Thorne Success Story

How Thorne cut month-end reporting from a week to two days with Aleph

With Sally Jang, Senior Manager of FP&A at Thorne

Thorne helps millions of people pursue better health and wellness with clinically backed supplements and vitamins. Behind that mission is an FP&A team that has guided the business through public, private equity, and now Procter & Gamble ownership.

But the team behind the numbers needed a boost of its own. Every reporting environment ran on massive Excel workbooks maintained by hand, and every late entry meant redoing the work. Thorne needed a platform that fit the models it had already built and could keep adapting as the business changed. With Aleph, month-end reporting dropped from a week to under two days, and the finance team got its energy back for more strategic support.

I think for us, the real value comes from having a single source of truth combined with the flexibility to build models and workflows that fit the business rather than forcing the business to fit the software. I'm a senior manager of FP and A at Thorne. We're a clinically backed health and wellness company that sells supplements and vitamins, and I've been fortunate enough to support the company through a few major transitions over the years. We were publicly traded and then private equity owned, and now we're part of Procter and Gamble. And because of that, I've had the opportunity to work through several different reporting environments and help build processes that can adapt as the business business evolves. We evaluated several solutions, and we actually got fairly far in an implementation with Datarails before deciding it wasn't the right fit. We found that a lot of the work involved rebuilding processes inside the software, which slowed down the time to value that we were looking for. What really stood out about Aleph was that they didn't just tell us they could support our use case. They actually took our data, our complex models, and they showed us exactly how they would work within the platform. And so that gave us confidence early on because we could see the end state before making a commitment. And it felt less like a sales pitch and more like a practical demonstration of how the solution would fit our environment. The onboarding process went really well. Before getting started, we shared the files and the processes that we wanted to bring into Aleph and what we hoped the end state would look like. Then Aleph came back with the timeline honestly I was pleasantly surprised by how closely they stuck to it. What really helped was having a CSM who took the time to deeply understand our models. He even gave us great recommendations on how to improve them as well. And then combined with how intuitive the platform is, our team was able to get up to speed really quickly and actively contribute to moving the implementation forward. The monthly reporting process looks dramatically different today. Previously, everything started with manually downloading the trial balance and pasting it into our reporting workbook in Excel. And so once all of that was updated, we would build our reporting package and manually copy charts and visuals into PowerPoint. And the biggest challenge was that if there was a late journal entry or any change to the numbers, we would then have to repeat much of that process all over again. And so we'd repaste the trial balance, wait for a 20 megabyte workbook to recalculate, refresh everything, and then make sure everything was actually working from the latest version. Today, a lot of those manual steps have disappeared. Accounting loads the trial balance into Aleph. We simply refresh it. And so now you know that everyone is working from the same governed source of data. We also use Aleph dashboards for reporting, which means we're no longer copying and pasting charts into PowerPoint every month, and a simple refresh updates everything with latest numbers. Honestly, the biggest thing that's disappeared for me is the waiting. We're no longer spending time waiting for files to open, recalculate, refresh, or validate whether we're using the correct version of the data. That time has been given so to the we can focus on analyzing results and telling the story behind the numbers instead of managing spreadsheets. I would say time savings and visibility are the two big pieces of ROI for us. Aleph has significantly reduced the effort required to complete routine FP and A activities and this allows the team to focus on more strategic work. And at the same time, it gives us greater visibility into the business and it makes it easier to provide insights that help leaders make informed decisions. I think the combination of those two benefits have had a really meaningful impact in less than a year for us. It's been a very positive experience from implementation through ongoing support. The implementation felt fast, it felt collaborative and genuinely exciting because we were able to see meaningful progress every week. It never really felt like one of those projects that drag on for months without clear outcomes. Ongoing support today even is great. The team is responsive, they're knowledgeable, and they're incredibly invested in our success. It really feels more like a partnership rather than a typical vendor relationship.

Running on empty: challenges before Aleph

Everything lived in massive spreadsheets. Trial balances, management reporting, forecasting, and headcount models were all maintained by hand in Excel.
Every late entry meant starting over. Each month began with downloading the trial balance and pasting it into a 20-megabyte reporting workbook full of mapping columns, supporting tabs, and manual topside entries. When a late journal entry came in, the team would have to start the manual process over again.
Charts were copied into PowerPoint by hand. The monthly reporting deck ran more than 80 slides, and every chart and visual had to be copied in by hand each month, then redone whenever the numbers changed.
Comparisons took real effort. Comparing actuals with forecasts and prior versions meant pulling data from several workbooks and building each comparison manually.
A previous tool required rebuilding everything. Thorne got fairly far into implementing another FP&A platform before deciding it wasn't the right fit. Too much of the work involved rebuilding processes inside the software, which slowed time-to-value.

Honestly, the biggest thing that’s disappeared for me is the waiting. We’re no longer spending time waiting for files to open, recalculate, refresh, or validate whether we’re using the correct version of the data. That time has been given back to the team so we can focus on analyzing results and telling the story behind the numbers instead of managing spreadsheets.

Sally Jang

Senior Manager of FP&A

A healthier routine: the solution with Aleph

Thorne wanted a solution that was self-serve, quick to deliver value, scalable, and above all flexible with the models already built in Excel. What set Aleph apart was that it proved the fit before Thorne signed. The Aleph team took Thorne's real data and complex models and showed exactly how they would work in the platform.

An implementation that stayed on schedule. Thorne shared its files, processes, and target end state up front. Aleph came back with a timeline and stuck to it closely. Along the way, the team found new opportunities and expanded the scope beyond the original plan.
A CSM who learned the models. Thorne's dedicated CSM took the time to understand the team's models in depth and even recommended ways to improve them during onboarding.
An intuitive, Excel-native experience. The demos were helpful, but it clicked for Sally within her first 30 minutes of opening a blank spreadsheet with the Aleph add-in. Because Aleph works inside the tools the team already knew, there was almost no learning curve, and they were self-sufficient quickly.
One source of truth powering key workflows. Accounting and FP&A work from the same governed numbers in Aleph, which now power planning, reporting, forecasting, headcount planning, and ad hoc analysis.

With any implementation, you’re bound to find hiccups along the way. In our case, we actually found additional opportunities, and we ended up expanding the scope beyond our original plan.

Sally Jang

Senior Manager of FP&A

Peak performance: the impact

Month-end reporting from a week to under two days. Reporting used to take almost a full week and now takes under two days, and that number keeps dropping as the team finds new efficiencies.
One refresh updates the workbook and the deck. Aleph now feeds both the Excel reporting workbook and the 80+ slide monthly deck. Charts built in Aleph dashboards refresh in place, so a late entry no longer means rebuilding slides.
Instant variance analysis. The team can switch between views by department, month, or category and add variances against prior forecasts or periods almost instantly. Finding out which vendors drive a consulting variance used to mean "let me get back to you" and 30 minutes of pasting and pivoting. Now it's one drill-down away.
Headcount planning in seconds. Sally loads an updated employee roster, and Aleph calculates payroll taxes, benefits, insurance, and other employee costs in seconds. Changes to merit increases or bonus rates immediately show their impact across the organization.
Automated department budget files. Department budget files across more than 20 departments now push to Aleph automatically. The team reviews the consolidated rollup sooner and gets real-time alerts on pending mappings or reconciliation issues.
More time for the business. With less time spent gathering and reconciling data, the team focuses on analysis, business partnership, and the story behind the numbers. Sally sees the ROI in time savings and visibility, and calls the impact meaningful in less than a year.

Before Aleph it was like a painful chore. After Aleph, it has just been fun.

Sally Jang

Senior Manager of FP&A

Training for what's next: AI for the whole business

With the foundation in place, Thorne is using the Aleph Agent with Claude to produce ad hoc reports and answer quick variance questions. For Sally, better leveraging AI and agents is the next step in the same journey. The goal isn't efficiency for its own sake. It's freeing up capacity to spot risks, find opportunities, and give business partners meaningful insight.

Next, Thorne is excited to expand into Aleph Agent use cases, starting with answering budget owners' first-line questions directly, such as "Where am I landing versus budget on consulting this month?"

Over time, budget owners will be able to ask their agents to update their own forecasts as things change, instead of waiting for a monthly meeting. Finance stays in control: the team is alerted when a request is pending, sees exactly what changed and the impact, and decides whether to approve.

Thorne helps its customers perform at their best. Aleph does the same for the team that keeps Thorne's numbers healthy.

For us, the real value comes from having a single source of truth combined with the flexibility to build models and workflows that fit the business rather than forcing the business to fit the software.

Sally Jang

Senior Manager of FP&A

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