Autorola saves a full working day on financial consolidation
50%
Time Reduction on monthly reporting drafts
1
day regained to perform deeper financial analyses
Credit: © Autorola Group
The short story of the autorola group
Autorola Group is a global leader in online remarketing and automotive IT solutions for professional used cars and fleet management. Autorola Group is headquartered in Denmark and the company currently has approximately 420 employees and subsidiaries in 19 countries across Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific. Autorola Group is divided into three global business units: car auction, sales solutions, and appraisal tools.
Time-consuming processes made autorola group convert to konsolidators financial consolidation software
Before discovering Konsolidator, the Autorola Group had another system to help with the financial consolidation. Even though the system worked, it took a long time for the financial consolidation to be finished and the tool was not flexible because it was not a cloud based solution. As the business grew and got more and more digital in the approach, the financial team discovered that they needed something which was more flexible. They started searching for a financial consolidation software that could make their financial consolidation process smoother and easier in order to create a more efficient workflow. Controller Manager Dennis Frimann Larsen explains that using Konsolidator’s cloud-based consolidation software has saved the financial team at Autorola Group for a full day’s work. They regain many working hours they can use to complete other tasks such as making a deeper financial analysis of the monthly reports.
“In making the raw data for the consolidation process we have saved at least 6-8 hours on using Konsolidator instead of our previous system.” – Dennis Frimann Larsen
The increased accuracy of data was important for autorola group
Controller, Heidi Uhrskov Mechali, says the process of the consolidation alone took a huge amount of time with the previous system because simply making the consolidation could take a whole day. With their old consolidation system, the team would have started by making, collecting and uploading the balances into the system. If a post-entry had to be submitted after the system ran the consolidation, the whole procedure had to be done all over again which made the financial consolidation take even longer for the financial team to complete. Now with Konsolidator, it is easy for the team to just edit and redo the financial consolidation. A change in the financial figures of one subsidiary does not affect the whole process.
“I am able to edit and submit post-entries right away. Before I was not able to make any changes without having to redo the whole consolidation. But with Konsolidator I can simply just get a new balance from the system within two minutes, reload it and then you have a new consolidation for all subsidiaries” – Heidi Uhrskov Mechali.
According to Heidi Uhrskov Mechali, switching to Konsolidator has increased the quality of the monthly reporting at Autorola Group because of the possibility of making post-entries and changes right away within Konsolidator makes the process much more transparent than before. The possibility to make changes right away has also made the financial figures traceable and the financial data much more accurate for Autorola Group which gives the company more certainty regarding the data. According to Dennis Friman Larsen, it is easier to explain the entries to the accountants because the financial team at Autorola Group is now able to go back and see where the entries and figures came from.
With more confidence in the accuracy of their financial data, the financial team at Autorola Group is able to create and present a draft of the monthly reporting fast which gives the management of the company valuable insight to the corporate group.
“We are able to show a draft of the monthly account in about half a day whereas before it took us one to two days.” – Dennis Frimann Larsen
A simple and manageable tool for financial consolidation
Left: Heidi Uhrskov Mechali Heidi, Controller;
Right: Dennis Frimann Larsen, Controller Manager
Simplicity was also a factor for the financial team of Autorola Group when choosing to convert from their old system to Konsolidator. Their previous system was not only slow and inflexible but it was also a complicated one. The financial team at Autorola Group looked for a system that was simple to manage. Controller Manager Dennis Frimann Larsen sensed that the simplicity of Konsolidator was appealing to the team and the management. The other products on the market were too complex, and they required both technical support and consultancy in order for the system to work with the current ERP-system at Autorola Group.
“We chose Konsolidator because it is simple and easy to manage in addition to our previous consolidation system which also demanded a bigger integration with our ERP-system” – Dennis Frimann Larsen, Controller Manager.