Challenge
Kookaburra Sport was facing significant challenges in consolidating its financial data across multiple entities. With operations spanning Australia, New Zealand, India, and the UK, the organization needed timely, accurate, and consolidated financial reporting.
Prior to engaging with Zap, Kookaburra relied on a highly manual, fragmented process, using Excel and a third-party reporting tool that was not up to the task, leading to delays and inconsistencies in presenting financial reports to management.
Following significant staff turnover in the finance team, the company struggled to produce consolidated financial statements. Despite using Sage X3 ERP, the existing reporting processes were ineffective in delivering consolidated financial data in the group’s functional currency, AUD, and had difficulties explaining variances between local and group ledger balances.
Enter Financial Controller, Stuart Cummins, and Functional Consultant, Surender Sharma. Upon joining Kookaburra, they inherited several challenges:
- Inconsistent Consolidated Reporting: Kookaburra was unable to produce consolidated financial statements in a timely manner. Individual entity results were presented in local currencies without consolidation to the group’s reporting currency, AUD, which created a substantial gap in management’s ability to make informed business decisions.
- Fragmented Data and Tools: The company relied on a mixture of reporting tools, including a third-party software package not capable of meeting their needs, and Excel, which only compounded reporting delays. The previous system also applied informal exchange rates to consolidate results, further complicating data accuracy.
- Complex Custom Reporting Needs: A specific requirement for a bespoke profit and loss (P&L) report - where certain general ledger (GL) accounts and cost center combinations needed to be mapped above the gross margin line - proved challenging and highlighted the limitations of the existing tools.
Solution
Stuart and Surender, familiar with Sage Data & Analytics (powered by Zap) from prior experience, quickly chose it as the solution to address these challenges. SD&A’s robust integration with Sage X3 and its ability to provide automated, real-time reporting proved crucial to streamlining their financial operations.
- Automated Consolidation: By leveraging SD&A, Kookaburra can now generate consolidated financial reports directly from Sage X3, eliminating reliance on manual processes. The system’s ability to track local currency and group currency balances ensures consistency in financial data across the business.
- Single Source of Truth: With Zap’s integration, Kookaburra now has a “single source of truth,” where data from multiple entities is automatically consolidated into one centralized view. This significantly improves management’s ability to see accurate, real-time data without manual intervention.
- Custom Reporting: Kookaburra partnered with Zap’s professional services team to develop a bespoke P&L report tailored to the company’s specific requirements around GL account and cost center combinations. The resulting report successfully met all business needs and offered a dynamic solution for consistent month-over-month reporting.
Outcome
Sage Data & Analytics (powered by Zap) has been instrumental in transforming Kookaburra’s financial reporting process. The finance team now enjoys streamlined, automated reporting, improved data integrity, and a system capable of meeting their complex business needs.
The team is confident that Zap’s capabilities will continue to drive Kookaburra’s growth and meet its evolving reporting needs. By enabling timely, accurate decision-making, SD&A has become a vital asset in Kookaburra’s financial operations, allowing the team to spend more energy on actioning and analyzing data rather than compiling reports and looking backwards.
“We knew SD&A was a good tool, and once implemented, it met all of our expectations. The consolidation is seamless, the reports are reliable, and the integrity of the data is significantly improved, giving us the clarity we needed to make informed decisions.”
— Stuart Cummins, Financial Controller, Kookaburra Sport