Eliminated "mad panic" of budget season through automated workflows and centralised data management
Created organisational confidence in financial data with a single source of truth
Enabled enterprise-wide forecasting capabilities that were previously impossible due to manual workflows
The Challenge: Automating the Processes That Fuel a Growing Business
As Business Systems Manager with 20 years at GB Railfreight, Rhodalyn Gabuat witnessed the UK-based transport and logistics company's remarkable transformation from a small operation to a rapidly growing business.
However, this unprecedented growth exposed a critical weakness: the manual financial and operational processes that had worked for a smaller company were completely inadequate for their new scale.
“Our budgeting processes were chaotic, our teams were collating lots of different spreadsheets from different sources,” Rhodalyn says. “There was one person responsible for collating all that information and she was just having a nightmare. We collated the budget and then no one had any confidence in our figures because it was such a rush.”
Everything was “a mad panic,” Rhodalyn says, and they knew they needed a solution to help take some of the pressure off their team.
After thoroughly evaluating multiple technology options, GB Railfreight selected Vena for its unique combination of power and simplicity. "[We liked] the simplicity of using Excel and the ease of implementation, whereas the other systems were quite complicated and just looked really difficult," Rhodalyn explains.
Empowering Processes Across the Business and Creating a Single Source of Truth With Vena
GB Railfreight took a strategic approach to implementation, starting with their most critical point: profit-and-loss reporting. A dedicated Vena consultant worked on-site with their team, providing hands-on training and establishing best practices that would ensure successful adoption.
The transformation was immediate and dramatic. "The person collating the budget was really happy for the change," Rhodalyn notes. The timeline speaks to Vena's implementation efficiency: "We started our project in August, and we finished the budget by November."
With the foundation established, GB Railfreight rapidly expanded their use of Vena beyond the initial P&L reporting to include CapEx planning, workforce planning, and comprehensive forecasting capabilities. This expansion revealed one of the most significant benefits: democratising financial planning across the organisation.
“Before Vena, we could never do a forecast,” Rhodalyn explains by way of example. “It was always the financial controller doing the forecast because it was too much work for everyone.” Now, with Vena's automated workflows and Excel-native interface, forecasting has become accessible to the entire team.
Since implementing Vena, GB Railfreight has achieved a complete transformation of their financial processes, helping the company:
• Free the finance team to focus on strategic, value-added analysis rather than data compilation
• Expand usage across multiple business functions including CapEx planning and workforce planning
• Build the foundation for future growth with scalable processes that can handle continued business expansion
This success has created internal momentum for further expansion. "There's a long line of people that want to do more," Rhodalyn reports, highlighting how Vena's impact has generated organisation-wide enthusiasm for additional automation and efficiency gains.
We just wanted to be able to use Excel, because that's what we've done in the past, and not have to change any processes, but just have the database and the workflow and the security in the background.”
Rhodalyn Gabuat
Business Systems Manager, GB Railfreight