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Yahoo! Consolidates Global Financial Processes with Trintech’s AssureNET GL and ReconNET Financial Governance Software Solutions
Overview
Yahoo! is a pioneer in the online portal business, attracting more than 400 million people to its web properties. Featuring a mixture of news, shopping, entertainment, search and directory listings, Yahoo! provides its registered users with personalized web experiences in the form of home pages, e-mail accounts and message boards. Advertising generates the majority of the company’s revenue, with additional premium services offering recurring revenue through subscription. Yahoo! also provides online marketing services and internet access in cooperation with several telecommunications partners.
Challenges
As a global company, Yahoo! found it increasingly difficult to manage compliance and risk mitigation initiatives in the office of finance. Different business units and different locations utilized different processes and disparate platforms to reconcile accounts. Reconciliation of credit cards, deposits and payroll was primarily a manual process – resulting in delays and potential errors. Additionally, the business found it difficult to gauge its exposure to the risk of material exceptions or to evaluate the status of the reconciliation function in support of the period end close. Yahoo! identified the reconciliation function as being critical to ensuring the accuracy of the balance sheet, and began seeking vendors with expertise in this area.
Objectives
Yahoo! realized that in order to support stated enterprise risk
management and cost reduction goals, they needed to consolidate
reconciliation platforms and processes across business units and
locations. Yahoo! required that both reconciliations and the workflows
involved in the process be standardized, deadlines be enforced and
tracked –
and realized that automation was the key to it all.
The business identified nine critical functions that the software solution they selected must provide, including:
- Automated spreadsheet maintenance and tracking
- Tools to monitor the reconciliation process
- Compliance management features
- Robust documentation features to facilitate the audit process
- Workflow definition and enforcement for the reconciliation function
- Seamless integration with existing technology (primarily Oracle)
- Interfaces to external systems and partners
- Extensive dashboard reporting and compliance monitoring
- Document management capabilities
Yahoo! selected Trintech based upon its track record of expertise in the reconciliation and compliance software solution marketplace. Trintech’s ReconNET and AssureNET GL solutions offered all of these features and more.
Capabilities Provided
- A self-documenting system which simplifies access and reporting processes for internal accountants and external auditors
- Dashboard reporting capabilities now provide insight into the status of the reconciliation function to support compliance efforts
- General ledger reconciliation, review and certification for approximately 5,000 European accounts via AssureNET GL, with U.S. platform consolidation slated to occur in early 2009
- Deposit verification, payroll, accounts payable and credit card reconciliations automated via ReconNET for high-volume U.S. accounts
- Dispute Manager module to facilitate chargeback dispute workflow processes for credit card processors
- Reconciliation of payroll taxes related to exercises and trades of equity instruments
Testimonial
“We were impressed with Trintech’s corporate history, expertise and – most of all – their solutions. AssureNET GL and ReconNET will allow Yahoo! to increase shareholder value by reducing costs, and consolidating information and processes. Now we can focus more energy on analyzing important financial data, and less time on retrieving and preparing it.” - Michael Jones, Vice President, Americas Controller, Yahoo!
