurement can see outstanding items on a dedicated view and follow up from within the system rather than chasing via email.