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  • Filling Candidate Positions for Software Services Client With A Short Window

    Division Professional Division, Zycron February 7, 2020 Client Challenge: A software for services client had a need to staff up to 16 positions within a four to six-week window. These positions were required to have strong people skills as well as strong experience with Salesforce and would be in support of bringing new customers on to our client’s software product. Approach: Working with the client’s managers we identified in detail the skills that all candidates must have to be successful and proposed a focused effort from Zycron’s recruiting team to not only identify the potential candidate but provide the first round of in-person qualifying interviews. Zycron was willing to commit to this if the client would give us the work exclusively and they agreed. Action: Zycron’s recruiting team immediately starting identifying candidates and bringing them in for their in-person interviews. If qualified Zycron then sent calendar invites to our clients hiring managers to set up the final interviews at the client’s site. The windows of time available for these final interviews were set up in advance in order for these candidates to get through the process as quickly as possible. Result: All of the positions were filled within the timeframe that the client requested, and the client has been very happy with the quality of the resources that came out of this process.

  • New Creation Tools and Processes Help Develop Historical and Forecasted Key Metrics

    Division Donovan & Watkins, Professional Division February 7, 2020 Business Scenario: Our client used QuickBooks for their accounting and reporting software systems and used Excel-based worksheets to forecast both operational and financial metrics. They realized they were duplicating efforts and had allowed themselves room for errors. Project Scope: Our team of Consultants worked directly with the client to develop a timeline for a two-phase solution. Phase 1) Identified the client’s requirements, both current and future, in forecasting and reporting requirements. Phase 2) Evaluated the ability of QuickBooks to facilitate the requirements and evaluate the current chart of accounts in QuickBooks. Phase 3) Developed an Excel tool that provided both historical and forecasted key metrics using input screens for certain business drivers and download tools to import from QuickBooks. Phase 4) Review the tool on an ongoing basis with the client. Clients Return on Investment: Prior to the project, our client did not have the ability to run different planning scenarios or generate combined actual and forecasted resulting in using the same tool. With the new tool and processes, they were able to stay with the QuickBooks, did not have the expense or challenges of going to a new system and were able to generate financial forecasts for investors and creditors on an ad hoc basis.

  • Establishing An Accounts Payable Shared Services GroupDivision

    Division Donovan & Watkins, Professional Division February 7, 2020 Business scenario: Our client which was a large international oil & gas client. Our team of consultants assisted to establish an Accounts Payable Shared Services Group, upon the completion of a large acquisition. Project Scope: Our team of Consultants worked directly with the client o develop a timeline for transitioning all AP work to an AP Shared Services Group, consisting of (63) sixty of our consultants. These consultants were there to train current and new company employees. Phase 1) Developed a manual billing process for accounts payable that required our team to manually reconcile incoming invoices. Phase 2) Consultants worked over (300) three-hundred invoices per payable specialist per day to expedite outstanding AP payments. Phase 3) Our team streamlined the companies entire AP process within only 18 months ensuring the backlog of invoices decreased to a point of manageable timely payment. Clients Return on Investment: Our consultants were able to streamline the AP process and train current employees to acquire the day to day AP functions of the new Shared Services Division. Though the project was slated to last up to (36) thirty-six months, our project team was able to complete the entire process within (18) eighteen months. Thus saving the client hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees, late payment fees, overtime wages, and disconnections

  • Complete Transitioning Operations For Sell

    Division Donovan & Watkins, Professional Division February 7, 2020 Business Scenario: Our client was a $250 million-dollar logistics national company. Our team of consultants helped with the transition of the days to day operations of the company’s business for a sell-out to an acquiring business. Phase 1) Our team consisted of an Interim CFO, Controller, Accounts Payable Manager, two senior accountants, and one administrative personnel. Phase 2) This team was tasked to close our client’s books for the previous months. Phase 3) Our team was able to document the acquired companies’ procedures and policies along with banking relationships to the acquiring company, completing all required reconciliations to ensure the finalization of sale. Clients Return on Investment: With our professional team, with assisted our client with saving over $100,000., in consulting fees as our team was able to complete the project ah

  • Spearheaded Restart For Account With Equity Transactions

    Division Donovan & Watkins, Professional Division February 7, 2020 Business Scenario: Our client was a regional utility company. Our team assisted with the form’s reinstatement. Phase 1) Our team of consultants had to go back over a four-year period. Forms 10Q & 10K had to be restarted to account for equity transactions that had not been properly recorded. Our consultants restated the filings and worked directly with the SEC attorney and auditors to obtain proper sign-off and re-file all statements. Phase 2) As a result of the restatements, several footnotes had to be restated and reissued. Our team corrected the footnotes to meet all SEC requirements set forth by the SEC attorney and Auditors. Clients Return on Investment: Our team of consultants assisted our client with stabilizing investor worries, which allowed our client to refocus on go-forward actions.

  • The Importance of Digital Signage

    Division February 7, 2020 Project scenario: Configure and Install 55-inch monitors for field and administrative employees in the Public Works and Solid Waste Divisions. Project Outcome: Improve communication by providing real time information – Live Feeds from TV, Web and Databases Allow for targeted / focused messaging – more responsive Increased productivity – reduces the need for face to face meetings, emails, flyers etc. Operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year (24 x 365)

  • SAP Consultant Solves Fix All Configuration Issues In the System

    Division Extrinsic, Professional Division February 7, 2020 Client Challenge In the maintenance stage of their SAP implementation, Extrinsic’s client, a Global Mining Manufacturer, realized that previous configurations were done incorrectly, causing the following problems to arise: Issues with ACH Payments: The U.S. outgoing instruction file to the bank was missing records, causing them to be recorded incorrectly on client books. The U.S. Custom Vendor Bank Account Encryption Program was causing ACH payments to fail. U.S. payments allowed other foreign currencies to be paid and caused multiple types of foreign currency translation issues. U.K. incoming EBS files were posted on the wrong date: Prior testing was incomplete, and the dates were not being passed on correctly by the bank U.K. Remittance Advices for consignment payments were nonexistent. Two types of payment-run variants were not being set up correctly in the U.K. U.S. Remittance Advices for SNC suppliers were not being sent. U.S. implemented domestic and international wire payments for the U.S. Identified Resource Extrinsic identified a specialized consultant with 25 years of SAP consulting experience within SAP FI/CO. Her experience in SAP functional modules includes Finance, Banking, Cash Management, Treasury, Controlling, Fixed Assets and Project Systems in R/3 versions 2.2e through ECC 6.06. She has over 17 full and new SAP lifecycle projects and over 15 partial SAP lifecycle projects from blueprint through post-go-live support. Actions and Solutions Delivered The consultant was able to fix all configuration issues in the system. The client can now move forward with ACH payments, instead of reverting vendors back to check payments and introduce ACH payments to more vendors. U.K. EBS dates were corrected, allowing their month-end process to continue without having to manually correct all EBS postings. U.K. consignment payments now have detailed reports for their vendors. SNC suppliers now have a choice of EDI or emailed payment advice. Results In addition to correcting the client’s configuration problems, Extrinsic’s consultant provided knowledge transfer and detailed documentation to the internal team so they can support the changes in the system long term. The project finished on time and on budget.

  • Transitioning Clients From Cash Basis Accounting To Accrual Basis

    Division Donovan & Watkins, Professional Division February 7, 2020 Business Scenario: Our client is an S Corp and maintains its financial records on the cash basis of accounting. They have historically presented audited cash basis statements to banks, investors and other interested parties. Professional services firms moved away from cash-based financial statements to promote comparability with other financial statement issuers, and our client decides to restate its prior year’s financial statements to accrual basis in accordance with GAAP. Project Scope: Our team of Consultants worked directly with the client to develop a timeline for transitioning from Cash Basis Accounting to Accrual Basis. Phase 1) Identify the significant accounting processes and groups of accounts and identify which accounts should be reviewed for accrual entries. Phase 2) Gather supporting documentation for accrual entries and book journal entries; work closely with project managers to create a percentage of completion estimates for ongoing projects; create a process for the cost accumulation and overhead distribution to the WIP. Phase 3) Prepare financial statements and supporting footnotes for audit; assist the auditors in the audit. Clients Return on Investment: Our client did not have the bandwidth to analyze and restate their financials as their bankers, investors, and others had requested. Our consultants quickly scoped the project, identified the resources needed and executed the assignment with minimal disruption to the accounting team. The consultant also implemented a tool for capturing cost by the project and to allocate overhead.

  • Solutions for Transport-Challenged Populations

    Division Professional Division, Zycron February 7, 2020 Project Scenario: In collaboration with the City of Memphis, in March the University of Memphis submitted a proposal for the development of an AV demo that will take automation from sensory data-driven decisions to infrastructure-assisted autonomous driving. Vehicles acquire and transmit vehicular and pedestrian information beyond sensor range, enhancing collision avoidance and route adjustment. By leveraging existing routes and pathways, service capacity for transport-challenged elder and disabled communities expands while data transmission enhances infrastructural capability. Project Outcome: The goal is to enhance the safety of small, low-cost autonomous vehicles to boost mobility of transportation-challenged citizens such as the elderly and disabled. Enables their continued participation in their communities, Reduces their dependence on family or society, Helps them overcome daily life difficulties in reaching important destinations, such as medical appointments.

  • National Fire Operations Reporting System Improvements

    Division Professional Division, Zycron February 7, 2020 Project Scenario: Implementation of an Analytical Reporting System to improve City of Memphis Fire’s ability to assess the impact of response availability, capability, and effectiveness on the outcome of emergency events and improve firefighter and civilian safety through consistent and quality data. Project Outcome: Increase visibility & Traceability: Accurate and real-time information Assure adequate Fire response Assure safe, efficient, effective on-scene operations Minimizes occurrences: Firefighter injury/death Civilian injury/death Property loss Optimize fire operations

  • Reducing Audit Fees

    Division Donovan & Watkins, Professional Division February 7, 2020 Business Scenario: Our client had implemented FAS123, Shared Based Payments, at the instance of their CPA Firm. Our client did not have the technical ability or the accounting resources to prepare the footnote analysis for the second year, nor had they maintained the HR records in a manner amenable to audit. Project Scope: Our team of consultants worked directly with the client to develop a timeline for transitioning from Cash Basis Accounting to Accrual Basis. Phase 1) Updated HR Records. We created a schedule that showed options assignments, sales, and cancellation by each individual and then populated the schedule that would be auditable. Phase 2) Reviewed Black Scholes assumptions; review company valuation assumptions – FAS 123 recommends the use of various option pricing tools to ensure the liability and expense is fairly stated. Our client had chosen a simple Black Scholes model upon investigation, had misestimated variability in the year prior relative to industry comparable and had external validation of the value of the company which feeds into the option liability and expense valuation. We estimated the amount of the prior year misstatement and worked with the accounting firm to avoid restatement. Phase 3) Prepare current year disclosures and prepare FAS 123 “How To” documentation. Worked with the client and the auditors to reduce audit time and cost and prepared tutorials on how to use the FAS 123R spreadsheet tool to generate accounting disclosures. Clients Return on Investment: The client did not have the knowledge or time to create FAS123 schedules. We were able to provide the work in less than 100 hours. Prior year audit cost for FAS 123 ran about $11,000 and current audit fees were reduced for the FAS 123 to $2,000. In addition, the client received a working methodology to keep FAS123R support current and a methodology to generate footnote disclosures.

  • Building Rich Interior Hazard Maps for First Responders

    Division Professional Division, Zycron February 7, 2020 Project Scenario: In collaboration with the University of Memphis, 3D scanning is complete for seven facilities including the National Civil Rights Museum, Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, and the Liberty Bowl Stadium. The resulting point cloud data has been processed to create geocoded 360-degree smart maps showing building interiors with objects of interest such as exits, stairways, and water connections clearly identified. A GIS app is under development as well, and a First Responders feedback session is scheduled for July 16 to gather suggestions for improving the maps and using them to navigate the facilities in emergency situations. Project Outcome: Enhances safety of First Responders and building occupants during emergency situations.Improves First Responder ability to navigate facilities and locate critical interior features such as exits, stairways, and so on.

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