May 15, 2025 Financial Agility Amid Seasonal Revenue Surges

Coca-Cola and Domino’s tap automation to manage summer sales surges, proving financial agility turns seasonal chaos into strategic growth.

By Tammy Coley, Chief Transformation Officer at BlackLine

Summer brings a surge in sun, celebrations, and spending. From beach parties and barbecues to summer concerts and sports events, the warmer months ignite a spike in demand for food and beverages. For global brands like Domino’s and Coca-Cola, this means seasonal sales spikes— which often coincide with increased financial complexities.

While the restaurant and beverage industries continue to break sales forecasts, seasonal spikes in revenue require more than just operational readiness. Finance leaders must ensure their systems can handle surging transaction volumes, maintain compliance, and close the books quickly—all while enabling the business to act on real-time insights.

As the global food and beverage market targets $8.9 trillion by 2026, enterprises struggling to navigate financial close processes face more risk than ever. Coca-Cola and Domino’s offer a powerful example of how automation and digital transformation can turn seasonal chaos into strategic advantage.

Why Summer Means Serious Revenue—and Risk

Historically, national holidays such as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, fuel a jump in consumer spending. These events spark more poolside drinks and late-night pizza orders, delivering a concentrated wave of sales activity.

Last year alone, Independence Day drove over $9.48 billion in food spending. With millions of transactions flowing in over just a few short weeks, finance leaders must ask: Are our financial operations built to scale and adapt to seasonal demand?

To find the answer, we can look at how Coca-Cola and Domino’s have transformed their financial operations to stay agile in the heat of peak season.

Coca-Cola: Streamlining Summer with Automation

With a footprint that spans the globe, Coca-Cola processes enormous volumes of financial data across regions, products, and distribution partners. In the past, this scale led to a high number of manual reconciliations, delays, and increased compliance risks—especially during summer surges.

To overcome these challenges, Coca-Cola invested in financial automation and standardization. The result? A 50% reduction in close-related tasks and annual cost savings of over $500,000.

By digitizing their financial processes, Coca-Cola now benefits from:

• Automated reconciliations that eliminate thousands of manual hours
• Standardized financial reporting for improved accuracy and compliance
• Scalable workflows that keep pace with seasonal revenue spikes

When consumer demand soars, Coca-Cola’s finance team is ready and able to focus on high-value strategy rather than firefighting process breakdowns.

Domino’s: Accuracy at Speed in a High-Volume Summer

As summer gatherings increase, Domino’s sees these get-togethers in the numbers, with over 40 million transactions processed monthly.

Previously, Domino’s relied on manual reconciliation methods that couldn’t keep up with the scale and speed of seasonal spikes. To adapt, the company deployed automation technology that now matches 99.9% of transactions—drastically improving efficiency and reducing risk.

With these tools, Domino’s has:

• Gained real-time visibility into revenue trends
• Minimized manual work and reallocated teams to strategic analysis
• Built a more responsive and agile finance operation

Whether it’s a revenue rush from late-night delivery orders or beach day campouts, Domino’s finance team can stay ahead of the volume without compromising accuracy or speed.

5 Ways to Prepare for Seasonal Summer Peaks

For brands preparing for a summer surge, here are 5 strategies to enhance financial efficiency:

1. Review financial health proactively: Perform regular audits of revenue patterns, liabilities, and expenses to flag risks early and prepare for rapid shifts.
2. Maintain accurate records: Clean, consistent data across the income statement and balance sheet is essential for informed decision-making during peak times.
3. Automate where it counts: Use technology to automate reconciliation and close processes—freeing finance teams to focus on insights and strategy.
4. Use real-time insights: Adopt AI-powered analytics to forecast demand, optimize pricing, and manage cash flow throughout the summer season.
5. Stay audit-ready: Ensure financial systems align with compliance and reporting standards, even under the pressure of seasonal sales.

Summer Sales Shouldn’t Mean Financial Strain

Seasonal success isn’t just about getting products into consumers’ hands, it’s about ensuring the finance team can keep up with the pace of business. By embracing automation and streamlining close processes, brands can turn seasonal peaks into moments of long-term momentum.

Coca-Cola and Domino’s show that with the right financial infrastructure in place, summer doesn’t have to be stressful. It can be a season of growth, insight, and opportunity.

And for consumers? That means their ice-cold Coke and pizza will arrive on time, no matter how hot the summer gets.

About the Author:
Tammy is a visionary accounting leader with a deep understanding of how accounting processes intersect with modern technology. As Chief Transformation Officer, she brings that vision and experience to BlackLine’s customers as they transform their Finance & Accounting operations through the use of the company’s cloud software tools. Formerly Executive Director, Enterprise Accounting and Internal Controls Governance at leading broadband communications company and long-time BlackLine customer Cox Communications, Tammy brings deep industry and product experience to BlackLine.

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