Client’s Business
The client provides marketing and financing for various transportation fuel products and related services. These are further extended to commercial and corporate aircraft, petroleum distributors and ships at more than 3500 locations around the globe.
The Challenge
The client initially had a 100% manual process using Excel and scrubbing source trade data downloaded from CXL to get their reporting done. Multiple teams with separate processes made it impossible to have a standard report format that was easy to audit, control, validate or drill down for details.
The Excel-based manual process was fraught with the risk of error and involved extraordinary effort. Furthermore, the limitations of Excel meant that their file kept crashing when multiple sheets were involved in processing huge data.
The Solution
HOC was roped in to map out several areas of the business where they could leverage process automation. While focusing on understanding the client, the process flow as well as the interaction of the systems and the files, HOC probed deeply to understand the internal function and bring about a solution. It was realized that there were significant opportunities for improvement due to suboptimal backend processes, specifically due to the manual nature of the existing workflow.
HOC proposed a plan to simplify the process and have an easy-to-use process automated using EPIC. It also ensured accurate data flow with great transparency. HOC leveraged the EPIC platform to reduce dependency on Excel for data processing. HOC reconfigured the internal systems for more flexibility by adding master tables, updating rules logic and more. HOC was able to automate the preparation of financial reporting footnotes and disclosure tables in a format preferred by accountants and downstream systems efficiently.
The Result
By leveraging HOC’s industry expertise and EPIC platform, the client was able to streamline and automate the Financial Close Process significantly. Reports with new or corrected data from the accounting systems were generated within hours. Manual errors were reduced, and the implemented process helped auditors get all the required supporting data with ease. A significant number of business hours were saved as the entire Financial Close Process was done within a week with minimal manual intervention.
Outcomes & Benefits
- Analyzed, redesigned and fixed an inefficient derivatives disclosure and internal audit process
- Reduced quarter and year-end disclosure reporting time from 3 weeks to 1 week for a period close
- Automated creation of journal entries for all business segments, preparation of financial reporting footnotes and disclosure tables
- Enabled automated preparation of ASC 815, 820 and M D & A footnote tables for accounting period close accurately, and within hours of the risk of the accounting system being refreshed with new records
