Paul Smith overhauls financials

Company frees up more time for analysis

Retail design company Paul Smith has automated its financial reporting processes to produce quarterly reports in one month rather than three and focus more on strategic activity such as report analysis.

The decision to install the Cognos financial reporting system, implemented by BI-Inform, was taken after part of Paul Smith was sold and there was a requirement to deliver reports in a more timely manner to shareholders.

Unwieldy spreadsheets and manual intervention have been removed from the reporting process, shrinking the potential for human error.

The financial team of 25 people now has more time for analysis, as greater automation and fewer steps are built into the reporting process, reducing time spent on reporting for a quarterly report by each member to a day instead of a week.

Lee Bingham, IT manager at Paul Smith, said: ‘Just after the sale of part of the company, we were set a deadline to have the first quarter’s financial reports to be ready within three months which would have been impossible previously when we were using spreadsheets and legacy solutions.’

‘With the Cognos technology, we have automated the reporting process so no deadlines are missed, and staff know exactly when their sections of reports need to be completed. We’ve been able to generate quarterly reports in a third of the time it used to take the team, and we have hit every internal and external deadline,’ he added.

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