Decision Inc has assisted South African insurer, Lombard Insurance, to overhaul a manual cash flow process with an automated one based on Workday Adaptive Planning, providing Lombard Insurance with an accurate and immediate overview of the financial status of their entire business.
Lombard Insurance is a South African-based business with a global footprint, delivering world-class trade and commercial insurance products that support the growth requirements of their diverse clients.
Providing specialist risk insurance, the company has expertise in customs, construction, mining rehabilitation guarantees, credit insurance, and fuel guarantees.
The requirement
As a long-standing Decision Inc client, Lombard Insurance relied on a Microsoft Excel-based cash flow reporting system. As the organisation structure is comprised of several business units – each operating independently from one another – the complexities of integrating the financial information meant that the entire process took the Lombard Insurance finance team up to 40 hours each month to complete.
This entailed exporting raw data into Excel and then manually connecting each line to the relevant fields per entity. With the cash flow linking back to the balance sheets, the accuracy of these entities is critically important. As the business continues to grow, the increasing volume of financial data generated continually requires the consolidation and combination of new links and accounts.
The spreadsheet approach was not only time-consuming, but also very prone to human error. Without an accurate financial picture of what is happening inside the organisation, key decision-making, business development, and organisational growth became increasingly difficult.
Which is why Lombard Insurance required a solution that would provide it with an accurate overview of their financial elements that would provide insights into their cash flow and ensure that the company would remain in a strong financial position for the quick settlement of large claims.
The solution
Using a combination of Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday Adaptive OfficeConnect, and Excel, Decision Inc. used the existing base structure of Lombard Insurance to develop an Automated Workday Adaptive Planning Cash Flow solution that is user-friendly and aligned to regulatory requirements and Lombard Insurance standards.
The nature of the business means that new entities and accounts continue to require a link into the cash flow reporting process, which has been made easy with the flexibility of the Workday Adaptive Planning implementation.
The Workday Adaptive Planning Cash Flow solution can also be structured to fit within the unique parameters and requirements of each individual business unit, which ensures that other departments can derive insights from the reports without interrupting the course of business.
This complex project was completed within three weeks.
The benefits
By replacing the cash flow reporting process with an automated one, Lombard Insurance has reduced its business risk and freed up resources to deliver more strategic value inside the organisation.
Cash flow reports are now generated securely, quickly, accurately, and in the correct structure with little end-user time required. What used to take the financial team days to complete can now be done in a matter of hours – which has greatly enhanced the efficiency of the organisation.