Global Financial Organization Streamlines Financial Processing with PeopleSoft 8
An international organization of 183 member countries found themselves unable to manage the complexities of controlling expenses within pre-defined budgets while servicing their operation in an efficient and effective manner. Their existing financial infrastructure had grown old. They found themselves exerting work effort on managing their finances rather than focusing on their organizational objectives. They needed a financial management solution that combined best in class technology with sophisticated processing while creating a lasting infrastructure for the future to enable adoption of high value solutions for enhanced analytical capabilities.
The Challenge
In reviewing their business processes for capital and administrative expenditures, it became obvious that an integrated solution for financial transaction processing was just the beginning. In order to reap the ROI they were looking for, they needed their new financial management solution to integrate real-time with existing operational systems and be self-sufficient in routing transactions throughout the organization for operational efficiency. To maximize opportunities for measurable and quantifiable improvements, they needed to eliminate redundant maintenance and re-working of transactions and reduced cycle times from days to minutes, while providing the Board with consistent and reliable reporting based on indicative output indicators for measurement of performance. They needed to manage over two thousand Projects that ranged from technical assistance to member countries, to capital projects for their new headquarters, to IT Projects. Open integration and automated workflow processing would also be key in furthering the reach of enhancing business processing beyond the traditional financial systems boundaries. Manual approval and entry of travel authorizations for their thousands of missions not only created delays and frustrations to their technical experts, but a mountain of work for the Treasurers department. Most importantly, this solution needed to span the needs of multiple Divisions with unique and distinct goals of the new system and building consensus around a single business practice was key to their critical success factors.
They turned to software and implementation partners who could manage this project in a predictable, cost-effective manner – within scope and time constraints. That’s why they chose the PeopleSoft Financial Management Solution and Beacon Application Services Corporation.
The PeopleSoft – Beacon Solution
These aggressive business and technological goals for the project coupled with inherent complexity of the organization and its mission, the number of organizational areas and users impacted by the new system, presented a unique set of management and logistical challenges. The PeopleSoft Financial Management Solution including General Ledger, Payables, Purchasing, Asset Management, Expenses and Projects was the technology solution of choice, while Beacon was selected as the partner who could work with them to establish a project framework that would ensure that the requirements of each of the organizational areas were considered and addressed. In order to maximize their PeopleSoft investment and facilitate adoption of best practices, this client needed an experienced partner who could provide both the business and technology savvy while working within a proven methodology framework to ensure on-time delivery.
Beacon’s Consultants facilitated a rigorous and disciplined review of current work practices against industry best practices. They also examined business processes unique to this organization and created efficient business process flows requiring integration with PeopleSoft 7.5 HRMS, a custom PeopleSoft 7.5 Travel Information Management System, an in-house time recording system for IT, and a myriad of other legacy source systems. Beacon’s Technical Consultants brought expertise in PeopleSoft’s architecture and tools that would enable the client to establish a new internet infrastructure that would provide the performance expected by the broad community of users.
In addition, Beacon Technical Consultants could expertly apply PeopleSoft’s integration toolset to meet the demands of real-time system integration.
The project was completed in two phases. The first phase began with detailed work practice reviews for all of the business processes impacted by the new system to identify system requirements and opportunities for business process improvement. User requirements were documented and gap analysis was completed. Gap solutions were formulated both from a work practice and technology perspective and a review committee signed off on all customizations. Conversions and interfaces were designed and test and training strategies were documented. At the end of this phase, a detailed plan for deployment of the solution was delivered.
During Phase II, the system was constructed, tested and deployed. The financial applications were configured, integrations with numerous external systems were built, workflow was implemented to facilitate financial processing throughout the enterprise and reports were written to facilitate control and analysis of expenditures. Focused and content specific training courses were delivered to prepare the organization for deployment. Testing ensured that the deployment was completed with minimal business interruption.
Throughout both phases, Beacon’s Project and Executive Management partnered with the client’s Project and Executive Management to ensure that project goals were met on time and within budget. The entire project team, consisting of nearly 100 individuals, worked in collaboration to help make the vision a reality. This was a tremendous organization-wide effort that laid the infrastructure for future reforms and growth.
Benefits
This international financial organization now controls all administrative, capital and project expenditures through the inherent commitment control functionality in the PeopleSoft Financial Management Solution. The system proactively monitors not only actual to budget, but accommodates all planned activities and expenditures. Tracking of joint ventures and externally financed programs through their newly deployed system will give their partners the assurance that their investments are well managed and that planned activities are being accomplished.
The initial deployment to over 600 staff members encompasses automatic workflow routing of travel authorizations for approved and budgeted projects from cash advance through claims processing. Real-time encumbrance of approved requisitions are routed from requestor to approver to buyer for efficient procurement processing. Integrating time accounting for IT Projects for evaluated receipt settlement through payables eliminated time-consuming reentry of data into multiple systems. Automatic currency tolerance notifications ensured real-time control over market fluctuations.
How Beacon Application Services Added Value
Beacon closely collaborated with the client at all levels across the organization to ensure that requirements were met and project goals and schedules were clearly communicated. Beacon leveraged their functional and technical knowledge of PeopleSoft, industry best practices, internet technology, systems implementation, project management and accounting applications to create a system that meets the requirements of this unique, complex organization and sets the stage for expansion of the solution.
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