Corporate Accounting Outsourcing

Client: Global Consumer Packaged Goods Company
Client Situation
The AddVantage Group was engaged by the Director of Global Financial Services of a Fortune 100 CPG company to assist with the outsourcing to a third party business partner. Scope included multiple waves to transition the accounting functions around the Order-to-Cash, Source-to-Pay, Material-to-Inventory and Record-to-Report processes. The client also engaged a Big Four consulting firm to prepare process documentation to prepare for knowledge transfer.
- Processes were inefficient and inadequately documented
- The first wave was initially outsourced to an internal team in Manila; the documentation they developed was unusable
- Lack of understanding of the business processes by the outsourcing firm staff, the Big Four consulting team and the employees in Manila
- Third party service provider had not previously provided outsourcing services for balanced-focused accounting; their experience was more transaction-focused
- Aggressive timeline and FTE count targets
- Staff resignations – high level of turnover early on in the project resulted in limited process expertise for documentation and knowledge transfer
Our Approach
- For each process, developed task breakdown structures, assigned effort levels, and target durations, and grouped tasks into roles and positions
- Quickly learned each process end-to-end to assess inefficiencies and lead knowledge transfer
- Provided walkthrough and details of each position to Big Four consultants in addition to completing the month end close process
- Reviewed and revised process documentation prepared by Big Four consultants and the employees in Manila
- Delivered knowledge transfer to third party outsourcing staff/internal staff
- Prepared scoring system and measured performance by third party outsourcer staff/internal staff
- Advised client and third party outsourcer leadership on areas of risk and staff performance issues during the transition
- Advised and guided outsourcer leadership to resolve staff learning and performance issues
Advised and guided outsourcer leadership to resolve staff learning and performance issues
Outcomes
- Successful transition of accounting processes around Order-to-Cash, Source-to-Pay, Material-to-Inventory and Record-to-Report to third party outsourcer
- Over $1.5MM reduction in annual cost of service for client accounting functions
- Removed one day from the period end financial close process