Is Your Accounting Software Mobile-Capable? Why Casino Leaders Are Making the Leap

In the 14 years I spent working in a casino finance department, I learned a couple universal truths about casino leaders: They wear many different hats on a daily basis, and they’re always on the move, especially those who oversee multiple properties.

These demands have become even more prevalent as the gaming industry has grown more complex, from evolving regulatory requirements to new operational concerns. Now, as a gaming-focused technology implementation project manager, I regularly work alongside leaders and talk to them one-on-one about the challenges they face. They’re looking for better ways to collaborate more deeply with their department managers and other stakeholders. Leaders need to make critical business decisions quickly and must access and share key metrics and business intelligence instantaneously — a difficult feat when they can’t be sitting at a work station on-site 24/7.

What’s the solution? The casino leaders I work with have been able to eliminate these pain points by leveraging our firm’s casino-specific accounting and business intelligence platform, which also has a sophisticated mobile component. The mobile solution has not only positively impacted our clients’ casino operations but also changed the way their back office communicates with leaders and delivers information to their teams.

We specialize in the implementation of CasinoEdge powered by Intacct, a gaming-specific platform that sits on top of the #1 customer-rated modern cloud infrastructure in Sage Intacct. The solution’s mobile component can provide leaders with real-time, impactful data at their fingertips. Leaders no longer need to be on-site to make important, strategic decisions — they can actually tailor the decision-making process to how they’re conducting business on a day-to-day basis.

But the benefits extend far beyond flexibility and convenience. Here are the top ways I’ve seen CasinoEdge’s mobile functionality impact our customers’ casino operations:

1. Leverage Mobile Capability to Make Quick Decisions That Power Growth   

Last year, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) surveyed 400 CEOs in 13 countries across five continents and asked them to speak to the importance of digital transformation in their organizations. In the survey, 86% of CEOs said they consider digital initiatives their number-one priority, believing that technology will transform their business more than any other global trend.[1] The same goes for casinos and gaming organizations. Today, more than 2.4 billion people use smart devices — this is how casino leaders should expect their vendors and employees will do business and make decisions going forward.[2]

With its ability to provide a transparent, real-time view of a casino’s financials at a department level, CasinoEdge’s mobile functionality allows leaders to move quickly when there’s a major opportunity to improve the business. It can collate thousands of lines of data and instantly deliver them to the appropriate stakeholders in a way that impacts their specific role within the organization — directly from their mobile device.

Let’s say your marketing manager needs metrics detailing profit and loss (P&L) performance for a promotional event they hosted at another property’s event venue. The manager can tap into CasinoEdge via their mobile device and get real-time insights from the campaign through dashboards, which allow them to quickly validate their marketing spend and consider any changes or opportunities to improve future promotions, without even visiting the location in-person. In real-time, the system automatically compiles data from all of your front-of-the-house solutions, mapping and posting daily bank activity at the transaction level — and ultimately eliminating cumbersome spreadsheets and manual calculations to deliver your daily flash.

Best of all, the CasinoEdge solution enables a more mobile, tech-savvy workforce and encourages your employees to continue making critical decisions to aid the business at times that are most convenient to their busy work schedules.

2. Remotely Access Your Financials During Audit Time

You don’t need me to tell you that the yearly financial audit is a critical time for your casino. Your process must be airtight to comply with T31 AML regulations, and there is no room for error. It makes sense that casino leaders would prefer to be on-site to oversee the process and ensure the audit runs smoothly. However, juggling competing demands and multiple properties often means that in-person oversight isn’t a possibility.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be on-site to monitor your audit process, thanks to CasinoEdge. Not only does the platform create audit-ready financials at the transaction level, but it also allows for all of the appropriate stakeholders — other leaders, your auditors and finance team members, for instance — to access that information in one convenient space.

CasinoEdge also puts money back into your bottom line at audit time because your auditors don’t have to be on-site to use it either. Money spent on travel and meal expenses for auditors can be reallocated to areas that grow and improve your business. Not to mention, CasinoEdge streamlines your audit process through automation and error reduction, which helps ensure you can meet compliance requirements every year.

3. Expedite Purchase Approvals, All From Your Smart Device

The procurement process is essential to revenue generation, and it keeps your casino running smoothly. Unfortunately, for many casinos, it’s often an excessively manual and paper-based process that doesn’t allow for on-the-go approvals with digital workflows and authority thresholds. In many cases, casino leaders need to be on-site to approve purchases and move the workflow forward.

In our experience, this is one of the most common reasons why casino leaders bring their procurement process over to CasinoEdge. As an approver, you don’t need to be on-site to route purchases through the appropriate channels. If your food and beverage (F&B) manager is away from their workstation, they can view and manage purchases for any property through a real-time dashboard in the CasinoEdge mobile app. The employee who submitted the request will receive a notification when approval has taken place, and they can move forward with completing the purchase.

The system also allows you to monitor and document approvals, and you can see what has or hasn’t gone through the approval channel. Managers and approvers don’t have to let accessibility derail the procurement process and can continue focusing on activities that add value to your business.

4. Control Access to Sensitive Financial Information

While digital dashboards offer optimal convenience and visibility, it’s also important to make sure that confidential, critical financial data stays in the right hands. But leaders don’t have to be concerned about security with the CasinoEdge mobile app.

Let’s say that your slot manager is on their way to a meeting with the general manager (GM) to discuss coin-in slot revenue for the month and needs to pull some financial metrics from your CasinoEdge dashboard. There are controls within the CasinoEdge app configuration that limit accessibility to a certain IP address (for instance, only within a casino property itself). This allows the slot manager to get the information they need to have a productive discussion. And by having the restriction in place, you can ensure your financial data is secure and only visible to the people who need it.

Pair the Power of Technology With an Experienced, Knowledgeable Team

Your casino leaders are tasked with making the critical, strategic decisions that ensure the longevity of your business. It’s essential that they have the resources and tools they need to continue to drive your vision forward. And that’s what makes CasinoEdge so valuable — the platform is designed by industry-leading specialists specifically for casinos like yours. The system provides the information leaders need to do business in a digestible, intuitive format. And since it runs on award-winning accounting and business management software, it’s scalable and optimized to help your leaders easily translate data into measurable insights that help your business grow and scale.

Interested in seeing the solution in action or previewing its mobile experience? To learn more or schedule a live demo, contact Tom Wilkins at tom.wilkins@wipfli.com or 703.828.2431.