Asurion and BlackLine Systems
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Presentation by Asurion's Director of Finance Systems, Michael Baas, about their use of BlackLine Systems with their ERP, Microsoft Dynamics Axapta.
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Asurion and BlackLine Systems
- 1. and BlackLine Systems Asurion_Confidential Michael Baas Director, Finance Systems March 2016
- 2. 2Asurion_Confidential Agenda Asurion Issues & Opportunities Why BlackLine Implementation Current State Return on Investment Future State
- 3. 3Asurion_Confidential Over 20 years of innovation, leading provider of Support Services, Mobile Protection & Extended Warranties Asurion Overview Global Accounting Operations Americas – Nashville, TN (HQ) and Sterling, VA Europe – London Asia Pacific – Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, New Delhi, Seoul, Taipei, Beijing, Shanghai Global and growing – 16,000+ global employees serving 275+ million consumers
- 4. 4Asurion_Confidential Microsoft Dynamics A/X 2009 for ERP (in process of upgrading to 2012 R3/AX 7) Asurion Finance Systems Overview BlackLine for Reconciliations, Consolidation Integrity and Task Management Hyperion for Planning and Reporting
- 5. 5Asurion_Confidential Issues & Opportunities Before BlackLine Pre-Close Activities Month -end Post Month-end Activities Reporting Month end processes Reconciliations Tie-out ledgers to reporting These issues created inefficiencies in our close processes along with a list of control gaps that had to be corrected
- 6. 6Asurion_Confidential Issues & Opportunities 1. Global, high level close deadlines issued before close to all of finance 2. Manual checklists for month end close 3. Audit requests were distributed via email in a spreadsheet and then emailed internally and externally 4. Tracking of completeness of account reconciliations was tracked in various spreadsheets Tracking month-end processes prior to BlackLine
- 7. 7Asurion_Confidential Issues & Opportunities Balance Sheet Reconciliations Prior to BlackLine 94% of spreadsheets contain errors with 5% of cells having errors * * Source: Panko, Raymond R.. “What We Know About Spreadsheet Errors.” Spreadsheet Research (SSR. 2 16 2009). University of Hawai’i. 27 Feb 2009 2. No tracking / visibility / accountability 3. No standard templates 4. Manual process of updating reconciliations 5. New accounts added for a fast growing business 6. Difficult to track deadlines and completeness of reconciliations 7. No efficient way to review reconciliations globally or share them with auditors 1. Spreadsheets
- 8. 8Asurion_Confidential Issues & Opportunities 1. Multiple ledgers and a master file from Hyperion compared in spreadsheets (ignored smaller companies for materiality) 2. This process took hours and was too time consuming to repeat throughout close Matching in Spreadsheet Reporting Trial Balance GL Trial Balance - Japan GL Trial Balance - Europe GL Trial Balance – US GL Trial Balance – Australia GL Trial Balance – Hong Kong Prior to BlackLine: Matching our general ledger trial balance to our reporting system
- 9. 9Asurion_Confidential Why BlackLine • Functionality that we needed via the, Accounts (Reconciliation), Tasks and Consolidation Integrity modules • Customizable calendars, deadlines and tasks • 1 instance, accessible anywhere (SaaS) • Centralized storage of reconciliation support and other documents • Wide array of knowledge bases • Customizable alerts and workflow • Easy to update balances multiple times per day • Standard templates (Bank, prepaid, accruals, sub ledger match…)
- 10. 10Asurion_Confidential BlackLine Implementation Software Search late 2010 Implement U.S. Q2 - Q3 ‘11 U.S. Live in Sept ’11 Added Sterling VA location Q2 ’12 Europe/ Japan Q3 ’12 APAC Q4 ’12 - Ongoing Initial implementations accomplished with Finance, little IT involvement and 3rd party consultant = $$$ Int’l locations implemented by 1 BlackLine Admin, very little IT involvement = $
- 11. 11Asurion_Confidential Current State - Reconciliations 12 General Ledger Instances (11 – v2009, 1 – v2012) 160+ Entities 140,000+ Balance Sheet Accounts Monitored 4,000+ Accounts With Balances 2,100+ Reconciliations 155 Users 1 System Administrator, 1 Local Admin (Finance)
- 12. 12Asurion_Confidential Current State - Tasks • Monthly close checklists • Audit request tracking • Controls compliance sign-offs • System Admin and other tasks Uses • Tasks in central location and easily updated • Each task assigned (optional approval) • Task dependencies can be set • Emailed alerts (past due, workflow) • Document tasks in detail and attach other documents as needed • Dashboard used to check status of tasks Key Features
- 13. 13Asurion_Confidential Current State – Consolidation Integrity Consolidation Integrity Reconciliation Mapping file between Reporting and Ledger accounts Trial balance from Hyperion reporting Trial balance from ledgers
- 14. 14Asurion_Confidential Integration to BlackLine ETL Server Location BlackLine FTP Server BlackLine Software DAX Instances SCHEDULED INTERFACES Extracts are scheduled across 8 of 11 AX 2009 instances. · U.S. Instance – 7 loads/day during close · International instances load 3/day during close. DAX Instances MANUAL INTERFACES Extracts are run manually for 3 of the 11 AX 2009 instances 1/day during close.
- 15. 15Asurion_Confidential Closing the Gap Before BlackLine Pre-Close Activities Month -end Post Month-end Activities Reporting Month end processes Reconciliations Tie-out ledger to reporting With BlackLine Pre-Close Activities Month -end Post Month-end Activities Reporting Month end processes Reconciliations Tie-out ledger to reporting Tasks Module Accounts Module Consolidation Integrity Module
- 16. 16Asurion_Confidential Return on Investment Time Visibility Improved Visibility • Balances and explanations during month-end close • Improved documentation of tasks/procedures • Central database • 1 instance, accessible anywhere Time $avings • Reduced time for reconciliations, system tie-outs and total month- end close time • Less interaction time needed with auditors • No manual update of spreadsheets • Transition of reconciliations to new preparers • Improved quality of reconciliations • Control gaps filled! • Reduced use of spreadsheets • Reduced paper, storage, overhead, audit costs • Reduced staff
- 17. 17Asurion_Confidential Future State Shorten deadlines to complete reconciliations Formal balance sheet preparation reviews Revisit certification thresholds (current levels are very conservative) Further roll-out of tasks globally for month-end close, audit and compliance tasks Increased utilization of Reporting module Implement future BlackLine functionality To Be Continued…
- 19. 19Asurion_Confidential Questions? Asurion.com Michael.Baas@Asurion.com Director of Finance Systems LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michaelabaas Presentation access: Slideshare.net/MichaelABaas
Editor's Notes
- Hi, My name is….., I’m director of finance systems at Asurion and I’ve been with Asurion for 6 years. I’m the Global Business Process Owner for our general ledger and fixed assets as well as overseeing operation of BlackLine, Concur and our global finance data governance process. My background is in Accounting and Accounting Systems and I’ve worked in big 4 as an auditor and have held various accounting roles in companies of all sizes, public and private. Today I’m going to discuss our journey with Blackline.
- Today I’m going to cover….
- Asurion has been around for over 20 years. Our main business is insurance for mobile devices which is offered by major carriers around the world through us.(SPACE) We have over 16,00 employees serving nearly 300 million customers. (SPACE) We have accounting operations around the world that all use Blackline for reconcilations
- Diving more into Asurion Finance Systems, we use Dynamics AX 2009 today as well as 1 instance of 2012 R3. We are in the process of upgrading to AX 7. We are also a heavy Hyperion user and of course use BlackLine for reconciliations as well as a couple of the other modules we will discuss.
- Before Blackline we had an extended close process (SPACE)with reconciliations starting very late in the process(SPACE) and usually too late to make adjustments. Also, tieing between our Ledger system and reporting system, was very tedious. (SPACE). Obviously our close process was very inefficient (SPACE) and is why we undertook an effort to improve it which included a software solution for reconciliations.
- Related to tracking processes throughout the close, we had a few of the common issues that companies have before implementing a software solution…(SPACE)…high level close deadlines(SPACE) manual close checklists kept by each user in spreadsheets, on sticky notes and in their heads (SPACE) auditor requests floating around in emails (SPACE) and no sense of status for reconciliations around the world.
- Now on to reconciliations, we had many pain points in our reconciliation process before blackline(SPACE) …. We used spreadsheets which creates many opportunities for errors (SPACE) We couldn’t see all of the reconciliations around the company and who was performing them (SPACE)..Spreadsheets were often modified differently, creating inconsistent views around the world (SPACE) the balances in spreadsheet had to be updated manually so we usually waited until numbers stopped moving (SPACE) accounts added for new use were often missed from the reconciliation process (SPACE).. We couldn’t tell when people were done and if all accounts were covered (SPACE) and reviewing and collecting of reconciliations was not easy and we had a hard time sharing them with auditors.
- Our process to tie out between a dozen instances and hyperion was all but ineffective…(SPACE) With so many legal entities and instances of ledgers, reconciling between our ledger and reporting system to make sure we were reporting all transactions was very late in the close process and we only had time to do it once.
- When we reviewed solutions for reconciliations as a part of a Global Close Process Improvement initiative, we choose BlackLine for these reasons….
- Our timeline to implement BlackLine was relatively short considering our size and dispersed geography. (SPACE) In the first year, we were able to implement approx. 2/3 of our eventual total global users with the help of a small (2-3 person) consulting team. (SPACE) The rest of the implementations were handled internationally by myself alone. (SPACE) IT helped to build our extracts and subledger functionality initially. Ongoing implementation only needed this code carried to the international instances of our ledger system.
- (SPACE) Here’s the scope of our current reconciliation process. We complete all high risk accounts by business day 4 of close which is within our closing cycle so we can make adjustments for any current month issues discovered during reconciliation. The rest are completed by Day 10 and we are moving this up this year.
- Here I will try to summarize the benefits of the consolidation integrity module. (SPACE). So we’ve already loaded our trial balances from Dynamics to BlackLine as part of our normal load processes. We load 1 master trial balance from Hyperion of all entities and accounts and then we load a mapping between the two systems for any accounts or entities that are not 1 for 1. BlackLine matches up all the accounts between the two systems and kicks out anything that doesn’t match exactly which is usually due to large number currency translation or just timing of loads between the systems which will clear up later. As previously mentioned, the process took hours of multiple peoples time to do once per close. We now have it down to 1 person taking 15 minutes to load files and update mappings which means they can perform it everyday of close if needed. (SPACE)
- This slide shows a simple view of our integration process with Blackline. We have built schedulers for most of our extracts to blackline so we don’t have to run them manually. 3 instances still are manual which will be automated when we upgrade to the latest version of Dynamics. We send all extracts to a central directory on our US Server and a monitoring process grabs the files and sends them through to the BlackLine FTP server. We set our processes to load into BlackLine as often as every 2 hours depending on the instance.
- So here’s our close process again before BlackLine….and then as we’ve implemented the BlackLine software (SPACE) we’ve been able to improve our close tracking throughout with tasks, (SPACE) our reconciliation process starts and finishes sooner with the “accounts” module and we know we are in sync between Dynamics and Hyperion throughout the close process with the Consolidation Integrity module (SPACE) ….. Now lets look at our return on investment.
- As a private company, I can’t share any actual dollar figures but you can translate these savings into what it would mean for your company. (SPACE)
- *(Space)(Space)As I mentioned earlier, we are moving our due date deadline up this year. (SPACE) we are working on formal reconciliation reviews. (SPACE) As part of shortening deadlines, we are looking at loosening our certification thresholds which are very conservative. (SPACE) We are looking at expanding the use of the Tasks module for other regions and other purposes (SPACE). We are looking at providing users with more information and monitoring from the many reports available to us (SPACE). And finally we are always looking to implement new functionality provided by BlackLine (SPACE)
- (SPACE) to business card slide