VIVA Leisure “From Monthly Reports to Insightful Analytics in Minutes”

From monthly reports to insights in minutes

Before Phocas, the team at Viva waited for month-end reports to have insights into the club and gym performance.

“Before Phocas, we got insights into financial performance once a month. We’d wait until month-end, then compare last month’s performance to the previous months. Now, we can access these insights daily,” said Grace.

Another challenge for Viva was managing stakeholders and club manager restrictions when sharing financial reports.

“It was critical to have reports set up with different restrictions on the database. We wanted to ensure that when club managers logged in, they could only see data related to their brands or account,” explained Grace.

Changing reporting demands

The accounting standard change (IFRS 16) in January 2019 meant that Grace had to change how she reported on leases.

“We have 153 locations, with average leases of 5-10 years. Pre IFRS16, lease was recognised as a rent expense on the Profit and Loss (P&L) statement. With changing standards, we recognised a 10-year lease as a lease liability on the balance sheet to show total lease liability and right of use assets,” explained Grace.

“Now monthly rent payment is broken down into two parts, reduction in lease liability goes onto the balance sheet and interest of the lease goes on to P&L statement as interest expense. This has a huge impact on EBITDA,” said Grace.

With Phocas’ help, Viva reclassified their lease repayments on their balance sheet to operating profit for management reporting.

“People in this industry were used to the standard approach to P&L. This is where I turned to Phocas to see how to put rent into operational P&L. Phocas was able to help me put rent as a statistical stream and plug into the P&L statement” explained Grace.

A solution that integrates with SAP seamlessly

Phocas partner Leverage Technologies referred Phocas to Viva Leisure.

Viva was after a solution that provided reports at a club level and integrated seamlessly with their ERP, SAP.

“We needed financial reports at a club level and a solution that didn’t break our financial system, SAP. We wanted people to have access to our data without being able to touch our financial systems,” said Grace.

“I had a manager who came from a personal trainer background, and within a few hours of using Phocas, he could create reports and understand the performance of each club. I just showed him once, and now he can run it for himself”
Grace Zhu— Finance Manager, Viva Leisure

Control of business performance

With Phocas, Viva has up-to-date data anywhere, at any time.

“Having access to insights frequently means you can make decisions faster and allocate resources correctly,” said Grace.

An example of how Viva Leisure uses Phocas is by creating dashboards to see the top 10 performing clubs.

“We use dashboards to see the top 10 clubs by revenue. We look at those exceeding the budget by 10% and those below budget by 10%. We look at who’s overspending and underspending in the expense section of the budget. This information means we can allocate resources to the right clubs to drive sales and improve the club,” said Grace.

Phocas helps Viva monitor gym performance to be proactive with decision-making.

“Phocas is a great tool as it allows us to compare gym performance by period, region, population and against budget, helping us to be proactive with our decision making,” said Grace, Viva Leisure.

Accessible data means Viva’s team feels more empowered and responsible for their numbers.

“During meetings with managers, they now understand financials better and ask the right questions,” said Grace.

“With Phocas, there is more collaboration and more data sharing. People feel empowered, more in control and responsible for their numbers,” explained Grace.

A user-friendly financial reporting solution also means there’s less reliance on IT.

“Information sharing has become critical, and Phocas allows us to do this easily. Now there’s less reliance on the IT department, and people can self-serve with the data they need,” explained Grace.

“I had a manager who came from a personal trainer background, and within a few hours of using Phocas, he could create reports and understand the performance of each club. I just showed him once, and now he can run it for himself,” said Grace.

Grace is viewed as a strategic partner across the business.

“With Phocas, I can collaborate with all different departments, not just operations or finance. I can step outside of my department and partner with other business units,” Grace Zhu, Finance Manager, Viva Leisure.

Looking to the future

Down the track, Viva Leisure will connect their sales data with Phocas for further business data analysis.

“At the moment, we are doing top-level analysis. In the future, we’d like to combine our membership data, so we can do a more in-depth analysis,” said Grace.

Grace is also looking to evolve their cash flow statement so she can make a more confident decision on club refurbishments.

Viva Leisure will continue to use Phocas to find ways to make their business bigger and better.

“Without Phocas, our business wouldn’t grow at the pace we’re growing,” explained Grace.