Recognizing Challenges

Liberty Mutual, a leading global insurer, faced challenges in managing their reconciliation and financial close process across multiple offices due to acquisitions. Tina Stillabower, Lead Accountant at Liberty Mutual (formerly State Auto), described their situation prior to implementing Trintech’s solution: “At the time, our accounting team was spread across three separate offices due to various acquisitions over the years. Reconciliation processes were incredibly inconsistent and there was no way to measure KPIs or track progress as the team worked through the financial close process. People were working off of personal to-do lists and sticky notes on their desks, so if someone left unexpectedly, we had no insight into what they were doing—or not doing.”

Finding an Implementing an Automated Solution

Once Liberty Mutual had recognized the need for a solution, the search began. “We knew we needed a centralized repository for our reconciliations, not only to improve visibility for management but also to provide standardization in our methodologies,” shared Stillabower.

While there were some initial change management challenges, management buy-in helped drive adoption. Stillabower noted: “Once management understood that they would be able to have more insight into what was happening with their own team as well as what was happening with the department as a whole, everyone was really excited.”

Results and Benefits

With Trintech’s solution, Liberty Mutual was able to achieve several key benefits, including:

Improved Visibility and Reporting

Far from having zero visibility, everyone—from peers to management—understands where the organization is in the financial close process. “Trintech’s solution provides us with a percentage of completion that clearly communicates what’s finished and what is remaining,” mentioned Stillabower. “We really didn’t have any good metrics related to our financial close process prior to Trintech. Now, our Controller can see the total amount of reconciled items for any point in time and how material those reconciliations were to our financial statements.”

This added visibility has enabled the team to investigate bottlenecks. “We can now drill down to see exactly where delays are happening, which is really helpful,” continued Stillabower.

Centralization and Standardization

“We had a lot of conversations internally at the highest levels, and those decisions were able to be cascaded down to the teams via Trintech’s solution,” shared Stillabower. “Now, all of our reconciliations are in one repository and are performed the same way.”

Increasing the level of standardization, Liberty Mutual was able to automatically import data from their general ledger. “We didn’t want everyone entering in disparate general ledger balances, so the ability to transfer that information was a huge plus for us,” mentioned Stillabower.

Improved Audit Processes

With both internal and external auditors having access to the Trintech solution, the effort associated with audits has been greatly reduced. “It’s definitely a better situation with our auditors,” said Stillabower. “Trintech saves us a lot of time with both internal and external auditors because we allow them to go into the solution and be able to see for themselves instead of us having to go in and print things out for them.”

Lessons Learned

Stillabower offered this advice to other companies considering automation: “Make sure you know what you’re looking for upfront so that you can set the account segments that you want and the different attributes within the close module, because that makes a big difference… We spent a lot of time figuring that out, and I think at the time that seemed kind of exhausting, but was definitely time well spent to get everybody on the same page and know how people are going to be looking at the data.” By implementing Trintech’s solution, Liberty Mutual has significantly improved its financial close process, gaining visibility, standardization, and efficiency. The company continues to optimize its use of the solution as it navigates ongoing growth.