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…..

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

New Software Expectations

• Automation

• Visibility

• Control

• Segregation of Duties

• Dashboard Reporting

• Workflow

• Risk Assessment

• Dependent Task Tracking

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

Project Team Enthusiasm

Excitement Around T-Recs:

• New Tool

• Easy to Use

• Significant Process Improvement

• Automation of Manual Tasks

• Day to Day tasks Simplified

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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?

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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)

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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

Chesapeake System Solutions, Inc. • Proprietary and Confidential

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

jhaynes@chessys.com

Kelly Darren, CPAManager, Financial Solutions

kdarren@chessys.com