Arbolus’ Global Finance Transformation with Mayday

Arbolus is changing the knowledge game: digitally connecting businesses to top industry experts so they can access the know-how they need, when they need it.

At the heart of this international operation is a lean finance function led by Harriet Hope, VP of Finance, who oversees multi-entity reporting, intercompany reconciliations and transfer pricing, all on Xero.

Before Mayday: a slow, manual intercompany process

Before Mayday, in early 2022, the Arbolus finance team were facing a laborious intercompany process every month.

Once bookkeeping was complete, Harriet’s Finance Manager had to manually create large intercompany invoices between entities, applying the appropriate mark-ups and replicating them as bills in the parent company.

“The process previously was very manual and long. We had a lot of cost lines that had to be put into an invoice and marked up. If there were any changes later on, it would take some time to recalculate and edit the invoices.”

This manual workflow was slow, taking at least half a day each month, and the:

“If changes were needed, it would elongate that further, or maybe it wouldn’t be spotted and that would create errors.”

With every additional line and revision, there was a greater time cost and higher risk that discrepancies would surface later in reconciliations.

‍

Discovering Mayday

The turning point came in July 2022. Harriet met Mayday’s Co-Founders, David and Griff, during her time working in London.

When Mayday launched, she saw clear alignment with Arbolus’ needs as a growing, multi-entity scale-up.

“We were one of Mayday’s first customers. Being multi-entity, we had a long process every month with intercompany invoicing and reconciliations. Mayday helped us solve that pain point right from the start.”

‍

Life with Mayday: fast, accurate and stress-free

For Harriet, intercompany invoicing and reconciliations at Arbolus are no longer a bottleneck, they’re almost an afterthought!

“Now, the intercompany piece is so quick we don’t even have to think about it. It’s a 10–15 minute task for the finance manager once the management accounts are reviewed. It’s much, much easier.”

The finance team is able to save at least half a day every month on the intercompany workflows alone, with additional benefits of accuracy, auditability and control.

And Mayday’s impact extends beyond intercompany automation. The team now also uses BRAG (Bank Reconciliation Across the Group) to simplify reconciliations.

“BRAG makes it a two-click process instead of manual journals. It’s faster, there’s a better audit trail, and it’s more accurate.”

‍

Looking into the future

Arbolus has recently implemented Mayday’s new Prepayments module, automating another historically manual process.

“The prepayments tool replaces a manual, error-prone calculation with something automated that you can easily track. It takes reconciliations out of Google Sheets and into a structured system.”

And looking ahead, Harriet is particularly excited about Mayday’s AI features that will further enhance accuracy, flag potential errors and reduce repetitive work.

“For me, it’s all about reducing time spent on transactional tasks so the team can focus on insights, feedback to management, and strategic thinking.”

‍

If you’re a multi-entity business on Xero and relate to Harriet’s experience of slow, manual intercompany invoicing and reconciliations, start your free Mayday trial today.