Automating Cash Forecasting for Treasury
How a global manufacturer replaced a manual, Excel-based process with a near real-time, automated forecasting solution built on SAP Analytics Cloud.
- SAP Analytics Cloud
- Treasury
- Cash Forecasting
- S/4HANA
- AR/AP Integration
- Financial Planning
- Cash Flow Planning
Client Overview
CloudScouts partnered with a US-headquartered precision instrument manufacturer with a global footprint spanning more than 100 locations, over 10,000 employees, and annual revenue in excess of $3 billion.
The engagement was part of a broader finance transformation programme that included a migration from SAP ECC to S/4HANA.
Customer
Global Precision Instrument Manufacturer
Industry
Manufacturing
Location
HQ in US with 100+ locations globally
Organization Size
Large Enterprise / 10,000+ Employees
Annual Revenue$3B+
Employees10,000+
Location100+
Users170
Data Refresh8 hrs
The Challenge
Treasury's cash forecasting process relied on a patchwork of Excel models that was highly manual and timeconsuming to maintain. Analysts manually extracted data from ECC to feed the model, then aggregated multiple Excel workbooks by hand to build the consolidated cash position and an 8-week planning horizon.
The client had previously explored SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) as a potential solution with its legacy consulting provider, who spent roughly a year investigating the requirement without delivering a working solution.
Having already resolved the client's underlying SAC infrastructure challenges on a separate engagement, CloudScouts was asked to determine whether it could succeed where the previous consulting provider had not.
The CloudScouts Approach
CloudScouts began with a prototyping phase to demonstrate a viable SAC-based approach. On the strength of that prototype, CloudScouts was awarded the full engagement covering design, build and global rollout to 170 users worldwide.
Because the user population was largely unfamiliar with SAC, hands-on training and support were critical to adoption. CloudScouts provided intensive support through UAT, hypercare and beyond hypercare, adapting continuously as the user population evolved after go-live.
Solution Capabilities
The capabilities delivered as part of the solution created a centralized, automated and near real-time cash forecasting environment.
The Outcome
The solution dramatically reduced the manual workload of the legacy process and materially improved forecast accuracy and timeliness, thanks to near real-time links into the underlying S/4HANA transaction data.
More timely, more accurate forecasts have allowed the organisation to deploy its cash more effectively and have freed significant time for Treasury and planning teams to focus on insight, analysis and business partnering rather than data assembly and manual data processing.
The solution has now been in production for more than two and a half years, and the Treasury and planning teams remain enthusiastic about the highly automated approach and its overall effectiveness.
“We were really pleased with the solution delivered for Treasury planning. It dramatically reduced the manual workload associated with the legacy solution and made for more accurate treasury forecasts due to the near real-time links to the underlying S/4HANA transaction systems.”
Ongoing Relationship
The success of the Treasury project, combined with CloudScouts' earlier work resolving the client's SAC infrastructure and performance issues, led the client to appoint CloudScouts as its global Application Management Services (AMS) partner for SAC.
CloudScouts was subsequently entrusted with AMS for the client's broader SAP analytics estate, including legacy SAP BPC (used for consolidation and management reporting), as well as legacy SAP BW and SAP Datasphere.