At a glance

Tecovas, a premium Western brand known for its handcrafted boots, apparel, and accessories, was scaling rapidly, and finance couldn’t keep up with manual reporting alone. Reports were built manually in Excel, distributed as static files, and often had to be re-sent to store managers with every new update to historical actuals or change in store leadership. 

This sluggish, error-prone process turned their ambitious Retail expansion into an uphill battle. 

To stay ahead of variances and plan effectively, every department needed to take ownership of its numbers. With Cube, they could. 

Centralized data and self-serviced reporting in Excel and Google Sheets gave store, operations, and merchandise leaders real-time access to their data so they could explain shifts, flag issues early, and make smarter decisions. Time previously spent pulling together 30+ store P&L reports was redirected to more meaningful cross-functional work, allowing for deeper analysis and strategic action.

Challenge

Siloed finance, bottlenecked teams

As Tecovas expanded its number of retail stores by 33% in a single year, the finance team faced an increasingly unsustainable reporting process. Across all Retail locations, monthly P&Ls were shared as standalone Excel files, stalling updates between departments and extending troubleshooting timelines.

Store managers were restricted to viewing only their store's performance data. Since the report was static, they had no visibility into consolidated retail performance or how other stores were performing, which often limited collaboration amongst peers. This also limited the finance team’s ability to focus on higher-level planning or strategic initiatives, as they became the central hub for all report access.

“There wasn’t an easy way for store managers or operations to dig into their own numbers,” said Emily Mawer MacDowell, FP&A Manager for Retail. “It always came back to us.”

Beyond the workflow burden, the deeper issue was a lack of shared accountability. Without real-time access to financials, other departments couldn’t proactively own their numbers, spot issues, or contribute meaningfully to planning. Finance became a bottleneck, not by design, but by necessity.

“It just wasn’t scalable,” Emily added. “We couldn’t collaborate well because everything had to ‘go through finance’.”

Solution

Controlled, distributed access with Cube

To eliminate reporting bottlenecks and give other teams direct and controlled access to their numbers, Tecovas implemented Cube as a centralized financial platform. The finance team:

• Integrated its general ledger into Cube, creating a single, reliable source of truth for all core financials.
• Used Cube's Google Sheets app to supercharge their dashboards, allowing teams to filter financials by store, district, and timeframe, with little technical skills required.
• Enabled self-serve, controlled access to up-to-date data for store managers, retail operations, and visual merchandising teams.
• Tailored dashboard formatting to their needs and to allow partners to gather deeper insights themselves using Cube's built-in reporting and drill-down features.
• Empowered teams to own their planning processes in Google Sheets and Excel, keeping them in the familiar tools they already used while adding the robustness and security of Cube's platform.
• Evolved planning cycles from a finance-exclusive process to a collaborative workflow with finance oversight, empowering teams to track spending patterns, flag issues, and plan more effectively.

“It used to be: ‘Here are your numbers. See you next month,’” Emily explained. “Now, it’s: ‘Here are your numbers. Why do they look that way?’”

Results, impact, & what's next

100% Cube adoption and greater cross-functional accountability across 40+ retail locations

With Cube, Tecovas didn’t just streamline reporting: they changed how the Retail organization interacts with financial and operational data.

• All new store managers are onboarded to Cube. Store managers at Tecovas’ 40+ locations now review their own P&Ls at each month-end, often showing up with insights in hand. Operations and merchandise teams proactively flag budget-impacting issues like alcohol licensing or marketing expenses, helping finance stay ahead of variances.
• Established a connection between Corporate and Retail financial models. Linking two of Tecovas’ most important financial models together through Cube has vastly decreased the time it takes to ensure updates are reflected with the most recent information.
• The finance team reclaimed days' worth of valuable time per month. “We went from saving and emailing more than 40 Excel files every month to having all of that reporting automated,” Emily shared. “That alone saves us two to three days of work every month.” With fewer manual tasks and follow-up questions, the team now spends more time partnering with the business, enabling rather than policing.
• Real-time visibility gave teams ownership of their numbers and raised financial literacy across the org. “We’ve seen a huge increase in accountability,” Emily said. “People want to make sure their numbers are right, because they know they’ll be looking at them, not waiting on us.”

“Cube is not just a finance solution,” Emily said. “It’s how our business understands itself.”

With Cube having transformed its core FP&A capabilities, Tecovas is now strategically expanding to incorporate operational metrics and develop more comprehensive use cases. Emily’s team is piloting dashboards for bonus tracking, NPS, and RFID accuracy, and evaluating use cases in inventory and real estate planning. The goal is to apply the same self-serve, controlled collaboration model to even more areas of the business.