Quote-to-Order, Record-to-Report, and Revenue Recognition Automation
The Situation
A PE sponsor engaged Accordion to assess the finance function of a recently acquired education software company. Accordion led a finance function assessment evaluating finance and accounting business processes against leading practice processes – benchmarking the current organization structure including roles/responsibilities, compensation, segregation of duties against like-size and future-growth organizations, and a comprehensive review of business technology environment to determine potential enhancements or replacements to automate, streamline, and enable future-state processes. Accordion uncovered several areas where the company could improve the finance function to streamline operations and provide scale for growth and created a list of initiatives to prioritize with the largest impact and least amount of effort to implement. The Company selected Accordion to implement initiatives in the Quote-to-Cash and Record-to-Report process areas. Accordion worked with the Company’s ERP (NetSuite), integrated with the Company’s order entry system (Salesforce), and implemented a NetSuite module designed to automate the revenue recognition process.
Services
Technical Accounting
Digital Transformation
Finance Function Assessment & Design
The Execution
Quote-to-Cash Enhancements:
- While an opinion on ASC 606 had been rendered by a qualified accountant, the Company had not implemented the standard fully. Accordion assisted in providing technical accounting expertise combined with process excellence to implement the standard in an efficient way.
- The Company managed deferred revenue waterfall calculations in spreadsheets. The Company’s ERP was Oracle NetSuite, but they were not leveraging NetSuite functionality to automate revenue recognition.
- The Company’s CRM was Salesforce, but it was not fully integrated with NetSuite, so each order required adjustments by revenue accountants.
- Accordion worked with the client’s Salesforce team along with Accordion’s NetSuite SMEs to enable more efficient integration between the two platforms.
- Accordion recommended and assisted in implementing NetSuite’s Advanced Revenue Recognition
Record-to-Report Enhancements:
- Accordion assisted the client in leveraging NetSuite chart of account segmentations (dimensions) to more accurately classify transactions for reporting purposes.
The Results
Accordion’s combination technical accounting, process improvement, and NetSuite ERP expertise shortened the month-end close by several days and reduced the number of resources involved in the deferred revenue calculation and recognition and monthly reporting processes. Further, the Company was able to leverage the tool they already owned (NetSuite ERP).