In 2019, a study by Business Wire revealed that 56% of finance departments had automated at least half of their processes, and that 73% of overall companies implementing automation were largely satisfied with their return on investment (ROI).

However, many offices of finance are hesitant to automate their financial reporting processes. Part of this hesitancy may be due to a lack of awareness about the high ROI potential that the implementation of automation can yield.

Recently, Genesis Systems implemented financial automation from Adra by Trintech to their processes. In this blog we will explore the challenges they were facing and the ROI they were able to achieve in their first month after implementing the Adra Suite.

Their Challenges

Genesis Systems was recently acquired by a publicly traded company. With the acquisition, came new regulations, processes and timelines to adhere to as a public company. Before, their close process was conducted manually using spreadsheets. They used Outlook as a workflow tool to help track reviews and approvals of reconciliations and journal entries but found there was a lack of consistency and standardization in the process. These methods caused frustration for the entire team.

Additionally, the impact of turnover of key accounting staff in their office in Japan was difficult to overcome. Their lack of a defined and standardized financial reporting process, due to their reliance on spreadsheets and manual methods, consistently created problems while training new hires to fill these roles.

Genesis Systems needed a solution that would help their reconciliations become more efficient and accurate, and to gain visibility and control of their close process. They chose to implement Adra Balancer, for balance sheet reconciliation, and Adra Task Manager, to manage and centralize their close.

The dashboard within Adra would give the team real-time visibility into the status of the close process. It would allow them to see the close process status by entity and who is responsible for which tasks. The solution also helped with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Compliance by tracking and documenting everything in one place. Because their three entities span across multiple countries with different languages, they needed a solution that could support multiple languages, as well.

Their Return on Investment

One of the first returns that Genesis Systems saw was the fast, seamless implementation that Adra provided. Both Balancer and Task Manager were implemented across their entities in the United States, Mexico and Japan. In a day, the teams were able to use Adra and in the next few days, they fine-tuned the system to best fit their needs.

In addition to cost-savings, Adra has helped Genesis Systems achieve:

• Ability to track tasks throughout the close process
• Improved timeliness of journal entries and reconciliations
• Increased productivity and employee morale
• Significant time savings from reducing manual methods and constant update meetings
• Streamlined training process for new hires due to a documented process

Adra also assisted in Genesis Systems’ transition to a virtual work environment in March of 2020, and they stated that their finance team “hadn’t missed a beat” after the sudden effects of the global pandemic. Implementing Balancer and Task Manager was their last initiative in transitioning to being 100% paperless.

“I truly feel having the Adra solution has taken a load off my plate that used to be spent tracking what journal entries and reconciliations have been completed,” said Diane Foss, Director of Finance for Genesis Systems. “I can now focus the majority of my time and energy on strategic initiatives that help drive our business forward.”

In business since 1983, Genesis Systems specializes in factory automation with robots and lasers for welding, cutting, non-destructive inspection, adhesive application, material removal, and machine tending. Its finance and accounting operations are dispersed globally with three business entities in the United States, Mexico and Japan rolling up to the headquarters in Davenport, Iowa.

To learn more about Genesis Systems, their close challenges and how Adra helped solve their issues, download the case study.

Written by: Ashton Mathai