Organizational growth and development increase the amount of complexity in financial reporting and planning, which frequently causes Finance teams to exceed their present systems. The requirement to connect data from different ERP systems, manage multiple currencies, track and remove a huge number of intercompany transactions, and collect budgets and projections from hundreds of managers are among the difficulties. When your Finance team’s ability to offer timely and accurate insights to the company is hampered by reliance on outdated systems like Excel, it’s time for a change!
Crane Worldwide Logistics was mentioned in a recent OneStream Software customer success webinar as having replaced their overburdened insight software solution and Excel with OneStream’s unified platform. Continue reading or watch the webinar recording to see how Crane used OneStream’s unified platform to integrate data from 45+ ERP systems, shorten their closure cycle by 3 – 4 days per month, automate cash flow, optimize planning, and give more relevant insights to management.
Crane Worldwide Logistics specializes in air, ocean, contract logistics, and freight forwarding. Crane has almost $1 billion in revenue and employs over 1500 people in 150 locations across 30 countries. As a result of the company’s growth and development, it now has over 45 instances of Sage 300 GL/ERP, a jumbled chart of accounts, and an overburdened insight software reporting system. The following were some of the major issues that the Finance team had to deal with:
- Manual report maintenance and an Excel-based consolidation procedure
- It took a long time to translate data from 28 different currencies and reconcile intercompany accounts.
- Due to the time-consuming nature of the procedure, cash flow reporting was not automated and was only performed quarterly.
- Compiling budget sheets by hand was time-consuming and raised concerns about data quality and integrity.
It was time to make a change. The Finance team looked at some alternatives, including Oracle FCCS and Host Analytics, before deciding on OneStream Software. Crane’s financial closure and FP&A division immediately chose OneStream because of its unified platform, strong consolidation engine, and easy workflow architecture. The team particularly liked how the OneStream XF MarketPlace provided value-added solutions that allowed them to get more out of their money. OneStream XF Cloud would also make it easier for worldwide users to access, evaluate, and track financials.
In 9 months, Crane Worldwide Logistics went from fragmented to unified
Crane Finance worked with Riveron, a OneStream partner, to create a customizable application that would enable easy processes for all end users, increase closing efficiency, automate reporting, and standardize a decentralized budgeting process. The project’s first phase was devoted to financial closure, consolidation, and reporting, while the second phase was devoted to yearly budgeting. The full installation was completed in less than 9 months.
Streamlining Financial Close and Reporting
The direct integration between OneStream and Sage automates trial balance loading from each ERP instance regularly, saving time in data preparation. Overall, OneStream has decreased the closure process time by three to four days and roughly half the time spent on the reporting process. The site controller for each nation has a consistent procedure for verifying trial balance data, loading journals, entering supplemental cash flow and roll-forward inputs, and reviewing a range of financial figures. Furthermore, each legal entity may analyze and reconcile intercompany balances, as well as use built-in comments to resolve discrepancies and increase transparency.
Due to the time-consuming necessity of gathering diverse information across 50 businesses, cash flow statements were previously produced quarterly.
They used to spend an entire day manually joining spreadsheets and two days linking data for cash flow, but now the nations can enter that data into OneStream and the cash flow is automated. I just go in and make topside modifications, reducing a two-day procedure to a few hours.
Budgeting Makes It Easier
Crane used Microsoft Excel to prepare and reconcile annual budgets from 170+ global sites and corporate divisions before using OneStream. Corporate was in charge of gathering all inputs/templates and loading them into the Insight reporting tool for the whole organization. Due to the time, required to load and tie together numerous import data, the budget review process was frequently delayed. The iteration process took months and was a big source of frustration for the FP&A staff. Crane was able to distribute budget loading and preliminary review responsibilities to each site controller thanks to the OneStream platform, which cut the budgeting period by two weeks. Users may upload and evaluate budget data and swiftly alter financials per management review thanks to the establishment of common planning templates and customized procedures. The review-level workflow at Corporate provides for real-time visibility into each country’s budget completion process.
Photo by Arno Senoner on Unsplash
