Flexing Financial Muscles: OG Global's Workout with Mayday

MJ Figg, Director of OG Global, the multi-brand fitness franchise, says that using Mayday has cut down month-end close time drastically for their international 60+ entity group.

The OG Global finance team goes above and beyond to make sure they’re using the most up-to-date tech to streamline complex processes. As MJ Figg explains: “We're a big group that has grown up on Xero. Mayday is the killer product suite for us.”

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Facing the Financial Obstacle Course

Before Mayday, MJ and his team were dealing with a decentralised spending process where each franchise branch had its own credit card, resulting in a lack of control.

Intercompany charges, an essential aspect of OG Global's operations, had always presented a challenge. MJ recalled:

"Intercompany charges between our Xero entities used to be a crazy, but unavoidable, waste of time. So much time. So much painful manual work.”

The seemingly never-ending manual tasks and the constant need to switch between Xero files to reconcile transactions were more than just tedious – they were a significant drain on resources and time.

What’s more, none of the entities had visibility on whether other entities had paid a shared invoice or bill, meaning occasionally bills were wrongly getting paid twice, a frustrating situation which was then difficult to untangle and resolve.

These stumbling blocks meant that management accounts were coming out three to four weeks after month end – not good enough for a high-growth group like OG Global.

Mayday: A Turning Point

Now, with Mayday, MJ’s month-end close is transformed.

Using Mayday’s Recharger, OG Global can now much more easily centralise costs and revenue without the headache of recharging manually at the end of each month. MJ explained:

"The cost savings have been incredible. We use their account code and tracking category conditions to set our rules. It's now so easy to calculate and process our recharges each month, before one-click posting them to Xero.”

And it wasn’t just about centralising costs. The team can now make purchases through one entity and recharge those costs throughout the group. MJ told us: “The increase in volume discounts that we've been able to achieve has actually reduced our spend, and we have much more centralised approval mechanisms as well”.

They have also been able to centralise customer payments with Stripe through one entity account and recharge revenue as appropriate. Having one account even means they can start earning interest on their cash in bank, something they weren’t able to do before.

Streamlining Bank Reconciliation with BRAG

But Mayday’s intervention wasn’t limited to recharging. Their BRAG system was another game-changer for OG Global. Reflecting on the past, MJ mentioned, “The amount of time and nightmares it used to cause when someone has the smart idea to pay a bill from another company. I don't want to think about how much time we'd spend switching between Xero files to mark the relevant bill as paid.” 

With BRAG, these challenges are history.

"BRAG is just so effective, so easy to use. The way it's built on top of the Xero bank reconciliation interface makes it such a joy to use."

Building Month-End Muscle

On top of Recharger and BRAG, OG Global has also recently started monitoring their intercompany loan balances through Mayday’s Balancer, making it easy to spot discrepancies and post adjustments when needed. 

With a group of over 60 entities, keeping intercompany loan accounts balanced manually is no mean feat. Mayday has made this process much more efficient, eliminating the danger that loan balances will remain out of kilter for too long, leading to complex untangling at month- or year-end.

Despite the potential complexity presented by the size of OG Global’s group, Mayday's commitment to continuous development and support has impressed MJ. He appreciates:

"The team has been super helpful and responsive in addressing our issues. So impressed at the speed with which the product continues to develop.”

In summarising the transformative impact of Mayday on OG Global’s operations, MJ's words ring clear: Mayday is, for him, “the killer product for any multi-entity group”.