Case Study: Accounts Receivable Consolidation
Posted on December 14, 2012 by Dan McCue
case studyAs a finance executive, you don’t need me to tell you that Accounts Receivable is the very heart of your company’s success. It keeps the cash flow moving steadily in the right direction, ensuring that every part of your business has what it needs to function properly.
Developing a reliable, efficient AR process is a key component to improving any company’s financial health. Sutherland applied that knowledge earlier this year, when we helped one multinational information technology company transform its AR functions from a series of inconsistent processes to a consolidated and controlled, best-practices approach.
Our client has over 76,000 employees across the globe, and the company develops, sells and supports personal computers and products. When we did our initial analysis, it was clear they faced several challenges within their Accounts Receivable functions worldwide:
Siloed AR Process: With separate AR departments processing accounts in three different geographies, employees were duplicating work that could have been performed at one location. They also ran the risk of having divergent processes, making it hard to compare numbers with their international counterparts.
Fixed Cost System: Despite the fact that our client is a multinational business with several European branches, they operated under a fixed cost system. Revenue came in at a fixed rate, regardless of which country the Euros were issued from.
Excess Staffing: With three separate locations and task/employee redundancies, the company employed more people than they needed, thereby reducing the cost effectiveness of their AR department.
Lack of Processes and Controls: Each of the three branches had their own approach to cash application and billing, leading to inconsistency throughout the company’s various AR departments.
AR Aging Issues: In part due to this lack of processes and controls, our client was seeing far too many AR aging issues. They weren’t always able to bring in the money they’d invoiced for, reducing the company’s cash flow and hindering access to its funds.