Zendoor saves 20 hours a week on Equals

“Everyone’s really embraced Equals as our reporting system: our budget, growth, and company OKRs are all in Equals. By the end of Q1 2023 I suspect every report we run will be in Equals. We’ve saved so much time and thousands of dollars by adopting this spreadsheet – it’s really been huge for us.” – Courtney Newcombe, VP of Finance and Strategy

Discovering the opportunity

Zendoor is revolutionizing renting, making it easier than ever for property owners to find and connect with top-notch rental property managers. Zendoor's platform hosts an extensive network of qualified property management professionals and arms them with their full tech stack – property marketing, resident applications, maintenance tickets, and property accounting are built into the platform for a streamlined management experience. Thousands of residents use their service to find their dream home. Courtney, on the other hand, was looking to buy a home for their reporting.

Since Zendoor is both a brokerage firm and a software system, they legally operate as two different entities – which means that the finance team has to maintain two different books and consolidate them when reporting back metrics. Courtney’s team was looking into different FP&A tools, because they were spending up to 2 weeks a month in Excel just getting their numbers in order for investors and for internal goal-setting. Right before wrapping up a deal with an expensive piece of software, she and her CEO decided to try Equals.

Implementing changes

Courtney started out by connecting both Quickbook accounts in Equals and used simple spreadsheet formulas to merge the two databases. What was a 2 week process whittled down to a day’s worth of metrics management – and over $9K in the bank in software fees alone! Not only were the accounting nightmares that drove Zendoor to Equals over, she noticed that setting up integrations was so simple that she decided to try Equals as the reporting system for all company metrics. In the last few months, she’s built out their entire 2023 budget plans, growth plans, company OKRs, and funnel metrics entirely in Equals.

Favorite feature: “I may be an accountant, but the aesthetic value of a good looking graph means a lot to me - the charts and visuals in Equals are super sleek and crisp. I know I’m supposed to pick one feature, but I also have to say it’s really exciting to hit the ‘run query’ button and watch all of my summary tables in a workbook update.”

Unlocking growth

Today, Courtney relies on a master spreadsheet that pulls from their databases into one view – where she can keep a pulse on the company’s heartbeat. Getting reporting under one roof could not have happened at a better time: Zendoor has been hiring rapidly, bringing on a Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Marketing in the last few months. New executives can now make decisions from consolidated reports – and the best part is that no one had to compromise on their preferred method of data consumption. Courtney has set up customized dashboards for all leaders at Zendoor, each tying back to her master workbook and offering a tailored lens into the business. Aligning on plans is simple because key metrics come from the same place and are granular enough for anyone to quickly elicit answers to business questions. Talk about finding your Zen!