Recruit, Report, Repeat – how Connectorly is helping Needlestack improve their clients’ debtor days and support growth.
Stuart Bentley, director at UK based partner Needlestack caught up with us to share how they are using Connectorly for Xero and Microsoft Power BI to improve client debtor days and support their recruitment clients growth.
Overview
Needlestack, a technology consultancy specializing in the recruitment sector, has been helping businesses solve complex technical challenges since 2013.
Their expertise spans analytics, data migration, training, and CRM transitions, enabling recruitment companies to optimize their operations.
They recently integrated financial data from multiple systems for a London-based international client, choosing Connectorly as their preferred Xero to Microsoft Power BI integration solution.
Challenge
Needlestack’s London-based international recruiter client, faced a significant challenge in managing aged debt across five separate business entities, all utilizing Xero for accounting. Stuart explains:
“Our client had made a strategic decision to make recruitment consultants more accountable for outstanding debt, rather than it to be the sole responsibility of the credit control department. But to make this happen, they needed visibility of that debt by debtor days, region, team, currency and recruiter so that they could correctly focus their debt recovery efforts.”
Solution
Needlestack delivered a comprehensive financial reporting system powered by Power BI, integrating data from both Salesforce and multiple Xero organisations.
For seamless Xero integration, they turned to Connectorly. Rather than building their own connection to Xero — a process that would have been time-consuming and costly — Needlestack evaluated several third-party solutions and ultimately selected Connectorly for its functionality, ease of use, and budget alignment.
“We tried a few before finding Connectorly which was the clear winner, being the easiest to use and well within budget” confirms Stuart.
Implementation
Needlestack’s experience with Connectorly was highly positive.
“Working with the Connectorly team was great. Everything was turned around quickly. We had a few technical questions along the way to understand how the connector worked and what was available and these were all answered within hours – sometimes after hours! When you’re a consultant like we are, these answers need to happen quickly for us to keep our project moving.”
Connectorly’s ability to seamlessly pull data from Xero enabled Needlestack to create real-time, recruiter-specific financial dashboards.
“It’s worked very well for us and we now have something which is able to be sold to many other clients in a similar scenario.
We’re looking forward to taking what we have and what Connectorly provide as a total solution to bring to hundreds of our clients and build on our partnership.”
Future Plans
The new system provides the client with unprecedented visibility into aged debt, allowing recruiters to track outstanding balances per client, per recruiter, per division, and per team.
Previously, this information was maintained manually in complex spreadsheets, which had become unmanageable as the business expanded.
By automating this process with Power BI and Connectorly, the client has gained actionable financial insights, saves hours every week previously spent preparing reports through the elimination of manual data entry and enhanced accountability has brought significant operational improvements.
“The client is delighted with the outcome and has a new level of financial insight that was previously unattainable. We’re really encouraged by this success, and are now looking to replicate this solution for other clients in the recruitment sector and beyond.”
