At a glance

Outdoorsy, a leading platform for RV rentals, glamping, and travel insurance, was rapidly expanding across multiple entities, but its small finance team was stuck in disconnected Excel models. Manual, error-prone processes slowed both forecasting and business support efforts.

With Cube, the team slashed planning prep time by 50%, enabled real-time collaboration, and built a centralized, scalable foundation for growth.

Challenge

Disconnected systems made it difficult to scale across multiple entities

Outdoorsy’s small finance team supported a fast-growing, multi-entity business: Outdoorsy, Roamly, and Outdoorsy Destination Network (ODN). As the company expanded, launching new product lines and scaling operations, the finance team’s reporting and planning processes were well-established but increasingly time-consuming.

Constant manual intervention and corrections within disconnected spreadsheets were slowing things down and leading to a more reactive pace of work. Instead of driving strategy, finance was spending valuable time on execution. “If someone was out for a week, our outlook process would be delayed,” said Morgan Rafferty, Senior Finance Manager.

The team faced four key challenges:

• Siloed models: Each entity ran its own Excel model, making consolidation time-consuming, error-prone, and hard to maintain as complexity grew.
• Manual data pulls: Finance relied on manual NetSuite exports, which delayed month-end close cycles and slowed down variance analysis.
• Inflexible planning: Scenario building was limited by spreadsheet coordination. This made it hard to reforecast or support timely leadership decisions.
• Limited visibility: Finance and accounting had no shared view, which forced time-consuming manual reconciliations and reduced strategic focus. “There were so many numbers on a page,” said Morgan. “Trying to find why something was off consumed a lot of time.”

The business was scaling. But without a connected, repeatable way to manage planning and reporting, finance couldn’t scale with it.

Solution

Centralized planning, scalable workflows, and real-time collaboration

To meet growing demands across entities, the team needed a centralized structure. Cube provided a unified platform for faster planning, shared insights, and scalable execution. Instead of reinventing the wheel every month, the finance team created a foundation that grows with the business.

Key improvements included:

• Multi-entity data model: Cube centralized financial and operational data across Outdoorsy, Roamly, and ODN, creating a single source of truth.
• Google Sheets integration: Finance and accounting synced shared Sheets with Cube to align daily during month-end close cycles.
• Structured scenario templates: Enabled consistent planning formats and allowed the team to build and compare multiple scenarios without duplicating efforts.
• Conversational AI in Slack: Empowered the team to instantly uncover insights about the business without needing to dig through spreadsheets.
• Self-serve data access: Stakeholders could now access trusted Cube data directly, freeing up finance from repetitive questions.

Results, impact, & what's next

50% faster outlooks, more strategic time, and scalable support

With Cube, Outdoorsy turned a fragmented reporting process into a connected, strategic finance engine. The small team now runs faster, supports more stakeholders, and delivers deeper insights, all without adding headcount.

• Cut planning prep time by 50%. “We can now run an outlook in one to two hours,” said Morgan. “It used to take four or more. Cube cut the process in half.” This freed up hours each month to forecast more frequently and keep planning aligned with the business.
• Built and updated two full-year scenarios monthly. Instead of managing one plan at a time, the team now updates rolling forecasts for topline revenue and financial statements across all three entities every month.
• Real-time variance reviews during close. With data flowing automatically, the team reviews variances during the financial close, not weeks later, spotting issues early and acting faster.
• Ad-hoc answers in seconds, not hours. Using Cube’s Slack integration, finance responds to stakeholder questions instantly. “I was able to quickly answer a legal headcount question by asking Cube in Slack,” said Morgan.
• Scaled support without growing the team. With stronger workflows and self-serve access, the three-person finance team provides multi-entity support while staying lean and focused.

Looking ahead, Outdoorsy is shifting from managing inputs to shaping outcomes. With planning centralized and streamlined, the team is spending more time modeling strategic scenarios and helping the business navigate change.

“Now that our planning process is so smooth and centralized in Cube,” said Morgan, “we’re spending more time partnering with the business and analyzing how changes in headcount or premiums affect revenue across all three entities. We’re putting ourselves in a position to support bigger decisions as the business grows.”