15Five is the strategic performance management platform that drives action and impact, helping businesses and their people thrive.. Behind the scenes, their own accounting team has been on a similar mission to scale from a small, yet nimble group into a true tour de force.
The biggest impetus for that change? Three years ago, 15Five made the switch to bring their month-end close in-house after previously relying on an external accounting firm. Assistant Controller Chloe Sayers and Sr. Staff Accountant Leah Shank spearheaded this transition, aiming to optimize their close process while maintaining audit readiness.
Despite early success in reducing their close time from 10 to 8 days, leadership's demand for more real-time financial reporting prompted the team to seek further improvements.
As such, Sayers and Shank went on the offensive, looking for a solution that could give them leverage by shaving some hours off of at least one of their close workflows.
Like many growing finance teams, 15Five initially tried to solve their prepaid and fixed asset management challenges with a combination of existing tools and manual processes—but they quickly discovered limitations.
Prior to Numeric, 15Five relied on an existing fintech software for prepaid amortization. The software's rigid structure made simple adjustments like updating GL allocations or extending amortization schedules impossible; therefore, the team found themselves maintaining a confusing mix of automated and manual processes.
Eventually, tracking which items were manual versus automated became so cumbersome that they disabled the software's amortization feature entirely and reverted to Excel spreadsheets. While this saved time initially, Sayers recognized it wasn't a sustainable solution for a growing finance organization.
Fixed asset depreciations were managed separately in Excel. Although these were relatively straightforward—primarily tracking employee computer equipment—the process still consumed nearly five hours monthly.
A final catalyst for change came when Shank took maternity leave. The manual nature of their processes made it difficult to transition responsibilities to a contractor, highlighting the need for better knowledge transfer and centralization. These pain points led Sayers to explore Numeric as a potential solution.
Amidst early sales conversations, Numeric felt that 15Five would be excellent candidates for testing a new Smart Subledgers product – excited by the opportunity, Shank & Sayers obliged.
In addition to seeing immediate value in the product, Shank developed an exceptional partnership with the Numeric engineers working on the subledgers tool. Between the engineers’ responsive support, easy accessibility, and willingness to implement changes in near real-time based on Shank’s feedback, she quickly built strong trust with the team while efficiently ramping up on the platform.
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“Having the opportunity to talk to the engineers or the team, and they’re pushing changes in code while we’re talking or we’re bouncing ideas off of each other – that is such a rare case with a vendor. I can’t understate how much of an extremely beneficial and unique relationship that was at the time and still is today.”
Months later, with wind under their wings, the 15Five team is seeing results they don’t think they could have ever expected.
Implementing Numeric Subledgers has transformed 15Five's accounting operations in multiple ways:
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15Five has also found creative ways to leverage Numeric's AI capabilities. They maintain key information like subscription periods and expense GL accounts in a separate app; after exporting this data, Numeric's AI reads these notes and automatically populates the information in the subledgers.
This experience transformed Shank's perspective on AI in accounting. Initially skeptical, she was impressed to see it accurately identifying patterns and processing information that previously required manual review.
"In addition to Subledgers, I use Numeric’s reconciliation module all the time," Shank shares. "Not just at month-end, but almost anytime I update a subledger, I'm checking the reconcile screen. I've caught errors that I might make myself or areas where something doesn't align as expected." This integration created what Shank considers an essential pairing: "I feel like if you have subledgers, you have to have reconciliation and vice versa."
The platform has dramatically improved team continuity by making processes explicit and guided—particularly valuable during transitions. "It sets our team up better for continuity during absences," notes Shank. "It's very obvious where the stop and start points need to be for somebody else – unlike a spreadsheet where you're wondering which cells to update."
For Shank and the team, this journey continues. "Part of my personal goals is getting our team further into Numeric," she explains. As the primary Numeric user at 15Five, she continues exploring how the platform can strengthen their finance operations.
In reflecting on their partnership, 15Five couldn't be more pleased with how Numeric has become an ally in their journey toward more efficient, transparent, and resilient accounting processes. From trading ideas directly with the engineering team early on to now expanding their usage across the platform, 15Five feels they've evolved alongside Numeric and foresee continued growth together in the future.
AI-assisted. Operationally efficient. Audit ready.
