The Problem
ONE.io faced the classic reconciliation challenge that plagues many payment institutions and SMEs in a similar position:
Daily manual reconciliation burden: Their reconciliation process was time-consuming and complex, involving multiple data feeds (3-4 different banks), legacy macro-enabled spreadsheets, and cross-folder data dependencies that frequently broke down.
Fragmented systems: Data came from various sources - SQL servers, AWS files, and API protocols, all feeding in to their reconciliation tool with limited flexibility for change or enhancements.
Regulatory pressure: The FCA's safeguarding changes (ie. The ‘Supplementary Regime’) coming in May introduces formalised requirements under the CASS rulebook, significantly increasing operational complexity.
Resource constraints: They needed a solution that didn't require expensive third-party service providers (which cost £3k+ per month) but also something nimble that didn’t necessarily require a full technical integration.
How We Helped
Continuum introduced Alteryx to ONE.io initially as an alternative reconciliation solution :
Automation with flexibility: Alteryx workflows cleanse and match data from multiple sources, automating the daily reconciliation output that previously required hours of effort and manual investigation.
Auditor-friendly outputs: Creating Excel-based presentations that auditors and regulators can understand and verify - showing total-to-total comparisons and IBAN-by-IBAN breakdowns all in a single rerunnable process.
Standardised internal reconciliation: Developed a standardised internal reconciliation process to meet upcoming CASS 15 requirements, something most companies in the industry have struggled with, according to a recent industry review.
Beyond reconciliation: Through education and training programs, Continuum have helped extend Alteryx usage beyond just reconciliations. ONE.io have since built a complete billing engine, moving all billing off-platform to invoicing straight from source data, and creating client behaviour dashboards with revenue trends & automated alerts for business attention.
Alteryx combines and reconciles internal and external data sources on demand, ensuring that agreed data is shared with multiple stake holders ;
Dashboards for customer success teams to ensure customer service.
Daily client asset safeguarding reports for regulator and auditors
Billing engine for clients, removing a potential reconciliation issue
Alteryx Auto Insights AI dashboards to turn hidden trends and correlations into client value opportunities
Our client Michael McMullan, below, gives a flavour of how flexibility around data consumption has allowed them to get creative and build new workflows for utilisation by wider business functions. Alteryx, which can read and write directly from/to ONE.io's CRM system. A feat that allowed them to build more user friendly tools outside of reconciliations, such as the billing engine mentioned above.
It is a gratifying demonstration of the value-add and true impact of being able to drive data initiatives when equipped with functional tools...
“With the support of Continuum and the Alteryx Designer, we have been able to rip up legacy processes and quickly embed new and standardised workflows, with scalability in mind. With the changing regulatory landscape surrounding client money, specifically CASS 15 in the UK, Continuum has played a key role in helping us develop a strong foundation for our bank reconciliations and expanding our Finance Operations function. Continuum have shared knowledge and access to a tool that assists us in confirming and maintaining the accuracy our books and records.
The accessibility to different types of source data and ability to easily standardise it has also allowed us to think 'bigger picture'. We have recently taken our customer fees calculations from our internal platform and built a billing engine directly in Alteryx. This has allowed us to maintain pricing model flexibility in a more seamless manner which, ultimately, helps drive revenue growth. I can say with great certainty, from experience, that Alteryx can help facilitate a huge decrease in manual workload than when dealing with glitchy Excel Macros every day. We can now read directly from our golden sources such as AWS, our CRM tool, and internal databases - all feeding in to neat workflows and providing outputs with clear and concise information.
Next stop is direct API integration to new and existing banking partners on top of other use cases from across the business. This will hugely decrease dependence on our Product and Dev functions who have better stuff to be doing rather than listening to endless requirements from my team. The Auto Insights functionality has also proved to be a cherry on top. It saves us hours each month summarising trends and provides superb insights into our data. This has helped us better understand our client base, our operating partners and, ultimately, our costs of – all of which gives information and data needed to help lead to improved revenue.
In a perfect world, I think Alteryx would be embraced and utilised by Dev functions within a company. However, I also see it working well as an Operational tool agnostic to any tech deployments. There's a potential gap to be filled for SMEs like ourselves (ie. Payment Service Providers) where Ops teams, Finance functions, and Compliance leaders all can get access to an affordable & scalable solution that can be swiftly implemented & integrated.
"Alteryx can be the whole answer or an in-between solution. You've got Excel on one end, full-coded automation built in-house on the other, but there's the harsh reality where the businesses might need an alternative - not a big technical solution, but something reliable and more flexible than manual macros. That's where Alteryx can sit."
Mike McMullan, FinOps Lead - Treasury and Safeguarding Reconciliations, ONE.io
The Impact
Regulatory readiness
Passed safeguarding audits by demonstrating reproducible, automated processes that satisfy increasingly onerous FCA requirements.
Operational efficiency
Transformed daily reconciliation from hours of manual work to a push-button process that can be run on demand.
Flexibility and cost control
Avoided expensive third-party reconciliation tools (£3,000/month per system) while maintaining the flexibility to adapt as business needs evolved.
What's Next ?
HubSpot integration: Automating dashboard alerts and task generation directly into HubSpot to enable real-time client monitoring and commercial team action, replacing a current Looker Studio solution.
Broader team adoption: Plans to expand Alteryx training and usage across the organisation as they prepare for the May CASS 15 regulatory changes.
Reporting: Utilisating the Auto Insights functionality for dashboard reporting and accurate summarisation of data samples