Case Study: Smarkets saves 10+ hours per month and turns finance into a strategic partner with Causal

Smarkets replaced a 30-tab Sheets model with Causal, saving 10+ hours per month and turning finance into a strategic partner in the business

Smarkets, a betting exchange with over 1,000,000 customers and five business entities, was wrestling with a 30‑tab Google Sheets model that required manually exporting CSVs from Xero, consolidating actuals, and calculating forecast‑vs‑actuals by hand. This process was time‑consuming, error‑prone (formula mistakes and no version history), and made it hard for management and investors to interact with live financial scenarios. Smarkets engaged Causal to replace the spreadsheet workflow.

Causal connected directly to all five Xero entities, automatically pulling month‑end actuals, updating rolling forecasts, and saving full model version history while providing interactive dashboards for real‑time decision‑making. The switch to Causal saved more than 10 hours per month, made errors easier to spot and fix, increased investor and management engagement with live models, and let finance act as a strategic partner rather than spending time on manual plumbing.

Smarkets

Zack Topuzov

Head of Finance