Project
Modify acted as a finance lead in a project to set up a shared service centre in the UK. The countries included were Nordics and Netherlands. The role sat in the UK, focusing on transferring general ledger accounting, transactions processing, treasury, taxation and reporting functions.
The delivery required an analysis work with the in-scope countries, transfer planning with the in-country finance leads, redesigns for ways of working, standardisation of accounting actions and closing timelines, clean-up of country level books and reports, improvement of reporting and resourcing within the centre.
Goals
Standardise the accounting methods and service model across in-scope countries.
Transformation of the outputs improving accuracy and quality.
Prepare the organisation for Hyperion implementation.
Enhancement of procedures via technical solutions and by education of the team.
Deliver a scalable business model for the growth of the business in Finland and in EMEA.
Approach
Modify started the assignment by getting familiar with the reporting packages and local procedures in Denmark and Finland subsidiaries. Norway, Sweden and Netherlands follow shortly after. The country analyses were carried out onsite and via conference calls, making sure all the transferrable activities were understood and materials shared for the use.
We lead the service roll-outs to most of the countries, covering accounting, treasury and accounts payable functions. Simultaneously we supported the accounts receivable, USGAAP revenue recognition and project accounting activities ensuring that the financial accounting requirements were met as contracted.
Solution
The transfers were successfully completed in 6 months covering all 5 countries. During that period the accounting timeline was streamlined, country books reconciled and corrected, and processes across teams improved building effective and capable service partner for the local business teams.
Modify provided finance expert services
transaction leadership for the programme ensuring that the delivery was meeting expectations and budgetary boundaries were kept. We guided the management with decisions, worked closely with the client educating them to the new ways, negotiated and managed vendor relationship. Technology related budget and resources were under Modify’s remit, ensuring the platform delivery was completed as planned.
