About
Hyland provides intelligent content solutions that help organizations connect content, data, and processes. Its technology enables organizations to capture, process, manage, and activate high volumes of diverse content, helping teams automate workflows, improve operational decisions, and deliver better experiences.
Industry:
Software and technology
01
The Challenge
Hyland’s revenue accounting team was caught in a cycle of manual intervention, data issues, and a 12-day financial close. The workload left little time to advise the business on complex contracts or new offerings.
02
The Solution
Hyland used Zuora Revenue to automate SSP allocations, contract carves, and risk-based reviews. Working alongside Zuora’s Technical Account Management team, Hyland also optimized data flows, resolved complex exceptions, and reduced manual touches.
03
The Benefits
- Reduced close time by 75% — from 12 days to 3 days, with a sustainable pace even as transaction volumes increase
- Freed revenue accounting from transaction processing — automation reduced manual work and data issue handling, allowing the team to focus on strategic initiatives
- Established a deal review function — revenue accounting now advises on draft agreements before signing, identifying potential accounting complications and working with sales and legal to resolve them
- Expanded cross-functional impact — the team now partners with revenue operations, FP&A, billing, collections, and product teams to improve upstream processes and prevent issues before they reach accounting
- Built a continuous improvement cycle — with a dedicated TAM providing weekly support, Hyland identifies and resolves non-standard exceptions and optimization opportunities on an ongoing basis
- Positioned for future complexity — with purpose-built automation handling the standard work, the team has capacity and confidence to manage emerging revenue models like AI-based and consumption pricing
“This is by far the most automated tool that I’ve ever seen for SSP specifically. And it does a really good job of streamlining that, so you don’t need 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 revenue accountants manually doing those studies—the system just does it for you.”
Boki Lemajic arrived as Corporate Controller at Hyland to find a finance organization in overdrive. “When I started here, we were closing in 12 days,” Lemajic remembers. The team was trapped in manual work, processing transactions with minimal automation and spending most of their time on data issues and exception handling. And that 12-day close meant revenue accounting couldn’t spend as much time advising the business or shaping deal strategy as they needed to. Instead, they were stuck in an endless cycle of just trying to keep up.
From processing to advising
For Hyland’s revenue accounting team to shift from survival mode to strategy, two things had to change. First, the close itself needed to become faster and more predictable. Second, and more importantly, the team’s role needed to transform. They couldn’t spend their energy reacting to problems after contracts were signed. They needed to start advising before decisions reached the accounting team. Lemajic’s mandate was clear: “I want the revenue team to go on the offense.”
When Cody Mortensen joined Hyland as Director of Revenue Accounting, he was sure Zuora was the right solution to help them do just that: “Zuora Revenue is the only tool I’ve worked with that was designed with ASC 606—and specifically SSP—in mind.” Mortensen says. “You can tell the system was built to mirror the accounting literature, which makes everything so much easier. That’s RevPro’s secret sauce.”
Rather than manual SSP allocations and contract carves consuming days, purpose-built automation handles the standard work. “Then we get to review based on the risk points we identify,” Mortensen explains.
But automation alone wasn’t enough. Hyland and Zuora worked through every operational detail: how information moved between Zuora Revenue and Workday, how to break lengthy data transfers into more manageable processes, and how to continuously refine the environment as volumes changed. With each month came more refinement.
Soon, Hyland’s close shrank from 12 days to three. A 75% reduction. Just as important, they’ve been able to stay consistent, “We’ve solidified that three-day close,” Lemajic says. “It isn’t three days one month and four days when the volume increases the next month.”
Getting a seat at the table
With the processing burden gone, something shifted. Revenue accounting finally had capacity. As Lemajic reflects, “When you take a tool like Zuora that is able to automate so much, that’s the time that gets freed up.”
So Mortensen’s team seized the opportunity to do something new: they started reviewing more draft agreements before contracts were signed. Working with sales and legal, they began identifying terms that could create material rights, trigger revenue deferrals, or produce other accounting complications. The goal wasn’t to block deals, but to find language that worked for the customer and supported the right accounting treatment.
That early involvement rippled across the organization. Revenue accounting now works with revenue operations, FP&A, billing, collections, and product teams. They look upstream for automation opportunities, finding ways to clean data and smooth processes before transactions ever reach the team.
“We now have a seat at the table in those discussions around contracts, around new offerings, you name it,” Mortensen says.
A partnership that keeps improving
One challenge that won’t disappear anytime soon: “Everything at Hyland is very non-standard—constantly,” Mortensen explains. “Our standard is non-standard.” Contracts are highly customized and exceptions are the rule, not the edge case, meaning one-size-fits-all configurations can’t solve every problem.
That’s why Hyland’s Zuora Technical Account Manager (TAM) meets with the revenue accounting team every week, not to troubleshoot crises, but to diagnose unusual issues, resolve data challenges, and figure out how to handle scenarios that don’t fit a standard pattern. Issues that might have remained open for months now move forward through an ongoing operating cadence.
“Our TAM is always flexible and accommodating. He understands the problem and helps us triangulate a solution. He does an incredible job partnering with us every week,” Mortensen reflects. That partnership transformed what could have been a one-time implementation into a continuous improvement cycle.
Rather than accepting the system and processes as they were, Hyland keeps looking for ways to reduce manual touches, strengthen upstream data, and make the close more resilient.
And it’s this mindset that sets Hyland apart: “It’s just this kind of continuous optimization and improvement mindset that the team now has” Lemajic remarks.
As Hyland rolls out new AI offerings and the complex pricing and revenue models that go with them, they know Zuora will be behind them all the way. “It gives me peace of mind that Zuora is listening to market demands, understands that these complications are coming, and is building solutions to accommodate them,” Mortensen says.
