The Client: A leading Venture Capital manager headquartered in Guernsey.
Background
The firm’s process for the capture & recharging of invoices and expenses was time-consuming, manual and inefficient. The Finance team was manually collating invoice & expense data in Excel, and relying on multiple third party administrators. There was significant duplication of effort in this process, a high risk of errors, and potential for monetary loss.
Holland Mountain’s project
The firm engaged Private Capital process, technology and data experts, Holland Mountain, to help digitalise this process. Our specialist Finance Digitalisation team assessed the current cost capture & analysis processes, identifying opportunities to improve efficiency and controls. We documented the firm’s needs, both at the fund and corporate level, and mapped them against the available technology. Accounts Payable automation tool, Yooz, was identified as the best suited solution.
In preparation for the Yooz implementation, Holland Mountain produced detailed future state process maps, outlining the data flow, system connectivity, team involvement and heightened controls. We handed this material over to the Yooz implementation team, explaining the nuances in the needs of a Private Capital firm and outlining how the system must be implemented to meet them effectively.
Holland Mountain managed the implementation project, including:
- Ensuring that the Yooz team fully understood the firm’s complex requirements
- Acting as the point of contact for questions from Yooz through the process
- Performing initial testing on the system configuration to ensure that the complex needs of the business were met
- Creating testing scripts to support the firm’s own team to test the system, and managing the resolution of any issues or change requests with Yooz
- Overseeing migration of data into Yooz
- Supporting training and the successful rollout of the solution across the businessWhat was the result?
The Yooz implementation has been a great success. With an efficient AP Automation solution in place, the Finance team has seen significant improvements in their daily operations.
The benefits of the solution include:
- Improved efficiency & scalability: Processes are streamlined, with as much automation of previously manual tasks as possible. The Finance team is now freed up to focus on higher value add activities and analysis
- Oversight and controls: The firm has better ability to oversee, audit and report on its cost capture & recharge processes
- Error reduction: By automating as much as possible and improving oversight capabilities, the risk of error is significantly reduced
- Cost recovery: Ensuring costs are captured correctly at source maximises the firm’s ability to re-charge the appropriate expenses
Jonathan Connelly
Associate Director
William Jones
Consultant
Jonathan is a Chartered Accountant, with 10 years’ experience working with Private Capital Finance teams. As Head of Holland Mountain’s Finance practice, Jonathan manages Holland Mountain’s fund and corporate accounting teams, leading operational strategy projects, system selections and implementations. Jon will oversee this project, providing best-practice guidance and SME input.
William is a Consultant on Holland Mountain’s Finance Consulting team and has led a number of Yooz implementations and process reviews. William will lead the implementation of the solution, leading the services outlined above, including project management, vendor management, testing, training & go-live support.
About Holland Mountain
Holland Mountain is a leading, specialist consulting firm, working with Private Capital firms to achieve one source of truth, automate manual processes and unlock the value of their data. Our team of leading Private Capital Operations, Technology and Data experts has completed over 300 successful operational strategy and change management engagements for 80+ Private Capital clients. Get in touch to find out more about how we can help.