Meadowbrook Insurance Group overhauled its cash management processes by implementing Bank of America Merrill Lynch's CashPro Accelerate solution and ImageRight imaging and workflow solution. This streamlined accounts payable and eliminated manual processing, cutting the time needed for daily cash management in half and allowing month-end processing to be completed several days earlier. Meadowbrook can now determine its daily cash position before lunch and complete month-end closing within one day, improving forecasting and freeing up treasury staff for more strategic work.

1. Bank of America Merrill Lynch Case Study
Meadowbrook Insurance Group
Executive summary
In 2013, Meadowbrook Insurance Group’s treasury team embarked upon an ambitious
project to re-engineer the company’s entire cash management process. Through the
use of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s CashPro®
Accelerate solution, and by streamlining
accounts payable processes using ImageRight®
, an imaging and workflow solution, the
company has virtually eliminated manual processing and halved the amount of time
needed to manage cash on a daily basis. Meanwhile, month-end processing is now
completed several days earlier, freeing treasury staff for more strategic tasks.
Transforming Cash
Management to Gain
Efficiencies
July 2014
Contents
Goals and challenges . . . . . . . . 2
Creating a solution. . . . . . . . . . 2
Solution outcomes . . . . . . . . . . 3

2. TRANSFORMING CASH MANAGEMENT TO GAIN EFFICIENCIES | 2
Goals and challenges
Headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, Meadowbrook Insurance Group is a specialty, niche-
focused, commercial insurance underwriter and insurance administration services company.
Meadowbrook markets and underwrites specialty property and casualty insurance programs
and products on both an admitted and non-admitted basis through a broad and diverse
network of independent retail agents, wholesalers, program administrators and general
agents. The company employs more than 950 staff and has 30 offices across the U.S.
In the early days, when the company was smaller with fewer bank accounts to manage, the
processes used by treasury to track cash balances were highly manual and dependent on
Excel®
spreadsheets. These processes were prone to human error and it took the treasury
most of the day to determine the company’s cash position, complete journal entries and
move money between bank accounts.
“It used to take us until 3:00 p.m. to know fully how much cash we had on hand, which
involved pulling in balances, analyzing cash positions, reviewing and recording our transaction
history, and posting everything from the previous day’s activity,” says Jeff Smith, the
company’s director of Treasury Operations.
Knowing the cash position was just one part of the treasury’s job. Processing electronic
payments, vendor invoices and entering the coding into Meadowbrook’s accounting system,
PeopleSoft, was another time-consuming task that needed to be completed on a daily basis
by treasury. Because Meadowbrook is composed of multiple companies, it has to obtain the
general ledger coding and payment authorization for transactions from other departments
in order to make payments on their behalf. With branches throughout the U.S., the company
was receiving paper invoices at a branch level that needed to be coded, approved and mailed
to the corporate headquarters. By the time the treasury received the invoices, payments
were often already due or even overdue.
As Meadowbrook started to grow, Smith made the decision to review the entire treasury
process and find more effective ways to manage the company’s cash.
Creating a solution
Having previously implemented Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s innovative CashPro
Accelerate tool, which integrates with CashPro®
Online and automates data entry into
Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Smith realized this would be the starting point to begin
making improvements. Resource constraints had meant that the solution was not being
used to its fullest capacity, so Smith rearranged resources within treasury to make better
use of CashPro Accelerate and thereby achieve the company’s goals of streamlining
cash management.
A key stage in the project was determining exactly how the company could use CashPro
Accelerate to its fullest potential. Smith assigned a team member with this task and also
contacted Bank of America Merrill Lynch to provide a resource to support the project. The
bank spent several days looking firsthand at the company’s cash management processes
and worked with the treasury team to identify opportunities for improvement.
“It used to take us until 3:00
p.m. to know fully how much
cash we had on hand, which
involved pulling in balances,
analyzing cash positions,
reviewing and recording
our transaction history, and
posting everything from the
previous day’s activity.”
Jeff Smith
Director of Treasury Operations
Meadowbrook Insurance Group

3. TRANSFORMING CASH MANAGEMENT TO GAIN EFFICIENCIES | 3
The next stage was to build knowledge in-house. Specific time was allocated for Smith’s
dedicated team members to work closely with the Accelerate system and communicate
daily with the bank via conference calls. The team first updated its ACH and Wire
templates in CashPro with unique identifiers so the transaction could be captured on an
automated basis through Accelerate’s General Ledger tool. Then the team started writing
rules in Accelerate to map the bank transactions to the correct General Ledger accounts.
In addition to balances and transactions held with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the
company imported BAI2 files from four other banks into the system. This allowed
Meadowbrook to have a holistic view across all bank accounts in one location and the
ability to code all bank transactions in one application.
Another aspect of the project was the company-wide implementation of ImageRight to
streamline the processing of payments. Rather than relying on paper-based processes,
invoices are now scanned into ImageRight and then indexed accordingly into the proper
workflow to allow for electronic review, coding and approval.
Certain users throughout the company were given access to all of the available tools within
ImageRight in order to take full advantage of this automated process. Once approved, the
invoices are sent at the click of a button to the treasury in order to make payment. When
the payment is made, the task is ended in ImageRight and filed electronically based on the
front-end indexing that has been completed.
Solution outcomes
Having applied all of the new processes into its workstream, Meadowbrook is now
processing over 90% of its electronic transactions via CashPro Accelerate. The workflow
solution has been in use since January 2013 and the company is currently in the process of
reviewing the new processes in order to drive further improvements.
“Meadowbrook came into this project with an open mindset,” comments Brad Teaver,
vice president, eCommerce channel consultant. “They reviewed all their processes from
beginning to end. Then they defined their goals and timeline, created a plan and executed
it to perfection.”
The team has seen significant process improvements as a result of the project. “Every day
we started using CashPro Accelerate more effectively,” says Smith. “We could see the clock
moving backwards: Rather than taking us six or seven hours to complete our processes, we
found it would only take five hours, then four, and sometimes three hours. Processes that
used to take us until 3:00 p.m. to complete are now finished before lunch.”
In addition to improving daily cash management, the company has used CashPro
Accelerate to improve month-end processes. Meadowbrook has to close out cash twice
a month: on the 18th of the month, when the accounts receivable department goes
through a balancing process, and on the last day of the month. At the end of each
quarter, the company also begins a time-sensitive financial close process, which requires
the treasury to have all banking activity recorded in the general ledger by the end of the
first business day preceding the quarter.
The team has seen
significant process
improvements as a result
of the project. “Every day
we started using CashPro
Accelerate more effectively,”
says Smith. “We could see
the clock moving backwards:
Rather than taking us six or
seven hours to complete our
processes, we found it would
only take five hours, then
four, and sometimes three
hours. Processes that used
to take us until 3.00 p.m. to
complete are now finished
before lunch.”

4. TRANSFORMING CASH MANAGEMENT TO GAIN EFFICIENCIES | 4
“Bank of America Merrill Lynch” is the marketing name for the global banking and global markets businesses of Bank of America Corporation.
Lending, derivatives, and other commercial banking activities are performed globally by banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation, including
Bank of America, N.A., member FDIC. Securities, strategic advisory, and other investment banking activities are performed globally by investment
banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation (“Investment Banking Affiliates”), including, in the United States, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner
Smith Incorporated and Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp., both of which are registered broker-dealers and members of SIPC, and, in other
jurisdictions, by locally registered entities. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner Smith Incorporated and Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp. are
registered as futures commission merchants with the CFTC and are members of the NFA. Investment products offered by Investment Banking
Affiliates: Are Not FDIC Insured • May Lose Value • Are Not Bank Guaranteed. ©2014 Bank of America Corporation 06-14-0176
“In the past, getting everything posted used to take us three to five days,” says Smith.
“It was a gruelling process: Everything was done manually and we had to make sure we had
captured all of our banking information from all of our banks. Then, we had to go through
a rigorous balancing routine. Getting all of that done in one to two days would have been
impossible. Today, we’re able to have everything done, posted and balanced within the
first business day after the end of the month or the end of the quarter.”
The net result of the project is that Meadowbrook’s treasury team has completely
overhauled its cash management processes from the ACH database all the way through
to the general ledger — and has done so without having to purchase an expensive new
treasury management system. By simply getting the most out of its existing system,
the company has achieved huge efficiencies, cutting hours off daily cash management
processes and days off month-end procedures, all without major expenditure. Data is
aggregated from multiple banks to give an overall cash position report, allowing the
company to make decisions and forecast more effectively.
These efficiencies are not the end of the story: Continuous improvement remains a
priority. “We’re always revamping and looking to improve our matching capabilities as far
as possible,” says Smith. “We’re using CashPro Accelerate almost to its fullest capacity —
but we are always going to be looking for opportunities to gain further improvements.”
Previously, Smith explains, he hadn’t been confident in telling the CFO that the treasury had
finished its month-end processing, because there was always a chance that a transaction
may have been overlooked and that the other departments would need to run their reports
again. The treasury team often had to work late and over the weekend as a result of these
issues. “Now that we’ve been trained and are familiar with the CashPro Accelerate solution,
my confidence level is high,” says Smith. “If the team tells me on April 1 that cash is done,
then it’s done and we can all go home.”
Smith added: “If I were to bring back members of my staff from a couple of years ago
and ask them to do cash management for a whole week, they would have no idea what
to do — we have changed our processes so dramatically.”
Author
Brad Teaver
Vice President, Global eChannel
Product Manager
Bank of America Merrill Lynch