Adaptability fuels rapid growth and scalable M&A success

Before adopting Jedox, America’s Auto Auction relied exclusively on Excel for its planning and reporting processes. While effective in its early days, this approach quickly became a bottleneck as the organization expanded and sought deeper insights into its financial drivers.

Responding to ad hoc reporting requests and answering questions from other teams often required hours of manual effort—splicing data, building out new sheets, and consolidating information across multiple workbooks. This method was not only time-consuming but also introduced a high risk of human error, which could lead to inaccuracies across critical processes.

One of the biggest pain points was the lack of flexibility in profit and loss (P&L) development. The company struggled to analyze its financial performance from different angles, a limitation that became increasingly problematic as its needs evolved. Without a more dynamic solution, America’s Auto Auction faced significant delays in its planning and reporting workflows, hindering its ability to respond effectively to business demands—including absorbing acquired auto auctions.

Recognizing these inefficiencies and their impact on growth, the team began evaluating solutions that could address these challenges as well as integrate with their existing systems. The goal was to find a platform that could save time, reduce errors, and provide the flexibility they needed to refine and analyze their P&L—ultimately enabling smarter decision-making across the organization.

With the solution built upon the Jedox planning and performance management platform, America’s Auto Auction met of its two critical requirements: seamless integration with its existing systems and the prioritization of data security.

Leveraging a Microsoft SQL database setup, America’s data remained secure while enabling smooth and reliable integrations with its financial systems. This setup allowed the company to move data efficiently from Microsoft ERP Business Central into Jedox, creating a robust foundation for reporting and planning.

One of the standout capabilities of Jedox for America’s was its flexibility in handling data frequencies and updates. Previously, the organization relied on manually updated spreadsheets, which caused delays and inefficiencies—especially during financial close processes. With Jedox, data is now pulled from business central into the platform every four hours, ensuring near real-time access to the most current information.

By implementing Jedox, America’s was able to establish more frequent reporting cadences—empowering its accounting controllers to make adjustments and decisions without waiting for spreadsheet updates. As described by Sierra Pennington, a Financial Analyst at America’s Auto Auction, the integration has been highly effective in delivering comprehensive, accurate data on time—streamlining its processes and supporting its growth goals.

Jedox has become a cornerstone of America’s planning and reporting workflows, ensuring a single source of truth (SSOT) across the organization.

America’s Auto Auction transformed its day-to-day operations, enabling greater flexibility, efficiency, and scalability in budgeting, planning, and reporting. By empowering teams to quickly answer ad-hoc questions from leadership, operators, and Sales teams, Jedox has become an extension of the team—almost a digital business partner—supporting the Finance team’s efforts to collaborate with all stakeholders.

Instead of spending hours manually assembling data, users can now instantly splice and analyze specific accounts—such as year-over-year third-party labor costs—as well as identify trends and run calculations in real-time. This streamlined process has been a significant time-saver, allowing the organization to focus more on strategic decision-making.

The Jedox solution also transformed monthly reporting workflows. Common views and reports are now automated, enabling easy updates and reducing the effort involved in preparing recurring decks and reports. This efficiency has freed up valuable time and ensured consistency across reporting tasks.

“Historically, our accounting controllers had to wait for the controller to release the most updated version of the spreadsheet in order to see where they were at to go through and start making adjustments. Whereas now, utilizing Jedox for our reporting, we’ve been able to set up more frequent cadences.”

– Sierra Pennington, Financial Analyst

Jedox’s impact extends beyond daily operations to support America’s growth strategy. The company completed five acquisitions in 2023—and, in 2024, Jedox has proven instrumental in managing the complexities of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Processes that were once manual and time-intensive are now nearly automated, allowing America’s to onboard new sites with ease.

Looking ahead, America’s sees tremendous potential in expanding its use of Jedox’s capabilities—particularly via AIssisted™ planning—to improve accuracy and uncover deeper insights. By leveraging these advanced tools, the organization is positioned to scale effectively and continue driving innovation in its financial processes, ensuring it can adapt to both current demands and future opportunities with ease.