From manual processes to strategic finance: How Frontier Co-op modernized with Infor EPM

Frontier® Co-op, a member-owned cooperative based in Norway, Iowa, has been a leader in natural and organic food and aromatherapy products since the 1970s. With brands like Simply Organic® and Aura Cacia®, Frontier operates across multiple business units, encompassing food manufacturing, essential oils, and a broad distribution network serving over 60,000 members. As the company’s business grew in complexity, so did its financial reporting and budgeting challenges—until it turned to Infor™ Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) for a transformational solution.

“Infor EPM has completely transformed our financial operations. Reporting that once took days now happens in seconds, empowering faster, more confident decision-making across the organization. For the first time in our history, we completed our budget on time, unlocking opportunities to focus on strategic areas that drive real business results,” said Josh Vogeler, Chief Financial Officer.

Financial reporting: From manual processes to trusted insights

Frontier Co-op faced significant challenges in financial reporting due to the complexity of their operations. Managing thousands of stock keeping units (SKUs) across multiple business units, brand segments, and cost centers made it difficult to produce accurate and timely reports.

The finance team was heavily dependent on IT to extract, cleanse, and reconcile data from various systems, which slowed down month-end reports and led to frustration among executives. The lack of confidence in reporting data further distracted teams from focusing on strategic analysis, limiting the organization’s ability to respond quickly to market changes like tariffs and pricing fluctuations.

“Our old process worked when we were smaller,” said Vogeler. “But as we expanded into new markets and products, we needed real-time access to data—not static reports that were out of date the minute we hit save.”

To overcome these issues, Frontier Co-op implemented Infor EPM as an integrated solution with its existing CloudSuite Food and Beverage ERP system. Data flows seamlessly from the transactional ERP systems into EPM, giving leaders immediate visibility into performance. The financial reporting system is now synchronized and automated, giving the finance team full control over their data and self-service reporting, eliminating reliance on IT. In just a few clicks, the finance team can generate the reports with drill down capabilities and analyze results at a more granular level across four dimensions using native ad-hoc capabilities of EPM or through an Excel add on.

“Infor EPM gives us that transparency and visibility we didn’t have before,” said Eduardo Pulido, Vice President of IT. “If something looks off, we can trace it back to the source instantly. That has improved not only our speed in decision making but also our trust in the numbers.”

The transformation brought by Infor EPM was immediate and substantial:

• Efficiency: 32 hours/month saved (16 hours in IT, 16 hours in finance)
• Agility in decision-making: 95+% faster reporting time with drill down (from 2 days to seconds)
• Accuracy/trust: 0 reporting errors (1–3 errors per month previously)
• Better insights: 4 dimensions (3 dimensions prior)
• Maximizing return on investment (ROI): 95% adoption in the first month of deployment

Budgeting and planning: Empowering the organization for strategic planning

After achieving early success with financial reporting, Frontier Co-op turned to its next challenge: modernizing its budgeting and planning process. Historically, the annual budgeting cycle required countless spreadsheet templates and manual updates from departments across 35 users in the organization. This approach caused version control issues and lengthy consolidation cycles, delaying budget finalization.

“Budget season used to be stressful,” recalled Pulido. “There were version control issues, constant email threads, and too many hours spent reconciling spreadsheets.”

With Infor EPM, Frontier Co-op transitioned to a centralized budgeting system, allowing all stakeholders to input their budget data directly into a single system. The solution assigned ownership of specific general ledger (GL) accounts and budget segments to responsible managers, fostering accountability and collaboration. Users could attach supporting documentation and comments to justify their inputs, providing context for future reviews.

“Infor EPM has turned budgeting into a collaborative exercise. Teams understand how their decisions affect the overall business, which aligns everyone toward the same goals,” said Vogeler.

With a streamlined workflow that enhances collaboration and accountability, Frontier completed its 2026 budget on time for the first time in company history. Real-time consolidated views allowed executives to monitor progress throughout the cycle and make timely adjustments. The improved process eliminated manual errors and version conflicts, ensuring data integrity and freeing finance resources to focus on analysis and strategic planning.

By modernizing its budgeting process, Frontier Co-op not only improved operational efficiency but also strengthened the company’s ability to adapt to changing market conditions in the competitive natural and organic products market.

• Efficiency: 250 hours saved in the first year, and 500 hours expected to be saved next year (no additional training needed)
• Speed: 33% reduction in budget cycle time and Day 1 budget availability for sales reporting
• Agility: 94% faster budget adjustments (from 1 full day to 30 minutes)
• Risk Management: 96% faster scenario modeling (from 1 day at high-level to 20 minutes with precision)

Unlocking granular planning and visibility through greater dimensionality

In traditional tools like Microsoft Excel, the company could only plan at higher, more summarized levels (e.g., department or region) because managing the sheer number of combinations of accounts, locations, and other dimensions would have required hundreds of spreadsheets. With Infor EPM, Frontier can now plan, analyze, and report financial data at the lowest dimension level: the warehouse level.

• Granular planning at the lowest warehouse level
• Automated roll-ups to align operational and financial views
• Deeper analysis and visibility into cost drivers
• Faster, more informed decision-making at every level of the organization

Frontier Co-op can tie financial data directly to individual warehouses, enabling deeper cost analysis to pinpoint the root causes of variances, like cost of goods sold, with precision.

“If you’re implementing CloudSuite ERP, adopt Infor EPM at the same time. The combined value for operational and analytical processes is huge,” said Pulido.

A foundation for a smarter financial future

For Frontier Co-op, implementing Infor EPM wasn’t just about saving time—it was about building a foundation for smarter, faster decisions across the organization. Teams now focus on higher-value analytical tasks, guiding the business for future financial decisions like capital investments and what-if analyses.

Additionally, EPM’s flexible framework scales with Frontier’s expanding product lines and business units to sustain growth and maintain its commitment to quality and innovation in the natural and organic marketplace.

“As I think about where Frontier’s headed and the growth that we think is possible, I'm happy that we have a solution like Infor EPM that’s going to scale and grow with our business as we add products, brands, and businesses,” said Vogeler.