Middle Market Case Study:
Financial Reporting

AUTOMATED REPORTS FOR A SPA SERVICES COMPANY

CHALLENGE:
Existing Process Can’t Meet New Lender Requirements

• The company used Navision for General Ledger and A/P, and Cognos for financial statement, management and operational reporting -- a cumbersome process that took 4 days to produce each iteration of its consolidated statements
• An initiative to shorten the process revealed that the financial statements generated by Cognos did not balance to source files and were not usable.
• Concurrently, the company’s lenders required new covenant reporting/compliance deadlines due to a new credit facility that was recently put into place.

SOLUTION:
Custom Application for Automated Reporting

The custom reporting application created and implemented by CMF included:
• Input -- An SQL query dump of the Navision G/L consolidation as well as various control tables including chart of accounts, division listings, multiple budget and forecasts and financial statement mappings
• Output -- A reporting spreadsheet with financial reports including consolidated profit and loss statements, balance sheet and cash flow statements as well as individual spa profit and loss statements

OUTCOME:
Efficiency and Compliance

• Consolidated financial statements and spa profit and loss statements could be produced quickly and accurately upon completion of the monthly closing process in the Navision G/L system.
• Complete financial statements including location profit and loss statements could be generated in less than an hour.
• The company established a reporting infrastructre that enabled ongoing compliance with outside financial deadlines, and enhanced executive management of operations.