A Credit to Planning: How Quorum Federal Credit Union Built a Stronger Foundation with Workday
At a Glance
- Customer: Quorum Federal Credit Union
- Implementor: PlanSimpli
- Platform: Workday Adaptive Planning
- Primary use cases: planning environment redesign, budgeting and forecasting, rolling forecast management, scenario analysis, net interest margin planning, product-level profitability visibility, management reporting, variance analysis, faster month-end reporting, finance and accounting alignment
- Integrations: NetSuite
- Key outcomes: faster reporting, improved accuracy, reduced manual workarounds, earlier access to actuals, expanded executive visibility, stronger product-level insight, and a more scalable planning foundation for scenario-based decision-making.
Success Summary
Quorum Federal Credit Union partnered with PlanSimpli to refresh and simplify its Workday Adaptive Planning environment as the organization’s planning needs continued to evolve. Over time, added functionality and customization had created an opportunity to streamline the model, improve usability, and support a more scalable planning and reporting foundation.
The goal was not simply to clean up the model. It was to create a planning environment that could better support finance, provide leadership with timely insight, and scale with Quorum’s continued growth and operational complexity.
With PlanSimpli’s implementation of Workday Adaptive Planning, Quorum improved reporting speed and accuracy, reduced lag in actuals availability from NetSuite, enabled rolling and quarterly forecasting, and expanded its ability to analyze net interest margin by product while preparing for more robust best-case, worst-case, and baseline scenario planning.
Quorum Federal Credit Union is a digital-first credit union serving members with checking, savings, mortgage, home equity, credit card, and online and mobile banking services. On its website, Quorum highlights a broad mix of deposit and lending products, digital banking capabilities, financial wellness services, and nationwide ATM access, reflecting the operational complexity that makes timely, accurate planning especially important.
The Challenge: Modernizing a Planning Environment That Had Grown More Complex Over Time
Before this project, Quorum was working in an Adaptive environment that had become increasingly complex as new needs were addressed over time. Processes had been added to support evolving planning requirements, creating an opportunity to simplify the model, standardize structures, and make the environment easier to maintain.
Data timing was also an area for improvement. Reducing the lag between NetSuite actuals and Adaptive would help finance begin monthly analysis earlier, support more timely reporting, and provide leadership with more current information during forecast reviews.
At the same time, Quorum wanted to expand its visibility into net interest margin, improve reporting by product, support more detailed variance analysis, and create a more user-friendly model that could strengthen planning conversations across the organization.
What Quorum needed most
- A cleaner, standardized Workday Adaptive Planning environment
- Less manual work and fewer workaround-driven processes
- Faster, more consistent reporting for finance and executive stakeholders
- Quicker movement of actuals from NetSuite into Adaptive
- Stronger net interest margin planning and reporting by product
- Rolling and quarterly forecasting capabilities
- More detailed and timely variance analysis
- A framework for scenario analysis across loans, deposits, and broader planning assumptions
- Better alignment between accounting and finance
- A partner who understood both Workday Adaptive Planning and Quorum’s business needs
The Solution: Workday Adaptive Planning Implemented by PlanSimpli
PlanSimpli implemented a refreshed Workday Adaptive Planning environment designed to simplify the model, standardize reporting structures, and create stronger connectivity across planning sheets and financial statements.
The team focused on building a more reliable and user-friendly planning experience that could support monthly reporting, rolling forecasts, and deeper scenario analysis with less manual cleanup and rework. The implementation also addressed data timing and model usability. By helping Quorum reduce the lag in actuals loading and improving how modules interacted with one another, PlanSimpli made it possible to analyze performance earlier in the month, compare versions more easily, and prepare more current forecasts for leadership review.
Implementation Approach
PlanSimpli approached the project as an Adaptive overhaul rather than a basic tune-up. The work centered on simplifying a complex model, standardizing key processes, improving module interaction, and making the environment easier for Quorum’s team to use and maintain.
The team also helped Quorum create a stronger operational rhythm around planning and testing. That mattered because success depended not only on the software itself, but also on clear collaboration between Quorum’s institutional knowledge and PlanSimpli’s implementation expertise. Quorum later noted that the project required meaningful internal time and testing effort, which ultimately helped produce a more successful outcome.
What Changed with Workday Adaptive Planning
1) A cleaner and more standardized planning environment
Quorum refreshed a complex Adaptive setup with a more streamlined environment built to support repeatable planning processes. This reduced complexity and made the platform easier for the team to use going forward.
3) Faster, more consistent reporting
One of Quorum’s biggest goals was faster, more consistent reporting. After the implementation, the team was able to generate variances more quickly and with more detail, and deliver monthly reporting roughly a week faster than before.
5) Stronger net interest margin planning
A central objective of the project was to further strengthen net interest margin planning in Workday Adaptive Planning. The result was a stronger foundation for modeling interest-related performance and making those outputs more useful to finance and leadership.
7) Faster and more detailed variance analysis
The implementation improved the speed and granularity of monthly variance reporting, helping the team investigate performance differences more quickly and support leadership with stronger analysis.
9) More strategic scenario analysis
The refreshed Workday Adaptive Planning model created a practical foundation for what-if analysis. Quorum highlighted the ability to run more real-time scenario analysis and compare assumptions more easily across versions.
11) Loan, deposit, and RBC-related planning scenarios
Looking ahead, Quorum specifically highlighted scenario analysis of loan activity, deposit changes, and RBC-related planning considerations. The platform now gives the team a more efficient way to model assumptions and compare planning scenarios.
13) Better handling of anomalies and true-ups
The team now has more context around unusual monthly results, including timing-related portfolio movements that can temporarily affect yield. That helps Quorum plan using better-informed assumptions and added context.
15) Better alignment between accounting and finance
Quorum reported stronger alignment between accounting and finance thanks to better visibility into more current data and a quicker reporting cadence.
17) Time back for higher-value work
By reducing manual effort and making verification faster, Workday Adaptive Planning freed time for analysis the team could now begin earlier in the month. That is often where the real ROI hides, quietly wearing a finance badge.
2) Less manual work and more efficiency
The refreshed Workday Adaptive Planning build reduced manual effort, giving the finance team more time to verify results, prepare reporting, and focus on value-added analysis.
4) Earlier access to actuals from NetSuite
Improving the timing of actuals was a meaningful operational win. With less lag between NetSuite and Adaptive, Quorum could start reviewing numbers earlier in the close cycle give finance more time for analysis and review.
6) Expanded net interest margin visibility by product
Quorum expanded its ability to report net interest margin by product, giving leaders more detailed insight to support discussions around business drivers, product-level performance and planning assumptions.
8) Quarterly and rolling forecasting
Quorum shifted toward quarterly forecasting with a more rolling version of the plan. This gave the team a more current planning approach and reduced the friction of rolling forecasts forward.
10) Product mix and portfolio insight
With stronger net interest margin reporting by product and better visibility into month-over-month portfolio behavior, Quorum can support more informed planning conversations around product mix and portfolio performance.
12) Faster month-end review and tighter stakeholder follow-up
Because Quorum can review numbers earlier, finance has more time to ask informed questions, follow up with stakeholders, and address potential issues earlier in the month.
14) Stronger executive reporting and decision support
Executives now receive stronger, faster reporting, including expanded product-level insights. That has improved the quality of leadership conversations and supported requests for deeper analysis.
16) A foundation for baseline, best-case, and worst-case planning
Quorum’s forward-looking vision includes using the model for baseline, worst-case, and best-case scenarios with easier comparison points already built into reporting. That makes future planning cycles faster and more decision-ready.
“Workday Adaptive Planning has given Quorum the ability to move faster and plan more strategically. We are able to bring in more current actuals, analyze variances with greater speed and detail, and create a stronger link between reporting, forecasting, and the decisions we need to make across the business.”
Tavis Briechle, Chief Financial Officer
Why Modernizing Workday Adaptive Planning worked for Quorum
By modernizing its Workday Adaptive Planning environment with PlanSimpli, Quorum gained a planning system that is more consistent, more scalable, and more useful to both finance and executive stakeholders. The organization can now move through forecasting cycles more efficiently, analyze actuals sooner, understand net interest margin performance more clearly, and prepare for more sophisticated scenario planning across products and broader planning assumptions.
Just as important, the implementation helped Quorum strengthen the connection between reporting, forecasting, and strategic planning. The result is not simply faster reporting. It is more timely insight, more useful conversations, and better readiness for the next decision.
What’s next
Quorum’s next phase is centered on expanding scenario analysis. The team expects to use the Workday Adaptive Planning foundation to model more strategic scenarios around loan activity, deposits, RBC-related planning considerations, and comparative baseline, best-case, and worst-case views.
Why Quorum chose PlanSimpli
Quorum said PlanSimpli came highly recommended by Workday and stood out quickly as the right implementation partner. Beyond the recommendation, Quorum emphasized that PlanSimpli understood the business, was highly responsive, and brought both platform expertise and reporting knowledge to the engagement.
That matters because successful Workday Adaptive Planning implementations are not just software projects. They are operating model projects. Quorum’s experience makes that clear: the best results came from combining PlanSimpli’s technical and process expertise with Quorum’s internal business knowledge and testing.
“Working with PlanSimpli gave Quorum the right combination of expertise, responsiveness, and business understanding. Their team helped standardize reporting, build modules that worked better together, and create an environment that not only saves time, but also gives us greater confidence in the planning process.”
Tavis Briechle, Chief Financial Officer
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