Faced with rapid and sustained growth, online design platform Canva had to fundamentally rethink the organisation of its finance function. The objective: to move from a fragmented environment largely based on spreadsheets to an integrated planning model capable of supporting real-time decision-making.
To meet this challenge, Canva chose to rely on Anaplan to structure its forecasting, reporting and financial management processes.
A finance function under pressure from growth
With hundreds of millions of users worldwide and strong expansion momentum, Canva had to adapt its financial tools to an especially fast-paced business environment. FP&A teams were faced with complex processes, disconnected tools and a heavy reliance on spreadsheets.
This situation resulted in lengthy forecasting cycles, risks of calculation errors and limited visibility for management.
A gradual transformation towards integrated finance
To address these limitations, the finance team progressively built models in Anaplan covering several key areas:
- headcount forecasting,
- personnel costs,
- revenue,
- operating expenses (OpEx),
- production costs.
Financial and operational data are now centralised through integrations with tools such as NetSuite, while solutions such as Workato facilitate data transformation and synchronisation between systems.
Tangible gains in accuracy and responsiveness
One of the most significant outcomes concerns forecasting reliability. The variance rate for headcount forecasts fell from around 10 % to 1,5 % in just a few quarters.
According to Florence Timso, Head of FP&A at Canva, this improvement is due to greater transparency in calculations and an increased ability to continuously adjust models based on actual results.
Beyond accuracy, finance has also gained agility: model adjustments can now be deployed quickly, enabling more precise adaptation to changes in the business.
Finance closer to decision-making
This transformation is not limited to operational efficiency gains. It has also strengthened the strategic role of the finance function, which can now provide management with consolidated analyses updated in real time.
In an environment where decisions must be made quickly, this ability to connect data and make it immediately actionable is a key driver of performance management.
A model geared towards connected finance
By relying on an integrated and scalable architecture, Canva is continuing to enhance its setup, particularly in relation to infrastructure costs and margin.
The stated ambition is to minimise reliance on manual processes and build a fully connected, data-driven finance function capable of sustainably supporting the company’s growth.
source: Anaplan
