Reporting and forecasting for finance teams

All your numbers. One trusted source.

Outlane brings your ledger, spreadsheets and payment systems into one place, validates every figure, and runs your reports, forecasts and board packs from the same numbers.

QuickBooks and NetSuite connect today. Sales, payroll and marketing come in on Excel templates. Stripe and the app stores connect at launch.

Get early accessSee how it works
The dashboard: revenue, net income year to date, cash and the full-year forecast, above a revenue and net income chart with forecast months
Revenue, profit, cash and the full-year forecast on one page. Sample company
Profit and loss by month for Fernbank Café, with Food Sales opened into covers and food sales per cover, actual and forecast
Each line forecast from its drivers: covers × sales per cover. Sample company
The Fernbank Café org chart: 19 people, matching payroll headcount, with the general manager and her team
Drawn from your roster, checked against payroll headcount. Sample company
A board report preview: the cover for Hospitality, August 2026, and an executive summary
Board reports built from the checked review, as a PDF. Sample company
Roles and access: what the CFO, Controller and other roles can see, do and arrange
Decide who sees and does what, role by role. Sample company
Data sources: how many are sending data and files checked, with NetSuite, QuickBooks Online and the trial balance template
Connect a ledger or upload a spreadsheet. Each file is checked before it’s used. Sample company
  1. 01ConnectQuickBooks, NetSuite and Excel today; Stripe and the app stores at launch.
  2. 02ValidateFigures are checked before they reach a report.
  3. 03ReportReviews and board packs, as PDF and Excel.
  4. 04ForecastDriver-based, with scenarios and budgets.

Reports

Reports for owners and boards, ready each month.

A monthly review with commentary, a dashboard, and board reports you assemble from blocks. Sales, payroll and marketing pages sit next to the financials, and you rearrange them by asking.

The dashboard: revenue, net income year to date, cash and the full-year forecast, a revenue chart with forecast months, what needs attention and what is due
The payroll org chart: 19 people, matching payroll headcount by department, with each manager's team
  • Send a report as a link that expires and can be revoked, as a PDF, or as a password-protected file that opens offline.
  • The close checklist ticks items off as the data arrives. A calendar holds tax, payroll, lender and board dates, set up from a short company profile.
  • Reports carry your logo, colours and fonts.
  • Any report downloads to Excel, including the monthly review and the forecast’s three statements. Companies, accounts and vendors come through as groups you can expand.

Driver-based forecasting

Forecast from what moves the business.

Outlane forecasts each line from what drives it. For a restaurant that might be covers and spend per cover; for payroll, headcount and pay per head. It looks for these drivers in your ledger history and shows the evidence. Nothing is used until someone on your team confirms it.

Revenue · Fernbank Café

Covers×Food Sales per cover=Food Sales

August 2026 · 5,162 × $24.27 = $125,272

EvidenceFood Sales moves with Covers (r = 0.99 over 12 months) at a steady rate per cover.

Payroll · Fernbank Café

Kitchen headcount×Wages per head=Kitchen wages

Payroll taxes = 7.6% of wages

EvidenceWages - Kitchen moves with Headcount - Kitchen (r = 0.99 over 12 months) at a steady rate per head.

Revenue follows what you sell, such as covers or orders. It is never driven by headcount.

Learned from your ledger

Each driver shows the figures it was based on. It stays unconfirmed until someone confirms or changes it.

Scenarios that carry through

Copy the base case and change a driver. The P&L, cash flow and balance sheet update with it, and the balance sheet still balances.

Next year’s budget

Lock a scenario in as next year’s budget. It stays frozen, and monthly reviews compare actuals against it.

Excel, drivers included

Download the three statements to Excel with each driver under the account it drives, grouped by company and account.

The drivers page: covers, spend and leads by channel with a small trend, the last three months, how each is forecast, and Confirm or Change

Checked first

Nothing reaches a report until it ties.

Uploads and pulls go through the checks a reviewer would run, for each company and each month. If one fails, the review stays a draft and points to the figure that’s off. It can’t be shared until that’s fixed.

  • Trial balances balance in each month
  • No month is missing from this year or last
  • Cash flow reaches closing cash, month by month
  • Retained earnings roll forward by last year’s result
  • Vendor and customer detail adds up to each account
  • Each account is mapped, and someone approved the mapping
A performance review's checks: 52 hold, each rule listed with the number of companies it covers, beside the source files and their fingerprints
Lane answering a payroll question with the figure and a link to where it came from, then suggesting a new scenario with an Apply button

Meet Lane

Ask Lane about your own books.

Ask how the month went, or what a slower winter would do to cash. Lane, Outlane’s assistant, reads your reviews, forecast and drivers and links each answer to where it came from. When Lane calculates a figure itself, the answer says so.

It can suggest a change to a scenario. Nothing changes until you press Apply.

Connect

Start from the ledger you already have.

Connections are read-only. Outlane never writes to your accounting system, and it keeps what each pull returned so a review can be rebuilt exactly.

On a ledger we don’t connect to yet, upload a trial balance by month in Excel and everything else works the same.

Live now

  • QuickBooks OnlineConnect: sign in at Intuit and pull any monthLive
  • NetSuiteConnect read-only, or upload saved reportsLive
  • Excel & CSV uploadsA trial balance by month from any ledger, and templates for budget, drivers, sales, marketing and payrollLive

Built · arriving with launch

  • StripeSales, refunds, fees, payouts and subscriptions, synced nightlyAt launch
  • App Store ConnectApp sales and proceeds, synced nightlyAt launch
  • Google PlayEarnings, fees and refunds, synced nightlyAt launch

Coming soon

  • Xero
  • Gusto
  • HubSpot
  • Shopify
  • Google Ads
  • Meta Ads
  • TikTok Ads
  • Salesforce
  • Rippling
  • Sage Intacct

Control

Your finance team stays in control.

Roles that match your team

Accounting prepares, the controller approves and publishes, the CFO owns settings. Sales, marketing and HR heads see only their own page.

Suggestions wait for approval

Mappings, drivers and scenario changes wait for a person to approve them.

Read-only connections

QuickBooks and NetSuite access is read-only, stored encrypted, and can be disconnected at any time.

People’s names

One setting decides whether the org chart shows names or roles only.

Questions

Common questions

Who is Outlane for?

Finance teams at growing companies and groups of companies: the controller or FP&A lead who closes the month, reports to owners or a board, and keeps the forecast. Your own team sets it up and runs it.

Do we have to change accounting systems?

No. Outlane reads from the ledger you have. Connect QuickBooks Online or NetSuite, or upload a trial balance by month from anything else. It never writes back.

What happens when a number does not tie?

The review stays a draft and names the check that failed, with the company and month. It can’t be published or shared until the figures are corrected at the source.

What does the AI do, and what does it see?

It suggests account mappings, the drivers behind each line, and scenario changes. Someone on your team confirms each suggestion before it’s used. Lane, the assistant, answers from your own figures and links to the page each one came from. AI never changes a number by itself, and Outlane also works with AI turned off.

Early access

Run your next month-end in Outlane.

We’re opening Outlane to a few finance teams at a time. Tell us about yours and we’ll set up your workspace together.