solutions summit 2014 corporate rollout jonathan haynes, cpa, cgma and kelly darren, cpa

Solutions Summit 2014

Corporate Rollout

Jonathan Haynes, CPA, CGMA and Kelly Darren, CPA

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

The Law of Momentum:A project in motion will stay in motion until it meets a resisting force.Eliminate Project Resistance to Keep the Project Moving Forward…..


State of the As-Is Process

Organization’s prior to T-Recs are experiencing:

• Increased Requirements from Management

• Performing More with Less

• Expedited Close Timing

• Increased Control Risks

• Significant Manual Processes

• Lack of Visibility

• Disparate Systems

• Extensive Audit Requirements


New Software Expectations

• Automation

• Visibility

• Control

• Segregation of Duties

• Dashboard Reporting

• Workflow

• Risk Assessment

• Dependent Task Tracking


Project Team Enthusiasm

Excitement Around T-Recs:

• New Tool

• Easy to Use

• Significant Process Improvement

• Automation of Manual Tasks

• Day to Day tasks Simplified


Why is the Project Stalled?Organization’s should ask the following questions regarding their project:

• Why is the Organization only using limited functionality?

• Why is the application limited to specific accounts?

• Why is the software only used at certain locations?

• How did the project get off track?

• How can an organization create MOMENTUM?


Reasons for Derailment

Reasons the Project Objectives Change:

• Company Objectives

• Competing Projects

• Lack of Resources

• Resistant to Change

• Not Broke Why Change It

• New System Admin

• Unsure of What Module should be Next


Creating MomentumThe project team should employ the following to create momentum at the start of the project or to re-initiate momentum if the project should stall.

• Executive Sponsorship

• Create a Clear Roadmap

• Employ a Strong Project Manager

• Initiate a Detailed Project Plan

• Parallel Functionality Where Applicable

• Identifying Measures for Success (metrics)


Maintaining Project MomentumIt is not enough to start momentum but to actually maintain the momentum through all of the project life-cycles.

• Assess and Review the Plan Semi-Annually

• Keep Up with the Latest Software Releases

• Review and Implement New Features

• Perform Health Checks on the Process and/or System

• Document What is NOT Being Used

• Review Metrics


Key Components of a Good Plan

A clearly defined plan is key to a successful project:

• The end goal must be clearly defined

• Key stakeholders must be identified

• Milestones should be clearly communicated and documented

• Should be granular enough to measure, but not so detailed as to lose focus on the bigger picture

• Realistic timing and scale based on resource availability and goals


Many projects start with cash as the initial phase, but value is easily realized in other account types:

• Inventory counts can be reconciled between POS, Physical Count, and the GL

• Accruals can be reconciled and verified at a detailed level to clearly track the age and validity of the line items

• Intangibles and Prepaids can be systematically amortized and compared to the GL

• Intercompany can be matched and reconciled to identify out of balance conditions

Driving Value Beyond Cash


Many projects focus on the SmartMatch and the Reconciliation functionality in the initial phase, but value is easily obtained by leveraging other features:

• SmartResolve Procedures is a transactional workflow that supports routing exceptions, initiating emails or comments, generate journal entries, etc. automating a typical manual process.

• Process Manager facilitates the tracking of the close checklist, Auditor PBC list, reporting requirements, SOX requirements, one-time projects, etc.

• Risk Assessment systematically evaluates and reports unusual activity within an account balance or set of transactions and classifies the account based on an organizations rating system.

• Journal functionality provides robust workflow while eliminating the manual storing and printing of standard and non-standard journals.

Other Features to Drive Value


Management buy in is key to moving a project forward within an organization. With management support, projects can obtain the necessary resources, adoption of the application and overall process acceptance.

Management Pitch:

• No additional software costs required to utilize the additional features as the software is a single solution

• More features utilized the greater the return on investment

• Users are already familiar with the software so new feature acceptance would be high

Selling it to Management

Thank you for your attention

Jonathan Haynes, CPA, CGMAManager, Financial Solutions

[email protected]

Kelly Darren, CPAManager, Financial Solutions

[email protected]

solutions summit 2014 corporate rollout jonathan haynes, cpa, cgma and kelly darren, cpa

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