Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Implementation and Global Rollout Helps an Energy Utilities Company Improve Financial and Business Performance

Business Need

The utilities company helps organizations maximize efficiencies and mitigate risk through ongoing monitoring and optimization of their energy infrastructure: from cities to commercial property owners, universities to energy-conscious institutions – the client helps in efficient management of energy needs, minimize energy costs, ensure health and safety of people, and reduce environmental footprint.

However, the company was facing several challenges in meeting the evolving energy demands of modern organizations. Some of these challenges included:

• Delays in data and requirements feedback
• Poor integration between various internal systems
• Resource availability and scheduling commitments due to time variance and capacity
• Ongoing issues in check and banking due to third-party delays
• Environment provisioning and deployment issues

The client had complex financial data migration needs, which needed them to undergo a massive transformation.

The client also needed custom development on VAT, integrations, reporting, and invoicing and was looking for a partner who could help in improving their operational performance. The client approached Synoptek to undertake the transformation project.

Solution and Approach

Given the challenges the utilities company was facing, Synoptek suggested Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations implementation and global rollout for their USA office and 67 other legal entities. To meet the client’s requirement, Synoptek provided the following implementation and integration services:

Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Implementation

Finance Module

• General Ledger
• Accounts Payable
• Cash and Bank Management
• Expense Management (Erstwhile Travel and Expense management)
• Budgeting
• Consolidations
• Fixed Asset Management
• Taxation

Human Capital Management Module

• Employee Master Management
• Product Information Management
• Vendor Management
• Procurement Reporting – Utilizing available out-of-the-box standard reports in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

Financial Reporting

• Balance Sheet
• Profit and Loss Statement
• Cash and Fund Flow Statement
• Dimension Statement
• Trial Balance
• Fixed Asset Register with hierarchized auxiliary and ancillary items
• Reports used to track materials with limited life periods such as inventory by item group aging as well as the inventory by inventory dimension aging
• Vendor and customer aging reports that were configured using pre-configured buckets of aging periods

Integration

Synoptek carried out all integrations by reading or creating a file using SFTP; all parameters were made configurable from front-end, so they could be changed anytime and plugged in to different project.

• Integration with IBM Maximo for following entities
  • Vendor master
  • Purchase order details
  • AP Invoice Details
• Integration with bank for file formats for payment
• Integration with HR Management System to provide employee payroll information via data extract in a compatible format (CSV / XLS) in a shared file location
• Integration with vendor catalogue for following entities
  • Product master
  • Product dimensions (where relevant)
  • Product variants (where relevant)
• Integration • Integration with Oracle CC&B for following entities:
  • Customer master
  • Sales billing header and line

Customization

• Chart of Accounts master data
  • Workflow approval on Chart of Account value creation/updates
• Manage Cash
  • Enter, approve, and release manual payments via bank portal
  • Implement an approval workflow for GL to bank reconciliation
• Tax Planning
  • Generate FERC depreciation reports
• Reporting
  • Define rules for adjustments/calculations on reports (e.g., have non-cash functionality specifically regarding the canned cash flow report)
• Budgeting
  • Perform capital planning
• Expense
  • Upload card transactions from providers
• Invoicing
  • At PO/invoice level
• Payment processing
  • Including ACH – pull (vendor) and push, Wires, Credit Cards, Checks, Interface between JPMC and Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
  • Email remittance advice automatically to the vendor
  • Integrate the ERP system with a vendor’s catalog
  • Integrate vendor master for new entries and updates

Business Results

To meet the client’s implementation and integration requirement, despite several challenges, the team at Synoptek stayed the course with project tasks and deliverables and completed the project in time.

Post implementation, the client is able to get better visibility into business operations, easily fetch data from different systems, and efficiently meet the needs of their customers.

Given the consistency and dedication with which the project was implemented, the client is now advocating scalability and flexibility for future growth within the platform.