The challenge
The group had grown through acquisition and ran separate general ledgers with inconsistent charts of accounts. Consolidation at period end depended on manual mappings and spreadsheet adjustments that were slow to prepare and difficult to review.
Finance teams spent a large share of each close cycle reconciling intercompany balances and chasing supporting detail, leaving little time for analysis. The lack of a common data model made it hard to compare performance consistently across entities.
Management wanted a modern financial platform that could shorten the close, strengthen controls and provide a dependable foundation for statutory and management reporting.
Technology landscape
Several legacy general ledger systems with divergent charts of accounts and local reporting rules, connected by manual period end processes.
Spreadsheet based consolidation and allocation routines maintained by a small group of specialists, creating concentration risk and limited transparency.
Existing treasury, actuarial and reporting tools that depended on finance data and needed reliable, well structured feeds.
Our approach
We designed a unified chart of accounts and a common accounting model that could accommodate statutory needs in each territory while enabling straightforward consolidation. This design work was the foundation for everything that followed.
We prioritized the core record to report cycle, aiming to remove the manual steps that most slowed the close, then sequenced additional entities into the new structure in deliberate waves.
We partnered closely with controllers in each entity to validate mappings and allocation logic, so the new model was trusted by the people who would rely on it every month.
Implementation
We implemented Oracle Financials Cloud with the common chart of accounts, configured intercompany processing and established consolidation within the platform to replace the prior spreadsheet routines.
Historical balances and open items were migrated after careful profiling and reconciliation, with parallel runs that compared new system output against the legacy close to confirm accuracy before cutover.
We built integrations to the treasury and reporting layers and delivered training focused on the redesigned close calendar, so teams understood not just the system but the new way of working.
Outcomes
- The month-end close was noticeably shorter, as consolidation and intercompany steps that had been manual were handled within a single platform.
- Finance staff shifted effort away from reconciliation toward review and analysis, improving the quality of commentary provided to management.
- A common accounting model gave leaders consistent, comparable views across entities, which raised confidence in both statutory and management reporting.
- Stronger embedded controls and clearer audit trails simplified the evidence gathering that period end reviews required.