Our client, a main player in the pharmaceutical sector, is facing major changes and reorganization phases. In this context, the client asked Business & Financial Solutions to support the organization on different levels. First for a technical expertise in accounting and secondly for a guarantee in business continuity with expert resources.
At the local accounting/statutory reporting level (Belgian entity, the most important one for this segment of the company), most of the tasks were externalized to a big 4 company and no process, no tool were implemented to provide on time and accurate information for the Work Council, Management Board, Local Sales Reporting, the Annual Accounts to NBB and the General Assembly.
There was nobody specifically dedicated to this topic and information was not given on time and content was not always totally trustworthy. The company wished to change it internalizing the whole process and implementing tools to get strong reporting and timely disclosures.
Pharmaceutical
Creation, improvement and analysis of legal reporting
The situation
The task
During the first year of the mission, the tasks were mainly to identify and understand all the required reporting (legal and internal) and to find out where the information was coming from.
Then, the most important step was to organize a planning for the year together with all the stakeholders to be able to provide timely and complete information. We had also to implement some Excel tools for each reporting helping on the creation of the disclosure and the analyse of the figures. Once everything implemented, we had to proceed the different local tasks timely from A to Z ensuring our tools were efficient and worked as expected. The final step was the disclosing of the annual account at the NBB after the General Assembly. Besides, we also had to be a support at local level to provide information and analysis to the different departments for different council and meeting they had to present.
During the second year of the assignment, we had to reinforce the different processes and to document them in One Note for the knowledge transfer. A new employee should be hired to take over this role and we had to take in charge the onboarding, the training and the assessment of the new joiner. During the pilot phase, we also had to follow up, supervise the different tasks and be a back-up to ensure the completions of the requirements. Having less operational tasks, we could improve tools to compile and get more control and understanding on information to disclose. And finally, in a nice to have purpose, we should automate several reporting creations to save lot of time during rushing period.
Then, the most important step was to organize a planning for the year together with all the stakeholders to be able to provide timely and complete information. We had also to implement some Excel tools for each reporting helping on the creation of the disclosure and the analyse of the figures. Once everything implemented, we had to proceed the different local tasks timely from A to Z ensuring our tools were efficient and worked as expected. The final step was the disclosing of the annual account at the NBB after the General Assembly. Besides, we also had to be a support at local level to provide information and analysis to the different departments for different council and meeting they had to present.
During the second year of the assignment, we had to reinforce the different processes and to document them in One Note for the knowledge transfer. A new employee should be hired to take over this role and we had to take in charge the onboarding, the training and the assessment of the new joiner. During the pilot phase, we also had to follow up, supervise the different tasks and be a back-up to ensure the completions of the requirements. Having less operational tasks, we could improve tools to compile and get more control and understanding on information to disclose. And finally, in a nice to have purpose, we should automate several reporting creations to save lot of time during rushing period.
The action
The first part of the mission was to spot all the local requirements; create, improve and internalize processes and perform all the local tasks of the year timely and accurately. The actions taken were:
- Find every reporting, legal requirements, local obligations, council information to provide
- Understand the aim and the content of each of them
- Find out where the information came from and contact all stakeholders
- Set up a calendar for the organisation of the different realisation of the year together with all the stakeholders
- Create or improve processes to perform the tasks timely and accurately
- Create or improve tools (Excel and SAP) to help to realize the publications and information compilation and analysis
- Installation of the software Accon (Kluwer) on a remote computer to have admin rights
- Provide the timely and correct information for the Quarterly Worker Council, the Management Board, the General Assembly and be a support for the different departments to provide further analysis
- Perform the deposit of the annual accounts to the NBB and other legal requirements
- Frequent contact and organization with the auditors
The second part of the mission was transferring the knowledge to the new internal employee, to assess him and to improve the different tools and process. The actions taken were:
- Participate in the selection of the candidate, their onboarding, training and assessment
- Documentation of all the processes related to the local accountant role
- Improvement of the Excel tools created previous year with the experience acquired
- Automatization of the different reporting and information compilation with Excel but also with Power BI
The results
At the end of the project, we succeeded in:
- Annuals accounts were audited and published correctly
- Documentation for the Knowledge Transfer on time for the beginning of the knowledge transfer period
- SAP, Excel and BI tools are implemented. They are efficient and trustworthy
- All the local tasks are now under control and information provided is now in line with business activity
- New manager for local accounting and compliance is now in function for three months and is now well trained and autonomous. In additions, he has helpful tools, documentation and contacts at his disposal to support him in his role