Untangling the Knots 

2 Min. Read

Catching Up on a Backlog of Reconciliations and Becoming an Essential Part of the Finance Team 

At A Glance 

Company Type: Enterprise, Public 

Industry: Benefits Administration 

Solution Area: Interim Finance 

About The Client 

After completing a string of acquisitions, a benefits administrator with $500 million in revenue and 2,000 employees found itself managing multiple platforms and processes. Recent turnover put a burden on one of its new subsidiaries in particular — a lack of institutional knowledge prevented a full understanding of the entity’s financial records and process flow. 

Challenge 

It was time for a major catchup at a benefits administrator’s newly acquired subsidiary. 

A large backlog of unreconciled accounts going back over five years needed to be tackled, but no one on the current finance team understood the operational process flow, or how to use the entity’s accounting and operations platform. With scant documentation available, how information had been gathered and recorded was a mystery. 

Solution 

• An interim senior accountant from ZRG hunted down the how’s and why’s behind the company’s workflows and processes, and became an expert in the legacy system. It was a cross-functional effort as he uncovered all the essential details from other organizations within the company and traced back missing information. 
• He documented these processes, to make the transition to his eventual direct-hire replacement as smooth as possible, and he trained the finance management on what he learned. This clarity led to the reconciliation of several years’ worth of information, to make all accounts finally current. 
• The consultant was relied upon as the ‘resident expert’ for this subsidiary with the external audit, by preparing audit schedules; educating the auditors on process flow; and responding to audit requests as needed. 
• When the client hired their permanent replacement, the ZRG consultant trained the new hire, making sure he understood the workflow, system and processes, and was fully up to speed. 

Results 

• Clear, documented workflow 
• Trained staff on processes, systems 
• Clean, current books and records 
• Expertise on a legacy system 
• Key resource during audit 
• Best practices for new hires 

“Piere has been a tremendous help and made critical contributions in sor ting out the complex processes, working with the shared services team, cleaning up legacy discrepancies, creating excellent process documentation and training finance team members. We truly appreciate his contribution and hope our finance team can be as good as he is when we fully take over.”

- Assistant Controller