Provide automates cost capitalization reporting with DX
Provide, a division of Fifth Third Bank and the leader in tech-enabled financial services for aspiring and established small business owners, has helped modernize how thousands of entrepreneurs access lending and financial services. With a growing engineering team, Provide faces the same compliance and audit requirements as any mature financial institution, including R&D cost capitalization (CapEx) reporting.
“A little over a year ago, our finance team asked me to provide CapEx reporting for the engineering org. They were looking for a breakdown of engineering investment between innovation, maintenance, and other categories,” recalls Chris Caselas, Head of Technology, Provide and Small Business. “At first, I tried to piece together the CapEx reports myself, pulling data from Jira, doing some back-of-the-napkin math, and trying to line it up with salary information. But it was messy, and I couldn’t rely on that manual process long term.”
Serendipitously, just as Provide was beginning to grapple with CapEx reporting, Caselas learned that DX, a platform his engineering organization was already using for productivity insights, already offered a CapEx reporting feature. “Somehow, DX always seems to have the exact thing I need right when I need it. I saw the CapEx report and thought, ‘This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.’”
Getting set up only took a few hours. Provide first relied on default Jira fields to categorize work, then partnered with DX to implement a custom Jira label tailored to their needs. “We added a finance category field so we could mark work as CapEx, OpEx, or R&D. DX worked with us to set that up, and the reporting tool made it simple. Everything lined up,” Caselas explains. What was once a manual process became a single click. “That first pass took me hours. Now it’s literally a 10-minute process once a month. I go in, click generate report, glance at the numbers, and I’m done.”
The new reporting process has won over Provide’s finance team too. “They love it,” says Caselas. “At first they thought I was hand-rolling the report myself, and when I showed them it was DX, they were impressed.” For Caselas personally, the time savings have been significant. “If I hadn’t discovered DX’s CapEx report, I probably would have been stuck doing this manually for months or even years. It would’ve been a painful process. Instead, it’s just a few clicks.”
While CapEx reporting is one part of how DX is used at Provide, Caselas and his leadership team continue to rely on DX for an array of insights across the SDLC. “CapEx is a part of it, but the bigger story is that DX keeps giving us the tools we need, exactly when we need them,” Caselas says. Looking ahead, Caselas plans to use DX to evaluate AI tools in engineering. “Right now, we’re evaluating modern AI code assistants. DX helps me make the case by showing how our current tools compare. DX has exactly what I’m thinking in the moment. They showed up with CapEx reporting right when we needed it. Now, they’re helping us look ahead to AI.”
About Provide
Powered by Fifth Third, Provide empowers entrepreneurs to build their legacies. As the leader in tech-enabled financial services for aspiring and established small business owners, Provide offers an unmatched combination of industry expertise, personalized service, and customized financial products — enabling entrepreneurs to achieve their ownership dreams, realize financial independence, and strengthen their communities. Founded in a one-bedroom San Francisco apartment in 2013, Provide was acquired by Fifth Third in 2021, and in 2023, was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more at getprovide.com, and join the conversation on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.
