Transforming financial transparency and trust through integrated resource planning

Athabasca College (AU), Canada’s Open College, is devoted to eradicating limitations that prohibit entry and success inside university-level examine and growing equality of academic alternatives for grownup learners worldwide.

To help their mission, AU outlined their “Think about” Technique, which was a five-year plan outlining strategic precedence outcomes for the establishment. Underpinning the execution and making certain alignment with their goals required a collaborative built-in planning course of.  The problem was that the annual planning and subsequent forecasting processes had been a significant impediment because of the lack of transparency and entry to related well timed data for decision-making, leading to a scarcity of belief and collaboration. To repair this, Lengthy Huynh, Director of Choice Assist, was introduced on board to work with the group to satisfy two goals:

• Roll out a Finance Enterprise Associate (FBP) Program, which targeted on constructing a group of finance of us who might collaborate with college members and division heads on monetary/enterprise plans, reworking finance into advisors to the enterprise versus compilers and producers of experiences.
• Streamline the built-in planning and forecasting course of, making it straightforward for customers to entry data, observe variances in spend and initiatives and allow college members to re-forecast and in the end personal their numbers.

To help with this transformation, AU started working with us at ActionKPI—a Efficiency Administration Consultancy specializing in built-in useful resource planning—to assist outline a roadmap and phased method to re-architecting their planning processes and techniques. The end result was elevated belief and collaboration from all schools and departments whereas growing the velocity and agility of the monetary reporting, budgeting and forecasting processes.  

Challenges confronted

• Lack of transparency: The information for monetary reporting was nested inside totally different platforms with totally different ranges of entry. Finances house owners struggled to grasp their budgets and had issue accessing related data, understanding variances all through the month and main as much as the quarter.
• Handbook and siloed budgeting: The budgeting course of relied on an antiquated system that was not user-friendly and disconnected from the principle ERP system. Budgets needed to be manually uploaded, making it difficult to combine actuals and forecasts.
• Restricted entry to information: Some information—comparable to HR and payroll—was troublesome to entry, hindering monetary evaluation and decision-making. They weren’t in a position to get insights into labour prices and make correct budgets and forecasts on certainly one of their main price centres.

Earlier than implementing the answer, the monetary information was scattered throughout totally different platforms with various ranges of entry. Finances house owners couldn’t simply entry their finances data, which prompted them to depend on particular people to elucidate experiences as a result of siloed information and complicated nuances.

Moreover, Athabasca College’s budgeting course of was hindered by an unintuitive system that operated independently from their ERP system, Banner. Handbook uploads and a scarcity of integration between their outdated system and Banner added to the complexity and time-consuming nature of the budgeting course of.

The journey begins: Improved finances visibility

After preliminary discussions with ActionKPI, Lengthy Huynh and the finance group noticed the chance to show the facility of built-in useful resource planning via IBM Planning Analytics (PA).

The main target at the beginning was on growing a variance and forecasting mannequin inside PA that mixed finances and precise information from supply techniques in a user-friendly answer accessible to varied stakeholders throughout the college. In contrast to their outdated system, PA enabled each day automated uploads from their ERP and supplied well timed entry to totally different reporting hierarchies and variances, and it gave the power to drill down on transactional information. Finances house owners might log in and consider their budgets at any time, clearly understanding their monetary place and empowering them to actively take part within the budgeting course of and take corrective motion to fulfill targets. This enchancment considerably enhanced transparency, belief and accountability amongst their varied finances house owners. 

“It was such a foundational change to how we seemed on the budgets—from a handbook add of information that could be a month outdated or perhaps a quarter outdated to each evening. It modified the velocity at which we will make choices and see what is going on.” — Lengthy Huynh

The second section: Workforce and HR integration

As soon as the preliminary mannequin was constructed and information from Banner was built-in immediately with IBM Planning Analytics (PA), the main target turned to HR (particularly workforce) to higher perceive one of many college’s main price centres. 

Beforehand, HR tightly guarded payroll data as a result of privateness necessities, leading to restricted entry and inadequate granularity.

To beat this problem, AU and ActionKPI developed a workforce variance mannequin inside PA that encompassed the FTEs and positions on the college, versus staff. Precise college payroll information by place was included into the mannequin, offering visibility into labour prices, emptiness price financial savings and headcount, whereas nonetheless sustaining information safety and privateness. 

Having this workforce element allowed college members and departments to revise their FTE plans and subsequent labour prices, making a rolling forecast. This not solely improved the forecast accuracy however enabled AU to change into extra agile throughout the decision-making course of.

“Payroll is the most important piece of the expense pie, and an intensive and correct understanding of it’s required for an correct forecast. Now, we will forecast by every place and see the influence in-month and into the long run.” — Lengthy Huynh

To handle privateness and information safety considerations, the finance group collaborated with HR to find out the suitable wage element every finances proprietor might entry. Every supervisor can solely see wage particulars for workers inside their hierarchy and solely place numbers are proven fairly than names. This permits managers the transparency and element required to make knowledgeable choices whereas sustaining sufficient safety and privateness.

Built-in useful resource planning: A holistic method

The journey continued with a concentrate on built-in useful resource planning. The college aimed to transition from closed-door decision-making to inclusive, built-in useful resource planning that concerned stakeholders from throughout the group.

Previous to this initiative, useful resource plans and proposed finances adjustments had been submitted as separate Excel information, resulting in collaboration challenges, model management points and handbook information entry.

ActionKPI built-in the finances and useful resource planning processes into IBM Planning Analytics (PA), permitting for a streamlined method. This additionally enabled a democratized course of the place finances house owners collaborate with their Finance Enterprise Companions to replace their finances entries. This supported larger possession and eradicated the method of finances house owners sending numbers to finance and finance doing the entry.

Beforehand, inconsistent finance data throughout totally different schools and departments led to poor or inaccurate forecasting and budgeting practices.

The rollout of the Finance Enterprise Associate Program contributed to the success of the built-in useful resource planning course of by offering customized finance help and advisory to every division. It was the monetary acumen, ardour for customer support and data-driven decision-making expertise of the FBP group—mixed with the streamlined planning processes and techniques—that made it doable.

“Earlier than, plenty of choices had been made behind closed doorways. Now, the college has moved to built-in planning, so it is extremely inclusive. Virtually each finances holder is concerned within the course of versus simply finance.” — Lengthy Huynh

Finance Enterprise Companions, assigned to every division, labored intently with finances house owners to show how PA could possibly be utilized to enter, observe and visualize finances adjustments over time.

This integration fostered collaboration, transparency and knowledgeable monetary decision-making all through the college.

By this mannequin, Athabasca College achieved improved forecasting consistency and high quality. The FBP mannequin wouldn’t have been profitable with out the implementation of PA, because it supplied the mandatory infrastructure for efficient collaboration and help between finance and finances house owners.

Conclusion

The journey to reinforce transparency and belief throughout the college’s monetary processes resulted in vital enhancements.

By implementing IBM Planning Analytics and integrating budgets, actuals and useful resource planning, the college achieved higher visibility, streamlined processes and elevated stakeholder involvement.

The initiatives undertaken by Lengthy and his group not solely reworked monetary decision-making but additionally contributed to a cultural shift in direction of data-driven decision-making and collaboration.

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