Tag Archives: Board Reporting

Logistics intelligence

From little things, big things grow – how to manage consolidation complexity in a finance-friendly way.

In this interview we take a look at a ‘bread and butter’ Jedox use that you can see the world-over – Corporate Consolidations (yay!). However, this case is a little more complex than most and an example of how Business Intelligence projects often need to work in reality. Within a tight timeframe, the project team must live with a lot of ambiguity, and have with the confidence that their approach of continuous iterative efforts will gradually enable them to build up a comprehensive solution. The results are compelling.

McAleese Group is a leading Australian provider of specialised transport and logistics solutions across Australia. The newly-formed group brought together over 2000 employees in 15 separate companies – each with their own financial systems and unique chart of accounts. In this interview, with Sam Perrin, the General Manager of Finance, Colin Petrie discusses how McAleese is leveraging Jedox to consolidate 15 separate ledgers structures into a single view to enable management visibility and empower decision making.

McAleese Transport use Jedox to consolidate across 15 separate and very different ledgers

Naked Data: What has been the main benefit of working with Jedox at McAleese?
Colin Petrie, General Manager Finance: The group had recently made a major acquisition, which introduced a number of additional companies and general ledger systems. There was no common way of reporting across the various businesses. There was a mix of general ledger systems with cost centre hierarchies and others with a flat design. We were using Excel for our reporting and also to perform manual consolidation. There was no common chart of accounts or automated consolidation across the 15 different general ledger systems.

We implemented Jedox in a few months and reported the whole of the previous year, running Jedox parallel through that period. Then we used Jedox for the year-end consolidation and close.

Naked Data: It sounds like you had some fairly complex business challenges to solve!
Colin Petrie, General Manager Finance: We identified that we didn’t have the systems or processes to report the larger group results on an ongoing basis in a timely manner. We saw Jedox as a tool that could enable us to quickly establish a common platform and consolidation process across the group. First priority was to scope out the project and engage a business partner to assist us.

With 15 different ledgers, maintained by separate IT and Finance teams, it was clear there was going to be a significant amount of technical work to extract data from these systems. The mapping process would involve a considerable amount of work, due to the different account structures used across the multiple systems. We also identified the need to develop a new common chartered account structure across the group. We also wanted to develop reporting to enable both statutory reporting and for use and production of our management reports.

As an approach, we wanted to make the project as efficient as possible and minimise the interruption to the day-to-day processes within each business. We assembled a small project team to work on this as a dedicated project and engage with relevant people within the business.

Naked Data: What was it about Jedox that initially got your attention?
Colin Petrie, General Manager Finance: The larger McAleese group had just been formed, and we needed a common platform, but weren’t in a position to deploy a single ERP system across all businesses. We were therefore looking for a solution that could sit across the various General Ledger systems and therefore provide us with a common reporting platform.

What I liked about Jedox was it had depth to help us manage our complexity but was still intuitive and finance-friendly. Having had exposure to other products, I largely knew what we needed. I’d previously had exposure to TM1. With the complexity of disparate chart accounts and a lot of business processes to map and bed down, I knew we needed a solution similar to TM1 that provided flexibility at a comparatively low operating cost. However, I also needed to ensure that we weren’t hit with high licence fees and ongoing maintenance costs.

Our vision wasn’t simply a consolidation tool at the group level, but to enable management reporting for each distinct business, so it was critical we had both a fast and easy to use tool; complemented by a sustainable licence model that didn’t hold us back us from rolling out across the organisation.

The McAleese Jedox model does some heavy lifting to bring all the data together

Naked Data: How did you go about selecting Jedox?
Colin Petrie, General Manager Finance: We needed something that was easy to use and could grow with our business and quickly adapt to changes and which we could support internally. We initially lined up a demonstration with Naked Data. Naked Data were very quick to turnaround a sample model using our own data, which was really helpful because it provided tangible proof of what we could deliver with Jedox.

We conducted reference checks. I was familiar with the environments and systems which two of the referees provided, and I was able to gain comfort that they had been able to successfully deploy and use Jedox in their organisations. This gave me a lot of comfort and really reinforced my confidence in the tool.

Naked Data: Were there challenges getting IT on board?
Colin Petrie, General Manager Finance: No. Installation of Jedox was supported by a management team and our IT department. Our IT team were part of the project team and worked closely with the Naked Data consultants.

Naked Data: A project that defines new business and reporting processes sounds like a challenge to scope upfront, especially on a tight deadline. Can you tell us more about the implementation itself?
Colin Petrie, General Manager Finance: We engaged a Naked Data consultant (Angelo Ho) on a full-time basis throughout the project, working alongside our internal project team. We engaged regularly with Angela and Chris (Naked Data director Chris Mentor) on the project and project deliverables. We also recruited and trained a person experienced in BI that could support us and manage Jedox on an ongoing basis. The selected candidate had previous experience with TM1 and was able to quickly get up to speed with Jedox.

One of the best things about the implementation was that the mandate from the CFO meant I didn’t have to deal with bureaucracy. Initially we scoped the broader project with Naked Data. With ambiguities in many areas, we agreed to work on a time/materials approach that enabled us to refine what we did iteratively. Angela [Naked Data consultant, Angela Ho] worked alongside us constantly onsite. Angela liaised with Naked Data principal, Chris Mentor regularly on timeline and budget, but we ran the project as if Angela worked for us. From then on, the project hung on two things – knowing what we wanted and Angela’s proficiency in delivering that.

Naked Data: How did you find Angela’s work?
Colin Petrie, General Manager Finance: Angela was good. The project wouldn’t have succeeded without her. She was able to understand the business structures, and what we were trying to do. We did the account mapping, and the team was able to take a concept that I had and design the Jedox model, create the automated load and extraction processes and build in checks and balances. The iterative approach meant we could rapidly refine the design as we discovered more, and Jedox lends itself to this type of approach perfectly. The documentation Angela wrote was great which made it easy for our team to take ownership. As a solution Jedox has provided us with much needed visibility and reporting. Angela’s role was instrumental to the success of the project

Naked Data: What’s next for Jedox and McAleese?
The various Finance teams from each business are coming on board now that we have started producing management reports. Next we need to build forecast models and create a forecast environment. That’s going to be relatively straightforward [Jedox enables forecasting out of the box]. The next significant project is getting sales and transactional data, then expand into the detail budget modelling. We will build all the budgets in Jedox.

Business function: Corporate consolidations with Jedox
Industry: Transport & Logistics. Source system: MAPICS, S2000, MYOB, Freight2020

Jedox boosts financial accountability for not-for-profit

By improving Financial and Board Reporting and Budgeting and Forecasting, Interact Australia has fostered a culture of financial visibility and responsibility.

Interact Australia is a not-for-profit that provides community, employment, training and hospitality services. The organisation provides services for Federal Australian Government including Job Services Australia and Disability Employment Services funded by the Victorian and Queensland state governments.

As a not-for-profit, Interact’s charter is delivering as much value from its community services. However, effective financial management requires more than good-intentions. Here we speak with Phil Tankey, General Manager Corporate Services on how Jedox has helped Interact foster a culture of financial visibility and responsibility to manage their resources for better community outcomes.

Naked Data: What difference has Jedox made for Interact?
Phil Tankey, GM Corporate Services, Interact Australia: Jedox gives us the ability to access data easily and in real-time. We’ve improved our managers’ accountability because they can see their own numbers. And they’re expected to – accountability is really important for us! With Jedox, managers can drill-down and understand the information that applies to them in more detail. We’ve provided greater visibility – and greater accuracy.

Naked Data: What business issues did you originally face?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: We had our legacy accounting system, Attaché which had limited reporting. There were two main things we needed. Number one was more flexibility with reporting, and second was accessibility. Our Finance system only had a few users in head office, but we needed to share financials to people in the field as well. We needed to help them understand and manage their part of the organisation. The idea of using a BI [Business Intelligence] solution was to make sure they could access what they need rather than us just manually sending out reports when asked – obviously a clunky process.

Naked Data: So you wanted to empower the staff in the field and give them more insight?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: Yes, absolutely.

Naked Data: And what attracted you to Jedox initially?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: When we looked at Jedox, we saw we could improve things quickly. BI implementations can be long-winded and take time, but Jedox’s short implementation time was very attractive. Because it had an Excel feel to it, we could use it comfortably. This was especially important for the people in the field, as they weren’t that systems savvy – they’re operations people, not huge computer users. Instead of adding them to the Finance system, which meant learning all sorts of new skills, we could just hand them Jedox via Excel, which is really easy to get around. It was easy for them to adapt to.

Naked Data: How was knowledge transfer in practice?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: Our staff had reasonable Excel skills so the transfer was very smooth. They picked up on using the product well and it was easy for them to grasp the concepts.

Naked Data: Who now uses Jedox in your organisation?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: We have a combination of site managers, cost centre managers and Finance. All the people onsite use it for reporting and drilling-down when they need to check their P&L statements, and see how they’re going against budget. In Finance, we do corporate-level reporting and Board reporting as well.

Naked Data: You’ve worked with a few from our Naked Data team – how have you found us?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: We first started with a Jedox Bootcamp where Chris Mentor built the P&L model. Working with Chris was very good. I found it was easy to work with Chris, because he understood what we needed quickly. He appreciated what we wanted to achieve and had a very practical approach. We’ve also worked with Halim Joe. Halim always understands what we need. He always catches on very quickly, and I enjoy working one-on-one with him. He always gets the right results, we’re very happy with his work.

Naked Data: Angela Ho also worked on your model recently.
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: Yes, and we now do Balance Sheet reporting with Jedox. We had Balance Sheet reporting before, but now it’s more sophisticated and we can run Cash-Flow reporting out of it. We wanted to take the data we were getting from the P&L, and input some budget and forecasts into the model.
I had a lot of confidence in how Angela did things, and it worked well. We got the outcomes, and it all happened in about a week. She set up a really good reporting system. I’ve been really happy with how everything’s worked and with the quality we‘ve received from Naked Data.

Naked Data: You mentioned one of the original challenges was less financial visibility than you were happy with. Has Jedox helped you in that regard?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: Yes, it certainly has. You feel like you’ve got your finger on the button a lot more, because Jedox provides us with information more readily. Things are easy to find, and Finance gets to be proactive. We can now review any cost centre P&L in seconds and during month-end we get more accuracy by quickly identifying possible errors. Rather than having to request a report from someone I can just look and find out exactly what I need. That certainly helps.
When I get queries from the CEO or the Board, I can address those queries myself. I can create ad-hoc reports quickly and analyse, which is really useful. With our Board reporting, we’ve got templates set up so that we can hit a button and have a report instantly. If I’m in a meeting and the Board want to see something, I can just bring it up straight away.

Naked Data: Are you using Jedox in ways you didn’t anticipate?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: One thing we have done is forecasting. We take the budgets and re-forecast two or three times a year, and do a full reforecast. When we first brought in Jedox in, I hadn’t anticipated being able to do that, but after we setup reporting, we realised what we could get out of it, so we started forecasting as well.

Naked Data: Looking to the future, what else will you use Jedox for?
Phil Tankey, Interact Australia: Greater analytics on labour costs. As services organisation, we are a labour intensive business. Right now, labour costs come through our underlying payroll system Chris21, which gets fed into our Finance system, and then that flows through to Jedox. We want to provide secure and confidential analysis of that data direct from Jedox.

Summary Jedox Business Intelligence model: Management and Board Reporting, P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, transactional drill-through, Budgeting and Forecasting. Industry: not-for-profit Source system: Attaché.

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