Customer Success Stories | Clearsulting

Clearsulting gains real-time financial visibility for global expansion

As consulting firm Clearsulting grew, disconnected systems and manual processes slowed project approvals and financial closes. Certinia’s Salesforce-native Professional Services Cloud, Financial Management Cloud, and Services Estimator streamlined operations, automated time and expense tracking, and provided real-time insights into project performance. Clearsulting achieved significant business process optimization. This enabled better resource allocation and financial forecasting for their data-driven consulting approach.

Industry

Management Consulting

Company Size

Small

Headquarters

Cleveland, Ohio

Challenge

Manual processes for proposals and financials, fragmented systems, and lack of real-time project and financial visibility

Solution

Certinia Financial Management Cloud, Certinia Professional Services Cloud, Services Estimator

What Certinia Replaced

Excel

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Background

Fragmented financial data challenges month-end close

Clearsulting empowers finance leaders to become better business partners. With offices in North America and Europe, they transform finance teams through a digital-first approach that delivers measurable results.

Success came quickly. In just six years, Clearsulting grew from a small team of three to nearly 200 consultants serving major clients in various industries. But with the company's growth came the challenge of managing their consulting operations. As Monica Engelhardt, CFO of Clearsulting, explained:

"…about two or three years ago, we were getting to the point where we're like, we can't do this the way we're doing it anymore. I think a big tipping point on that was our global expansion." - Monica Engelhardt, CFO, Clearsulting

Clearsulting depended on its consultants' efficiency. But teams were often hindered by tedious administrative tasks, diverting time from client work. Project proposal approvals were slow, lacking transparency in progress.

The finance team wrestled with fragmented data. Month-end close became challenging due to multiple subsidiaries and currencies. Extensive manual effort was needed to gather and reconcile information from disconnected systems.

Consultants felt that tracking time and expenses was disconnected from their daily tasks. Leadership lacked real-time insights into project performance and resource utilization, often making decisions based on outdated data from time-consuming manual processes.

With growth plans on the horizon, Clearsulting needed a scalable system that could connect their people, projects, and financials in one place.

Certinia was a natural choice for Clearsulting because of the breadth of the product and the seamless integration with Salesforce Sales Cloud. At the same time, Clearsulting is the perfect customer for Certinia because they are rapidly growing and evolving, and focused on an agile, ‘cloud-first’ digital transformation strategy.”

Marshall King
Business Enablement Lead, Clearsulting

Challenge

Barriers to business process optimization

Clearsulting’s rapid expansion to nearly 200 consultants surfaced operational cracks. Manual workflows, siloed systems, and limited data visibility slowed project approvals, dragged out financial closes, and hindered decision-making.

Fragmented quote creation process
Creating proposals took longer because different teams were using separate information sources and handling quotes on their own. This made it tough to keep pricing consistent and standardize services, which in turn slowed down approvals and made Clearsulting less responsive to new business opportunities.
Siloed time and billing processes
Consultants manually submitted their time and expenses, causing delays for finance teams in billing. The disconnection between delivery and finance slowed Clearsulting's billing cycles and revenue recognition, increasing administrative work for all involved.

Time-consuming report consolidation
Putting together financial reports was a real hassle, as it involved manually combining data from eight different reports across three platforms into Excel. This lengthy process wasted a lot of resources every week and held up access to the crucial financial insights that leadership needed for their strategic planning.
Spreadsheet-based project management
Project estimates and approvals were trapped in spreadsheets, leading to delays and teamwork issues. The lack of a consistent workflow and central record system made it difficult for teams to align, track versions, and monitor the approval process.

Solution

Building a foundation for data-driven consulting

Clearsulting adopted Certinia's Salesforce-native Professional Services Cloud, Financial Management Cloud, and Services Estimator to overcome operational bottlenecks. This platform replaced fragmented tools with connected workflows that streamlined business process optimization across project delivery and finance—giving Clearsulting the agility needed for smarter scaling.

Faster, more consistent proposal creation

Clearsulting replaced spreadsheets with Certinia’s Services Estimator, centralizing project planning and approvals in Salesforce. Teams can now create, review, and approve estimates directly, ensuring consistent pricing, standardized services, and quicker responses to new opportunities.

Seamless time and expense management

Certinia PS Cloud connects time and expense tracking software directly to finance, removing manual steps. Consultants can quickly submit reports, allowing finance to integrate this data into invoicing and revenue recognition, reducing Clearsulting's billing cycle by six days, leading to better cash flow.

Multi-currency reporting automation

Certinia FM Cloud has eliminated manual financial consolidations for Clearsulting's subsidiaries and currencies, automating reporting and reducing month-end close time by over 50%. This allows finance teams to focus on delivering valuable insights for data-driven consulting.

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Single-source pricing control

Project pricing, approvals, and teamwork are all streamlined in one connected process. This software for consulting firms has done away with the need for offline spreadsheets, which helps speed up approvals and enhances operational clarity—an essential benefit for implementing business consulting software.

Results

Business process optimization that fuels expansion

In just three months after launching Certinia’s Salesforce-native platform, Clearsulting saw significant operational gains. They cut their month-end financial close time by over 50%, going from 12 days down to just five. With accurate and automated reporting, finance teams can now focus more on strategy rather than chasing manual data.

Billing operations also moved faster. With time and expenses flowing directly into finance, Clearsulting shortened its billing cycle by six days, boosting revenue recognition and cash flow. By removing administrative tasks, consultants and finance teams now work more efficiently—a core goal of the firm’s business process optimization efforts.

Leadership and delivery teams gained access to real-time dashboards, saving hours of manual data collection each week. Insights into project margins, pipeline forecasts, utilization, and compliance are now available at a glance. This shift to data-driven consulting has allowed leaders to make faster, better-informed decisions to support global expansion.

Backed by Certinia’s business consulting software, Clearsulting has built a connected operational foundation that will grow alongside their plans. Equipped with multi-entity, multi-currency capabilities, Clearsulting is ready to serve more clients across North America and Europe with speed, accuracy, and confidence.

50% faster invoicing

More than 50% faster month-end closes

Billing cycle shortened by six days

3hrs/week saved on data gathering

Determined project margin with the click of a button

With Certinia solutions, we can ensure all consulting-related information seamlessly flows from sales to services to invoicing, paving the way for our continued growth. We now have one source of truth, faster invoicing, and faster month-end closes.”

Monica Engelhardt, CFO, Clearsulting