CASE STUDIES: GL Associates streamlines a shipping company
Industry: Transportation
The client's internally developed operational systems each had its own supporting financial system. It had separate accounts payable systems to pay for terminal and depot expenses, truckers, agency commissions, repair work orders and administrative expenses. Plus there were separate accounts receivable systems for shipments originating overseas and for those originating domestically.
Separate, internally developed general ledgers were maintained for corporate and the operating units. While these operating ledgers satisfied financial requirements they were of little value to the operating regions that maintained their own expense analysis systems.
The task for GL Associates was to integrate all these systems into one compliant financial systems product. First, we implemented new corporate accounts payable and general ledger systems by designing a new corporate chart of accounts (COA) and table of organization.
New "coding structures" supported an annual budgeting cycle even before we implemented the new corporate ledger. This was especially critical, as the company had started a major reorganization that was not supported by the existing budgeting process. Next, we implemented the new corporate ledger and accounts payable systems. These contained a level of reporting detail and drill-down capabilities that far exceeded those of the legacy system.
We then put into place the financial systems for the operating regions. This involved redesigning the COA so that it provided financial reporting and meaningful analysis to operational personnel. It was implemented concurrently with the elimination of all legacy accounts payable systems and the accounts receivable system for domestically originated shipments.
The implementation was unusual because of the large number of interfaces to legacy operational systems that had to be built, the need to reassign vendor codes and the conversion of multiple payable files, each with its own format.
It also had to satisfy complex accrual requirements to account for extensive delays in before submissions of invoices by terminals, depots and truckers.
The streamlined systems developed by GL Associates greatly reduced the need for internal training, eliminated most of the previous system maintenance efforts, consolidated bank accounts, accelerated the closing cycle and provided management with more meaningful financial reporting and greatly enhanced analytical capabilities.
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ERP INSTANCE CONSOLIDATIONGL Associates performs major ERP database instance consolidations for JD Edwards, Oracle and PeopleSoft ERP systems. Our methodologies and automated conversion tools enable us to perform these projects in planned timeframes with high quality testing cycles at a predictable cost. We have experience with every need in ERP database instance consolidations including reorganizations, divestitures, and mergers (of similar and dissimilar businesses).
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