redwood finance automation...2021/01/12 · 1. what is your experience with rpa: a. we have rolled...

Presenters

Sarah Fane

Head of Research

sharedserviceslink

Scott Barone

Director, Finance

Digital PMO,

Jabil

Tim Sheridan

Managing Partner,

Connected Insight

Shak Akhtar

SVP Finance

Automation/Customer

Experience Officer,

Redwood Software

• Send me your question early

• Use this opportunity to get the answers/info you seek

• The sooner you send me the question, the more likely it will be asked

• Remember to stay on for Q&A in the last 10 minutes of the session

Questions

Your copy of the slides

The slides will be available

after the webinar at

www.sharespace.digital

Most large enterprises still have a lot of non-standardized processes and a mixture of manual and

automated finance processes. Today we how to automate their financial close process and will examine:

• How Jabil automated and how they reaped the benefits in 4 key areas of the financial close process

1. Time savings

2. Standardization

3. Data quality

4. Reducing potential audit fees

• Practical advice from Redwood on what to automate including account reconciliation, Journal Entry,

InterCompany and other Financial Close processes

• How to start gathering high quality data in your organization to develop meaningful metrics and what

KPIs can help keep your automation efforts on track.

• Q&A

Context and Agenda

1. What is your experience with RPA:

a. We have rolled out RPA in finance and accounting and are growing the programme

b. We have rolled out RPA in finance and accounting, but it’s still a Pilot or quite small

c. We rolled out a Pilot for RPA and then abandoned it

d. We are assessing RPA for finance and accounting now

e. We have not ventured down the RPA route as yet

Poll

2. What Month End/Journal Entry/Reconciliations Tool do you use?

TICK ALL

a. Blackline

b. Trintech

c. SAP

d. Excel

e. Other

Poll

Jabil Redwood Program

01.12.2021

9Public | ©Jabil Inc. 2020. All Rights Reserved.

BUILT ON A

SOLID FOUNDATION

1966 FOUNDED IN

MICHIGAN, USA 53.9 MILLION SQUARE FEET OF

MANUFACTURING SPACE 100+SITES STRATEGICALLY

LOCATED AROUND

THE WORLD

240K DEDICATED

EMPLOYEES

TENURED

MANAGEMENT TEAM$27.3 BILLION REVENUE

IN FY20


GLOBAL OPERATIONS ENABLE

LOCALIZED MANUFACTURING

100+ SITES STRATEGICALLY LOCATED AROUND THE WORLD

GLOBAL

HEADQUARTERS

ST. PETERSBURG, FL

Bandung

Beijing

Changhua

Chengdu

Deqing

ASIA Gotemba

Hajioji

Ho Chi Minh

Hsinchu City

Huangpu

Penang

Pune

Shanghai

Shenzhen

Suzhou

Singapore

Taichung

Tianjin

Weihai

Wuhan

Wuxi

EUROPE & MIDDLE EAST

Balsthal

Bettlach

Bray

Grenchen

Haifa

Hägendorf

Hasselt

Jena

Kharkiv

Knittlingen

Kwidzyn

Livingston

Le Locle

Marcianise

Mezzovico

Tver

Umkirch

Uzhgorod

Venray

Vienna

Waterford

Misgav

Nagyigmand

Raron

Tiszaújváros

Tortosa

Tuttlingen

Maple Grove

McLean

Mebane

Memphis

Monument

Mount Pleasant

Ottawa

Pleasanton

San Diego

San Jose

Seattle

St. Petersburg

Waltham

Westchester

LATIN AMERICA

Belo Horizonte

Chihuahua

Guadalajara

Juarez

Manaus

Monterrey

Valinhos

San Cristobal

Santo Domingo

Tijuana

Torres

NORTH AMERICA

Albuquerque

Anaheim

Asheville

Atlanta

Auburn Hills

Austin

Burlington

Cayey

Chaska

Chicago

Clinton

Devens

Florence

Fremont

Grand Junction

Gurnee

Hanover Park

Horseheads

Lexington

Livermore10PUBLIC | ©Jabil Inc. 2020. All Rights Reserved.


Jabil Financial Digital Transformation Teamand Systems

Finance Systems Landscape• Multiple instances and versions of SAP – Enterprise ERP (Owned by IT)

• Cognos Controller – Supports the Close, Consolidations and Reporting

processes.

• TM1- Supports Financial Planning and Analysis, Forecasting and Actuals

Finance Digital Transformation Team (FDT)• FDT resides within Finance and is not a part of IT. The FDT team, develops

and supports global finance processes and financial systems by

developing digital technologies to transform the Finance function with

improved planning and decision-making, streamlined processes,

automation and better cost management

• FDT owns a set of Financial Systems and Tools including Redwood Finance

Automation

Finance Organization Landscape• Finance is made up of Corporate Finance and Site Finance

Cognos TM1


Process Automation

One of the main services that the FDT team provides to the Jabil Finance Organization

both Corporate and the Sites is Process Improvement and Automation. We are constantly

looking at ways to streamline, standardize and automate our manual processes.

Fast forward to why Redwood?• FDT performed an internal survey and deep analysis with Corporate and Site Finance.

Out of this we produced a prioritized list of manual processes to standardize and

automate.

• FDT reviewed several RPA tools and narrowed it down to 3, performed a deep analysis

of functionality, cost and made sure they aligned with Jabil IT Infrastructure and Data

Security guidelines as well as engaged with our internal Procurement team to help drive

us through the procurement effort. Obviously, Redwood Finance Automation was the

selected tool. As a side note outside of this, we looked at other tools to assist with the

close process and viewed Redwood as being able to close that gap too.


Why Redwood over the others

Pre-defined processesDirect T-code program

execution – No screen scraping

Self contained platform

Allows the FDT team to be quick to market with new processes

Resolves several audit and compliancy issues as well as

External Audit costsPartnership capabilities

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.


Balance Sheet Certification Benefits and Redwood overall

• Automate a very manual process

• Approximately 5 hours of time saving per

Company Code during our close cycle. It takes us 4 days for consolidations and 5 days for

management reporting.

• Standardization

• Quality of data


What’s next

• Complete the BSC rollout

• Move to the Redwood cloud version of Finance

Automation

• Next up MJE, Subledger then Intercompany (these

are current processes that Jabil owns)

• Continue to evolve – Automate where it makes

sense, clean up our house first, transform and

standardize, change management and deploy

+

THANK YOU


© Redwood Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Redwood FinanceAutomation

Shak Akhtar

SVP, Finance Automation

Redwood Software

© Redwood Software, Inc. All rights reserved.© Redwood Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Process Automation in Accounting and Finance.

18

The study surveyed 751 financial professionals on:

• Extent to which companies have

automated their accounting

processes

• Where they would like to automate;

• Challenges they face; and

• Best practices for automating

72% DON’T trust ACCURACY of their

reporting data

80% NOT satisfied with their

CLOSING PROCESS

66% Rely heavily on spreadsheets;

Resulting in Increased TIME & RISK

Have automated some parts of their

accounting process (not including ERP)33%

© Redwood Software, Inc. All rights reserved. 19

Redwood Survey Results

19

Percent of finance processes automated?

0-30%

30-50%

50-80%

Extent of Excel usage in Period-End Close?

50-80%

>80%

0-30%

30-50%

Most Time-Consuming Area During financial Close?

Accruals, Provisions & Reclass JV

Reconciliations

Intercompany

Reporting

SAP Closing

*If Yes, Areas to Automate Further?

Accruals, Provisions & Reclass JV

Reconciliations

Intercompany

SAP Closing

Reporting

No

Yes, a combination of RPA and

bolt-applications

Yes, a RPA tool

Yes, a bolt-on application

Using Other Automation Tools

in Addition to ERP?*


The Financial Close Challenge

Eff

ort

Start of month

Group

Close

Balance Sheet

Recon/

Certification

………

Entity

Close

Accruals

Provisions

Re-class

Interco

Reconciliations

ERP/SAP Close tasks

60-80% of Entity close


The Desired Outcome

Eff

ort

Start of month

Group

Close

Balance Sheet

Recon/

Certification

………

Entity

Close

Accruals

Provisions

Re-class

Interco

Reconciliations

ERP/SAP Close tasks

Automating

the Financial Close


ERP activities Reconciliation Journal Entry Inter Company Manual Activity


50% of Entity Close - Accruals, Provisions & Re-class JVs

24

Accruals & Processes Examples

Run Holiday

Report

Run Salary

Report

Merge Data

based on

Employee ID

Calculate

Accrual amount

& prepare JV

Ask for

Approval

Upload Excel

to Post Accrual

Retrieve

Posting Log

and Document

Send Success

Notification

Archive all

Documents

Run Open PO

Report

Run PO owner

Report

Merge Data

based on PO

Owner

Create separate

report & Email

for approval to

CC owners

Re-combine

data for JV

Upload Excel

to Post Accrual

Retrieve

Posting Log

and Document

Send Success

Notification

Archive all

Documents

Run aged-debt

report

Separate based

on Age, Value,

Profit Center,

etc.

Calculate

Provision

amount &

prepare JV

Email to

PC owners for

approval

Final Approval Upload Excel

to Post Accrual

Retrieve

Posting Log

and Document

Send Success

Notification

Archive all

Documents

Prepare 70-80% of work Review & Post 20-30% of work Document

Leave Accrual

Open PO Accrual

Doubtful Debt Provision

Reve

rse

nex

t p

eri

od

Controlling Shared Services


Redwood. Where Automation Happens

25

Close Orchestration/Checklist Execute Underlying Tasks Dependencies & SLAs

• Configurable templates

• Entity hierarchy definition

• Task assignment

• Meta data sync with ERP

• Task Ownership & Supervisor

• Roles and responsibility

• Document and policy attachments

• Task re-assignment

• Calendar facility

• Workflow

• Dependencies

• Copy & edit task list for easy roll-out

• Dashboards

• Manual Tasks – remind & Manage

• Fully Automated tasks:

• Execute ERP/SAP Close Tasks

• Bank reconciliation

• Sub-ledger reconciliation

• Rule based Inter-co recon

• Rule based Accruals & Provisions

• Semi-Automated Tasks:

• Leave Accrual

• PO accrual

• Bad Debt provision

• Etc.

• Built-in capability to manage dependencies between

manual tasks & automated execution

• Ability to define timeline relationship between

interdependent tasks regardless of how its executed


Redwood Finance Automation

26

CLO

UD

BA

SE

D F

INA

NC

E P

RO

CE

SS

AU

TO

MA

TIO

N

Close OrchestrationJournal Entry

Management

Intercompany

Management

Account Reconciliation

& Certification

FINANCIAL CLOSE AUTOMATION

EXCEL SAP ORACLE PSFT OTHERS

Other Closing tasks

ASSET ACCOUNTING

RECEIVABLES:

Credit Control

Cash Allocation

Debt Provision

AR Reporting

AR Close

PAYABLES:

Payment

Processing

Supplier recon

GR/IR

PO Accruals

AP Reporting

AP Close

© Redwood Software, Inc. All rights reserved.© Redwood Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Where to start?

Companies All In

• Automating entire Finance function

27

Companies Addressing Few Processes at a Time

• Automating processes such as Invoice Processing, Inter-Co, GR/IR, Doubtful Debt Provision, JV entry

• Balance Sheet Certification


Vendor Inquiries

Purchase Order Creation & Delivery

Invoice Matching

Make Supplier Payments

Reconcile Payments & Bank Accounts

Perform GR/IR Reconciliations

Payment & Supplier Reconciliations

AP Closing

Reporting

Master Data Management

P2P Average Automation

Procure to Pay: ~ 80% automated

Journal Entries

Intercompany Netting

Intercompany Tax, Invoice, JE

Balance Sheet Reconciliation

Bank & Cash Accounting

Accruals & Provisions

Roll-Up & Reconcile Sub Ledgers

Tax Feed & Positioning

Reporting & Data Feed


R2R Average Automation

Record to Report: ~85% automatedCredit Management

Invoice Generation – Customer/EDI

Cash Application

Unbilled Revenue

Bad Debt Provisions

AR to GL Reconciliations

Close Subledger

AR Closing

Reporting


O2C Average Automation

Order to Cash: ~85% automated

Project and Asset Creation

Investment Management Accounting

Asset Inventory

Capitalization

Asset Revaluation

Asset Depreciation

Asset Transfer & Disposal

Asset / Project & GL Reconciliation

Asset Reporting


AA Average Automation

Asset Accounting: ~80% automated

Automation Potential with Redwood

3. How would you like to find out more about Redwood?

a. Set up a demo with Redwood

b. Set up a meeting with Redwood

c. Be more formally introduced to Redwood by email

d. Be sent some further information

e. I am okay for now

Poll

Connected InsightFor Shared Services Link

We lcome to d ata - d r iv e n t ran s f ormat ion.


Earn the

Mandate

Data-driven business case

Cost, Focus, Risk, Quality

Performance Benchmarking

Define the

Solution

Redwood Automation

Holistic Solutions

Quick Wins

1 2Sustain your

Momentum

Analytics Impact Tracking

Data-Driven Engagement

3

Where to start?


Confidential. All rights reserved. www.connected-insight.com33

A Mandate Example

30%

Cost reduction in transactional work

50%

% FTE focused on analysis and driving business value

Efficient Focused

70%

% FTE in SSC or BPO

Agile

Optional slide

Solutions

Technology Organization

2023 Target Ambition

Target

Process

Mandate

Automate Eliminate Optimize

01

02

03

04


An Analytics ExampleObjective(s) Primary Drivers Secondary Drivers

Objective Type: Focus

Objective: R2R Focus on analysis

Measure: % time on Focus activities

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

Staffing

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

FTE’s per 000’s Revenue

Error Rate

Error volumeDimension

ADimension

BDimension

CDimension

D

Automate Reconciliations

% Accounts reconciled automatically Dimension

ADimension

BDimension

CDimension

D

Automate ME Activities

% automated Month End activities Dimension

ADimension

BDimension

CDimension

D

Minimize Month End Spike

% manual activities in month end.

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

Timeliness

% activities completed on time. Dimension

ADimension

BDimension

CDimension

D



Closing advice…avoid driving backwards

What data do we have?

What analytics can we create?

Who can use the analytics?

What dashboards can we design?

DataAnalytics DashboardsUsers

Not this direction

This direction! What objectives or decisions do

we need to drive?

What data is required for the

analytics?

What analytics do they need for their focus?

Who are the users? What do

they need to do?

What dashboard designs are required?

Impact Users Analytics Dashboards Data

???

Impact



Reference



1 Benchmark: Measure using organization dimensions that allow you to Internally benchmark (entity, divisions, country etc.)

2 Engage: All levels of your organization:

Senior leaders = Objectives, primary drivers

Team leaders = secondary drivers

Some advice

3 Dynamic: Drivers should change over time based on objectives, improvements or new solutions



A simple Analytics framework

Objective(s)

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

Primary Drivers Secondary Drivers

How do you measure the objective you are trying to achieve?

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

What actions drive progress to the objectives?

What solutions and impact drive progress?

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

Objective Type: Efficiency

Objective: Operate a low-cost process

Measure: Cost per transaction

Staffing

Volume per FTE

Cost

Average per FTE

GBS Coverage

% FTE in GBS

Span of Control

% Tier 3

Automation

% Posted with no manual intervention

Channel Optimization

% received electronically



Another Analytics Example

Objective(s) Primary Drivers Secondary Drivers

Objective Type: Effectiveness

Objective: Decrease DSO to X% overdue

Measure: % customer invoices > X days

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

Staffing

Volume Overdue

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

Accounts per collections FTE

Volume per reason code for overdue Dimension

ADimension

BDimension

CDimension

D

Focus

% time customer engagement

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

Match Rate

% payments matched Dimension

ADimension

BDimension

CDimension

D

Dispute Type

Volume disputes due to invoice error.

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD

Dispute Cycle Time

Days in dispute queue

DimensionA

DimensionB

DimensionC

DimensionD


40

Connected Insight

Transformation Apps + Advisory Services

Avenue Louise 523Brussels, BelgiumB-1050

135 S State College BlvdBrea CA, 92821

[email protected]

De Cuserstraat 93Amsterdam, Netherlands1081 CN

Your Questions Answered

Next From sharedserviceslink

www.sharespace.digital

January 23rdJanuary 16th January 30th