About Misen
Misen has been redefining the kitchenware industry since its founding in 2015. Specializing in chef-quality tools for everyday cooking, the New York-based ecommerce company has achieved remarkable success, generating lifetime revenues exceeding $100 million.
In 2023, Michael Mahoney, a seasoned leader with over 20 years of experience in high growth D2C and B2B organizations, stepped in as Misen's CEO. Under his guidance, the company embarked on a journey to streamline its operations and restart its growth trajectory.
The Challenge
Michael knew that building a talented and efficient team would be key to scaling the company. He saw that, as the company had grown over the years, managing its finances became increasingly complex. Manual processes, scattered data, and hours of repetitive work had bogged down the finance team.
Misen’s goals with their Financial tech stack were clear:
- Increase transparency - both the immediate availability of data and ability to audit
- Reduce room for human error - and a result, risk
- Reduce cost - without any negative impact
“Our goal was to minimize every dollar and minute we spent on tasks that were not driving our business forward - or fun to do - and finance was on our short list.”
The challenges were somewhat complex:
- Ensure that each department had access to the most up-to-date financial information they needed to drive the work.
- Calculate key metrics like the Quick Ratio, Cash on Hand, Inventory, percentage of revenue spent on Marketing, Software, and Headcount, and more - every day.
- Prepare accurate, real-time forecasts, track against actuals, and create regular investor updates.
These tasks required a finance team of three employees and there were still gaps in process and accuracy. He knew they needed a smarter solution — or would risk having to hire even more staff to keep up with the workload.
Enter LiveFlow
When Michael and the Finance team introduced LiveFlow, things changed.
Within 5 days of installing LiveFl`ow, they had trimmed over 20 hours of manual data entry to less than 2, eliminating all manual data entry in the process.
Beyond the time savings, LiveFlow also fostered trust in the numbers. Whenever there was a question with the financial model, the team could quickly drill down into transactions and trace data back to its source, allowing them to address issues almost immediately. Previously, numbers were hard-coded and not linked to transaction details, so tracing discrepancies required finance intermediaries.
"LiveFlow’s impact on our company was tremendous.
First, we eliminated the manual tasks required to keep our financial reporting accurate. This saved us a few hundred thousand dollars a year in overhead.
Second, we built trust. We know our numbers are accurate, unedited, and updated in real time.
Third, every department can independently self-audit their financial data without involving a finance team.
Michael Mahoney, CEO of Misen
The Results
- LiveFlow reduced 20 hours of manual work every month to 2 within 5 days and later eliminated all manual data manipulation.
- Misen was able to refocus the then later eliminate the finance team
- Departments have full visibility into their numbers
By implementing LiveFlow, Misen eliminated the need to hire additional finance team members, removed 20 hours of repetitive manual work every month, and fostered greater transparency across the organization.
This streamlined approach ensures that, rather than being bogged down in manual work, any future finance or FP&A hires can devote their time to the strategic, high-value work that drives business growth.
The Culture Shift - Self- Serve Transparency
Now that the entire team had visibility into the P&L in detail, the ability to track actuals VS forecasts, and make adjustments, they wanted more.
“We’ve added so much automated detail," said Michael. “As an example, we were previously lumping many types of cost into the R&D account so we weren't able to automatically track that against our planned spend in research, samples, tooling, and QA. As a product-driven company, that breakout is critical.”
“With LiveFlow, we were able to add accounts and refresh our model in seconds; now the team can plan and track effectively and it takes no human activity to maintain this.”
“I know there are probably a few eye rolls at this point,” Michael said, “but it really does take seconds. Here’s how you do it:”
- Right-click, insert a row in the LiveFlow feed. (5 seconds)
- Add the account to QBO (20 seconds)
- Click “Refresh” on your lifeflow report (5 seconds)
Best of all, the request for transparency and suggested breakouts are coming from individual departments, not Finance.
“Financial reporting should not be a mystery, guarded by a few employees and driven by manual work offline. It should be automated, real-time, editable and auditable. It should be a live flow." – Michael adds.
Michael’s Advice on Implementation
If you have models pulling data from other models repeatedly, it can become challenging to audit and maintain. With LiveFlow, Misen typically has 1-3 active Google Sheets tabs pulling QuickBooks data into the model; everything else branches off those tabs. It’s far, far simpler for the team to manage.
“LiveFlow is easy to implement. My biggest piece of advice? Embrace simplicity. Many businesses use overly complicated financial models. Implementing LiveFlow only takes about an hour, and you can immediately start simplifying your existing models.”
Michael Mahoney, CEO of Misen
Key Takeaways:
Try LiveFlow as soon as possible. Unlike Netsuite and Salesforce, you don’t need to wait for a massive “clean-up” project first — start small, get data flowing, and simplify your models over time.
If you’re considering LiveFlow for your own finance operations, Michael’s experience proves it’s both straightforward to implement and powerful in its ability to automate and simplify.
Not every company will be able to (or want to) fully automate its finance function. “I know Finance is not generally an area where companies look to innovate. But just imagine the impact," said Michael, “if you could eliminate nearly all manual data manipulation and redeploy your finance team on strategic initiatives? That’s a huge unlock that most companies "
The result? A more efficient, accurate, and scalable financial process that sets you up for long-term success.
Ready to streamline your financial operations?
Learn more about LiveFlow and see how you can cut the time on your month-end close by 90%.
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