Challenge 

The finance department at a late-stage PE- and VC-backed company struggled to deliver timely, insightful reports to management and its PE sponsor due to inadequate finance process design. This resulted in accounting, reporting, analysis, and collaboration inefficiencies that hindered management’s speed-to-decision capabilities. 

By redesigning its finance processes, the company sought to overcome these obstacles and free up valuable resources. 

How We Helped  

CrossCountry Consulting’s Finance Transformation experts partnered closely with key finance and management stakeholders to comprehensively grasp current- and future-state reporting requirements and shed light on inefficiencies. In quick succession, the team got to work: 

  • Developing a reporting inventory. 
  • Creating a “North Star” close checklist that incorporated all requisite steps in the close process and met reporting requirements. 
  • Implementing real-time improvements to policies, processes, and systems to drive efficiencies and improve data quality, which in turn accelerated the close and served reporting and analysis needs. 
  • Securing consensus and dedication to new close timelines and methodologies. 
  • Fostering a collaborative, efficient environment for the company to successfully close the books in the future. 
  • Executing close procedures and swiftly addressing challenges as they arose alongside the company’s finance members.  

The team leveraged an agile transformation approach to continuously gain stakeholder buy-in, integrate leading practices, and iterate on processes to achieve tangible outcomes. And given the close process’s scope and importance within the finance department, CrossCountry leveraged close insights and POVs to provide a finance-wide transformation roadmap and resource model. Moving forward, the company would have a repeatable transformation approach that could be utilized in other functions and priority areas of the business. 

Results 

In the first month of the engagement, the company realized a 50% reduction in close reporting time and significant enhancement of its financial data. 

By the second month, the North Star methodology enabled the company to achieve new standards of 5-day close and 7-day reporting cycle times. These improvements stemmed from enhanced front-end processes, close design, analytical procedures, and collaboration between FP&A and accounting teams. 

Perhaps most impressively, no additional technology or personnel costs were incurred by the company to achieve the close acceleration success. All of these wins were generated by transforming functional and cross-functional workflows and reorienting the business toward effective close methods on an accelerated timeline 

With a detailed roadmap in hand for further transformation, the company was positioned to drive additional competitive advantages and internal efficiencies, including: 

  • 100+ hours savings opportunities through automation. 
  • 15% run rate savings opportunities through optimized org design. 
  • Technology and AI/ML-enablement recommendations for Sage and NetSuite instances to drive continued progress toward operational excellence and enhanced data/reporting capabilities. 

As the company navigates future market and customer demands, it will have a successful playbook for achieving subsequent transformation objectives.