Aircall Calls on NetSuite to Consolidate Global Accounting

A Phone System Startup Calls on NetSuite to Consolidate Global Accounting

Aircall touts itself as the ‘phone system for modern businesses.’ Based in Paris and New York, the company offers cloud-based phone system software that integrates with more than 60 business tools such as Salesforce, Shopify and Slack to help businesses stay connected internally and with customers. Amid impressive fundraising rounds, Aircall gained more control of its accounting processes by switching from external accountants to an in-house system.

Company

Aircall

Location

Paris, France

Industry

Software

EMPLOYEES

300

SYSTEM REPLACED

Excel

NETSUITE PRODUCT IMPLEMENTED

NetSuite OneWorld

“I think what I like the most about NetSuite is the 360-degree view, where you go into a report and click pretty much anywhere and it will drill down to whatever you want: the invoice level, or the customer level, or just the journal entry level. You can go anywhere and easily navigate back to where you want to be.” Paul Mondollot, Head of Finance Projects, Aircall

Discovering a Calling

Growing globally: Aircall launched in the U.S. and France in 2014. The company announced Series A funding of $8 million in 2016, followed by $29M in 2018 and $65M in 2020. Accompanying its fundraising, Aircall grew to comprise over 300 employees. More than 60,000 people in 84 countries use its services.

Consolidation challenges cause concern: When Aircall relied on Excel for its accounting, the team would send spreadsheets to its external accountants via an external tool. These external accountants completed work in their own systems before sending reports back to Aircall. With data in two different formats, Aircall struggled with consolidating reports as well as completing reports in a timely manner.

Taking the leap: Aircall’s CFO wished to internalise the company’s accounting and had considered a short-term solution in a small accounting system, such as Sage or Xero, before later moving to an ERP. Ultimately, the CFO and CEO opted to take “an extra step” and implement NetSuite ERP ahead of SAP Business ByDesign. Aircall determined that more companies in Paris work with NetSuite, and thus there are more knowledgeable integrators in the region with a track record of successful projects. In the end, implementing NetSuite gave Aircall a consolidated financial view of its business and the ability to drill down into invoice-, customer- and journal-level reports.

Keeping the auditors happy: Currently, Aircall is adding the Advanced Revenue Management module to its NetSuite package to improve its revenue recognition capabilities, and is in the process of switching its invoice to cash to NetSuite and plans to move its subscription engine to NetSuite. It is starting to use NetSuite for audits instead of the system currently in place. “The system was a nightmare for the auditors, but finally we’ll be able to give NetSuite access, and this will be pretty amazing. Hopefully it’ll save a lot of time,” said Paul Mondollot, Head of Finance Projects.

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