How Guzman y Gomez instantly reports month-end close in Excel with Solution 7 by Zone

Guzman y Gomez (GYG) is a fast-growing quick-service restaurant brand bringing Mexican-inspired cuisine to more than 250 locations across Australia, the United States, Singapore and Japan. As the company prepared for life as a newly listed organization on the ASX, its finance team faced mounting challenges with month-end reporting across hundreds of entities. Manual data exports, spreadsheet manipulation and fragmented processes were delaying their month-end close. To keep pace with rapid growth, GYG needed a solution that could deliver accurate, presentation-quality reports instantly using live NetSuite data. 

With Solution 7 by Zone, GYG transformed its close process – cutting five days from month-end reporting and giving leadership real-time visibility into performance across every restaurant.

The Challenge: Manual reporting processes slowed month-end close across hundreds of restaurants

As GYG expanded its global footprint, the finance team struggled to keep up with the increasing complexity of its reporting requirements. Each month-end close involved downloading large volumes of data from NetSuite, manipulating spreadsheets, and manually consolidating results across more than 250 restaurant entities. 

• Late adjustments: Just another complication of the restaurant business, late adjustments forced the financial team to restart the reporting process from scratch. Reports had to be re-downloaded, re-validated and manually reassembled in Excel. Version control became difficult, increasing the risk of inconsistent numbers.
• Operational scale: With more than 250 restaurants operating across four countries – and plans to expand to 1000 in Australia alone – GYG’s financial data was growing exponentially. Each location generated its own revenue, cost and performance metrics, creating layers of intercompany transactions and multi-entity consolidation needs. 
• Pressure from public listing: As a newly listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), GYG faced heightened expectations for transparency and timeliness. Management needed fast, accurate insight into performance at both entity and group levels. 

The Solution: Live reporting in Excel

After evaluating their options, GYG chose Solution 7 by Zone – a native Excel plugin that connects to live NetSuite data for analysis and reporting. 

“This Excel add-in allowed us to slice and dice all the entity and location level data we have in our NetSuite environment however we needed to, quickly and reliably, month after month.” – Harry Hammond, Group Financial Controller, Guzman y Gomez

Guzman y Gomez partnered with Zone to bring real-time visibility into its financial reporting. 

Solution 7, a NetSuite SuiteApp, functions as a native plug-in within Excel, complete with its own tab in the top ribbon. Its familiar Excel interface lets finance teams create, refresh and analyze reports all within the tool they know. No exports, extra steps or navigating NetSuite’s backend needed.  

Excel reports across entities, countries and restaurant locations stay synchronized with live NetSuite data, and users can drill back and drill down into detailed transactions without leaving their workbooks. What was once a time-consuming, error-prone process has become a fast, reliable system built to scale with Guzman y Gomez’s global ambitions.

• Implementation was fast and straightforward. The Guzman y Gomez team self-installed the Solution 7 add-in directly in Excel, set up user roles within NetSuite and connected through SuiteAnalytics Connect to access live data. 
• Finance users were quickly able to extract data from NetSuite directly while working within Excel.
• Reports were built without relying on IT or external consultants. The team now easily delivers:
  
  • Management and statutory financial reporting packs, consolidating data across hundreds of restaurant locations directly in Excel.
  • Budget vs. actual analyses, variance reports, and month-end summaries that refresh automatically with live NetSuite data. 
• Company-wide impact was realized beyond the core finance team. Tax, treasury, FP&A and internal audit teams also adopted Solution 7 for deeper analysis. It was useful across departments for viewing their actual costs vs. budgets in real time. 

“The fact that the data throughout complex reporting workbooks can all be synchronously updated with a single click of the ‘refresh workbook’ button is amazing.” – Harry Hammond, Group Financial Controller, Guzman y Gomez

The Results: Month-end reporting cut by five days with real-time, reliable financial data

Since implementing Solution 7, Guzman y Gomez’s finance team has improved their reporting ability. What once required days of manual effort is now completed instantaneously, giving leadership faster access to accurate, consolidated financial data across hundreds of restaurant locations. Now, the finance team focuses on analysis and growth rather than painful manual data manipulation.

• Reporting five days faster: Month-end reporting that previously took up to five days after close is now available immediately, improving visibility and decision-making across the business.
• Scalable foundation for growth: With more than 250 restaurants operating in 4 countries – and plans to reach 1,000 in Australia alone – Solution 7 provides a reporting system that will scale as quickly as GYG expands.
• Fast payback: The return on investment was immediate, both in time savings and more accurate reporting. 

“Month-end reporting went from being finalized four or five days after month-end close to being available as soon as the month-end closed.” – Harry Hammond, Group Financial Controller, Guzman y Gomez

NetSuite-fueled insights inside of Excel

Guzman y Gomez is a standout example of how on-demand Excel financial reporting and planning for NetSuite can unlock financial operations for a fast-scaling enterprise. Solution 7 replaced days of manual data manipulation with a connected, automated reporting process embedded directly in Excel. Live integration with NetSuite ensures every data point is current and accurate, while one-click refresh and drill-down capabilities deliver instant, presentation-quality insights across hundreds of restaurant entities.

What began as a search for faster month-end close evolved into a complete reporting transformation – real-time visibility, five-day time savings, and a scalable foundation that will support GYG’s growth to 1,000 restaurants and beyond. With Zone, the finance team has the tools to move at the pace of the business, confident that every report reflects a single, trusted source of truth.

“Payback time for this investment is measured in weeks. It’s a game changer if you have complex organizations and reporting formats.” – Harry Hammond, Group Financial Controller, Guzman y Gomez