Finance Systems Update
Download PDFConcur and Documation update
Just a brief general “systems development” update to everyone with regards to how Colart is continuing to invest in our financial and IT systems and processes, in order to further improve our key governance and controls during 2021. As we kick off the new year, we are continuing to advance and roll-out such solutions across all of our regions in a measured, staggered and future-proofed manner, as our ongoing Financial Transformation agenda continues to gather pace. Two such examples are highlighted in a little more detail below, in order that our people can gain some more understanding and insight of major initiatives underway.
If you happen to be based at either our Chinese business in Tianjin or one of our two UK Manufacturing businesses, Crown (Lowestoft) or Snazaroo (Minehead), then please be aware that we will be looking to roll out both Concur and Documation into these locations sometime during 2022, following the completion of scheduled implementations of M3 (the Group’s main ERP system) into these sites beforehand, which will be completed by the end of 2021.
So at the appropriate time, your local finance business partners in your region will help prepare and plan with each local business team to ensure that comprehensive training and support is fully established and communicated, so that all users of these new systems can experience a seamless and enjoyable experience - so watch this space for further news!
Concur – Take the Pain Out of Expenses!
What is Concur?
Concur is an on-line paperless portal electronic platform that enables quick and easy scanning, recording and approval of personal and credit card expenses.
What are the benefits?
• An APP (which you will need to download onto your phone) that records receipts directly and enables approval on the go!
• A much more seamless and integrated on-line approval process, in line with Colart’s pre-set authorisation limits and expenditure categories.
• Improved accountability and visibility of expenses and company credit cards.
• A much more simplified process (no more excel spreadsheets, staples and less paper!), so easier for the end-user to record the expenses, and the manager to review and approve on-line.
• Reduction of coding and processing errors, so easier for all of our Finance teams to reconcile and improve Colart’s ability to maximise its VAT recoverability from all our various local Tax jurisdictions (e.g. HMRC in the UK)
• Electronic storage and retrieval of documents.
Whilst the benefits of the hugely successful implementation of Concur in the UK during the second half of 2019 continue to be enjoyed, we are now working very hard to further extend the reach of this on-line expenses portal platform into both Southern Europe; and then Northern Europe, and then tying our North American existing Concur platform onto the one single global platform.
Bhavna Savani, Group Corporate Finance Manager, has been spear-heading the overall project management of the staged implementations, country by country and we commenced the detailed implementation process work with the Southern Europe stakeholders already, led by Patricia Le Mauff, Southern Europe Finance Director, during the last quarter of 2020.
Thanks to all the hard work and dedication by Patricia and all of the Southern European Finance team we anticipate that we will be able to go-live before the end of Q1 in that region.
Find here the Concur Expense QuickStart Guide.
Documation – A Purchase to Pay Workflow Solution
What is Documation?
Documation is an end to end software that captures the various stages of a work-flow purchase order cycle, starting with the original purchase commitment through to the final end payment to the supplier of a service provided to Colart.
What are the benefits?
• Saves time for all of our Colart teams through the establishment of set routines and processes to raise new purchase requests in an easy to follow manner
• Allows careful control over spending limits helping ensure that approved suppliers are used and purchasing decisions are controlled and approved before orders are committed
• The system automatically scans and recognises the invoices of all of our usual and frequent suppliers, which will reduce the amount of manual time required across all of our Accounts Payable Finance teams to match and verify the final invoice to the original purchase order request, before payment is made to the supplier
• Once Documation is fully rolled-out, Colart will be able to further identify potential savings and discount opportunities with our various suppliers and make further improvements to how our existing buying processes work
We have made very good progress during the past few months on laying the ground-work and foundations for further extending the roll-out of the Documation around the Colart Globe, beginning with Colart Fine Art & Graphics, our UK commercial business, with its Go-Live anticipated for later this month (February 2021).
This next stage builds on the successful roll-out of Documation in CIHL, our UK based Corporate business division, which satisfactorily concluded in the second half of 2019.
Claudio Toledo, Head of Project Management, has been instrumental as the project manager for this global roll-out, and we are currently finalising the key milestone resourcing targets with the Documation Implementation Support Team to develop the road-map for the roll-out for the year ahead.
If you want to know more about Documation, you can find the course on Colart Academy here.