Using technology to streamline reporting and communication ... · Using technology to streamline...

Using technology to streamline

reporting and communication for

capital project in-service dates

Brian Nash |

Winshuttle USER GROUP CONFERENCE | LAS VEGAS 2016 2

Agenda

• About me

• What is Project Initiate to Close (PIC)?

• Our business problem

• Financial implications of our business problem

• Solution alternatives

• Winshuttle – Solution

• Summary of the project solution and implementation

• Benefits Realized

• Future projects using Winshuttle


About Me

• Originally from St. Petersburg, Florida

• Educational Background

o University of Florida

o Master degree in Accounting – 1997

o Stetson University

o Master degree in Business – 2011

• Professional Background

o Ernst & Young LLP (Sep 1997 – Jun 1999)

o MetLife (Jun 1999 – Aug 2001)

o St. Petersburg College (Aug 2001 – Aug 2004)

o Chick-fil-A (Aug 2004 – Feb 2006)

o Robert Half Consultant (Feb 2006 – Jul 2007)

• Disney Background

o Segment Cash Flow Team (Jul 2007- Aug 2009)

o Disney Cruise Line Financial Reporting (Aug 2009 – Aug 2010)

o Marketing & Sales Finance (Aug 2010 – Aug 2011)

o Financial Systems – NGE (Aug 2011 – May 2013)

o Financial Systems – PIC (Jun 2013 – present)


Project Initiate to Close (PIC) – Key Facts

PIC Basic Functionality

• Referred to as “Project Systems” in SAP

• Functionality in SAP that allows recording of costs to cost objects (i.e. WBS element, Network, CO Production Orders, Internal Orders)

• Projects are categorized as Expense, Capital, or Statistical

• Expense or capital projects settle costs based on settlement schedule to cost elements (i.e. Cost Center, GL account)

PIC Security & Data Governance

• “Project Controller” security role in SAP required to create and maintain PIC master data

• Project Controller role is monitored and audited quarterly


Project Initiate to Close (PIC) – Context

Human Resources

HR

SAP PS

Accounting and

ControllingFI-CO Materials

Management and

ProcurementMM

Sales and Billing

SDPlant

MaintenanceCustomer Service

PM & CS

Production Planning

PP

Capacity and Resource Planning

Time SheetsCATS


SAP Work Breakdown Structures

Project Definition

Work Breakdown Structure

WBS Element

WBS Element

Work Breakdown Structure

WBS Element


The Lifecycle of a Project

Define what is to be done

from a business

perspective

Develop a strategy that

is represented by a structure

Plan costs and revenues, and schedule when events must occur

Approve the Budget and distribute it

throughout the structure,

release the project

Execute day-to-day

confirmations, frequently

Evaluateprogress by

reporting

Settle to intended receiver

Close Project

Create

Project

Input or Allocate Budget

and ForecastManage Project

Close

Project

Project Examples:

Capital - Rehab a resort, build a new attraction, build a parade float.

Expense - Cost to maintain the monorails or buses, cost to maintain an operation.


Project lifecycle with relevant SAP T-codes


Project Definition – Input screen in SAP


Project Initiate to Close Team Goals

PIC Team Goalso Provide excellent customer service for any TP&R user that interacts with Project

systems

o Shared mailbox with very quick response time to users

o Super user (representatives from each area from WDW only) meetings to address any issues/concerns

o Provide strategic support for process improvement projects for many departments using PIC data within the company

o Ensure PIC SAP system functionality is working as expected providing users with support as necessary

o Test existing PIC functionality for major and minor SAP releases

o Initiate and test enhancements to improve functionality that meets user needs

o Ensure PIC SAP data quality for projects

o Quarterly data quality reviews for PIC data in SAP

o Monitor processing of automated jobs weekly

o Settlement error resolution

o Reconciliation of SAP and Rapid Mart data to ensure data reporting integrity


Our business challenge

Overview• Different interpretations of the capital In-

service date• Dates not always current in SAP• No accountability for updating dates• Dates not updated on a timely basis• Time-consuming communication to validate

dates are current

Potential Financial Impact• Delayed capitalization of a project• Inaccurate depreciation forecast• Greater risk of inaccurate financial and

managerial reporting• Resources needed to validate data in

SAP is current

Current Process

Project scope is agreed upon by operations and

LOB owner

Operations completes project construction of

asset

• LOB Project Owner creates project in SAP

• Uses Basic Finish date field to store In-service date in SAP

• Operations updates “turnover date” in SAP• Uses Basic Finish date field to update

turnover date when necessary

Basic Finish date can represent “Turnover date” or “In-service date” depending on who provided the last update.


Data maintenance effort

Considerations for project team when identifying the best solution:

• Number of capital projects are over 1K

• Users directly impacted would be 30-50

• Updates required monthly

• Manual entry into SAP is approx. 10 minutes per project


Financial implications of our business challenge

Ensuring a current capital in-service date in SAP is necessary so that we can:

• Improve financial, managerial, and tax reporting of asset balances and depreciation expense for executive decision support

• Improve reporting accuracy and reduce the risk of material misstatements

• Improve the financial planning accuracy of asset capitalization and depreciation expense

• Rely upon it as a key data point to drive other SAP functionality such as depreciation forecasting

Ensuring a current estimated final cost in SAP will ensure capital spending is aligned with the approved capital plan and overspending is avoided


Winshuttle – Our solution

Although this challenge had been identified previously, the current business process for solving it was a barrier for change

After my team learned about the functionality of the Winshuttle technology, we were able to create a new business process leveraging the following efficiencies:

• Winshuttle Transaction provided significant time savings for LOB partners to update key fields (Capital in-service date and estimated final cost)

• Winshuttle workflow functionality streamlined communication between the Capital Reporting team and LOB partners to inform that these key fields had been updated

The new business process created was able to be implemented monthly to ensure these key fields were updated prior to each reporting period


Project Recommendation

Recommendation

• Utilize newly discovered Winshuttle technology to facilitate a standardized business process for LOB project owners to submit a current capital in-service date and estimated final cost for all capital projects in SAP

• Designate a field in SAP to store the current capital in-service date

• Implement a monthly requirement to update the capital in-service date and estimated final cost by project from each LOB project owner


Direct Business Impact: estimated time savings

10

Min

ute

s

12

mo

nth

s

1000 Projects

2,000hours

Before

12

mo

nth

s

1000 Projects

200hours

Entry time down to <

1m

After


Business Solution outcomes

Overview• Designate input field specifically for In-service date• Establish LOB accountability for updating dates• Establish timeline for timely In-service date updates• Utilize Winshuttle workflow tool for efficient

communication of updates

Impact• Timely capitalization of a project• Improved data quality for depreciation

forecasting• Greater risk of inaccurate financial &

management reporting• Time savings from efficient

communication

Process

Project scope is agreed

upon by operations and

LOB owner

Operations

completes project

construction of asset

LOB Project Owner

estimates In-service

date of asset monthly

• LOB Project Owner creates project in SAP

• Uses Basic Finish date field to store In-service date in SAP

• Operations updates “turnover date” in SAP when necessary

• Uses Forecast Finish date field on Level 1 WBS element to update turnover date

• Project owner uses Winshuttle template to update In-service date

• Update required by Friday before each month-end

• Uses Basic Finish date field to store updated In-service date in SAP


Our business solution – Designated SAP fields


Winshuttle Template


Our business solution – New business process


Benefits Realized

1. Faster instantiation of “Capital in-service” dates in SAP

2. Increase capitalization date reliability for capital projects

3. Increase depreciation forecast reliability via In-service date

4. Reduce manual work effort by Capital Reporting and Shared Services to validate In-service date prior to key reporting periods

5. Improve accuracy of financial, management, and tax reports for capital projects


Lessons Learned

Defining the optimal business process is critical to ensuring the expected business value will be achieved using Winshuttle

It is important to secure leadership/executive commitment for a change in the business process prior to implementation – this will reduce any re-work to your Winshuttle template scripts during implementation


Future Projects using Winshuttle

Future projects being explored for use with Winshuttle:

Updating forecast for capital projects using new template

Creating Material Master data for a project with a very large volume

Working to be able to implement Winshuttle Query to pull data directly from SAP R3 for analysis

Adding new retail locations in SAP


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