Industry Leader Modernizes Financial Management to Save Time, Improve Visibility, and Accelerate Decision-Making
When Phil Groves worked as a public accounting auditor, industrial mat and flooring manufacturer, Wearwell was a client. Groves came to respect both the company and its management team. The strength of those contacts was made evident several years later when Wearwell was in search of a new Director of Finance and Accounting and approached Groves to consider the position. He shared, "It was a good time for me to make a change, and it was nice to come to a company that I was already familiar with and had established relationships."
Early on in his tenure, Groves identified a need for a new financial system to transition from a time-intensive, manual Excel-based process. "At the top of my priorities was adopting a comprehensive solution that could up-level our accounting processes to serve the business with real-time intelligence better," Groves recalled. "It was clear that we had hit the ceiling with reporting capabilities and needed greater functionality for budgeting and analysis."
Because Wearwell was an Epicor Kinetic customer, Groves attended the annual Epicor Insights conference. While there, he watched a presentation about Epicor Financial Planning & Analysis (Epicor FP&A) and happily realized that he had found the solution.
Founded in 1950, Wearwell was a green company before sustainability became popular by converting old tires into high-quality industrial mats for standing workers. With innovation in its DNA, Wearwell delivered many “firsts” to support the health and welfare of industrial employees. Today, it is the number one brand in ergonomic flooring and anti-fatigue mats.
In his role, Groves oversees all accounting functions and financial reporting for Wearwell’s U.S. and U.K. operations. Because of the European subsidiary, a vital capability needed was foreign currency conversion with U.S.-based financials to consolidate reporting, which used to require manual Excel manipulation.
Groves explained, “That required a lot of time and unfortunately created a window to introduce inaccuracies. Now, with Epicor FP&A, everything is automated. We were able to build business rules that have consolidated and streamlined the process, which has freed up a tremendous amount of operational time for my team and dramatically increased data accuracy.”
He continued, “Our monthly close effort dwindled from a day and a half to just a few minutes with the push of a single button.”
With that liberated time, Groves tackled other priorities, such as new customer set-up documentation. "The extra time allowed us to close the gap on potential exposures such as resale tax exemptions for our distributors. If that isn’t set up correctly, we could incur penalties from the IRS. Epicor FP&A gave us the time and ability to solidify those critical areas,” Groves revealed.
Moreover, Epicor FP&A has delivered unprecedented visibility to the logic behind the conversion and consolidation work. Groves said, "During audits, we can easily present financial statements and supporting data and have a much higher degree of confidence in the numbers we report." One of the features that Groves appreciates is the level of granularity Wearwell can access, based on different dimensions of the business, such as revenue by customer or expenses by the supplier.
He added, "This allows us to pinpoint which type of customers are most profitable, so we can foster those relationships to generate not only more revenue but more profitable revenue. That sort of parsing of information wasn’t even a consideration before Epicor."
One of the most significant benefits to the business has been the ease and speed of sharing tailored financial data. Groves elaborated, "Epicor FP&A allows us to customize views and present information in a format that makes sense to each audience. When we have conversations, it's clear where that data is coming from and how it supports the business."
Democratizing access to financial data has caused the Wearwell team to challenge traditional thought processes and evaluate programs to assess if the desired impact is being achieved.
One example Groves shared: “The marketing and sales teams enter into rebate contracts with customers, such as a 2% discount on sales over a certain dollar threshold. But the effective impact of the discount on gross profit was nebulous.”
“Being able to reorganize and present data in a streamlined way and illustrate how a discount impacts the profitability for that customer has provided new clarity on those rebates,” Groves said.
The Wearwell budgeting function has experienced a significant overhaul in terms of process as well as a broader, more meaningful degree of participation.
With static, flat data, we used to budget at a very high level because it was simply too difficult to go deeper. Epicor FP&A gives us an unmatched depth to budgeting. Now, it’s easy to drill down and see exactly where a number came from. That gives management greater faith in the process.
Groves noted, “With static, flat data, we used to budget at a very high level because it was simply too difficult to go deeper. Epicor FP&A gives us an unmatched depth to budgeting. Now, it’s easy to drill down and see exactly where a number came from. That gives management greater faith in the process.”
The new insights have also facilitated a deeper level of financial conversation within more levels of the company. "With only summary budgeting, only senior management could review the numbers," Groves remarked. "Now, we can show the budget by each division and department, enabling managers to consider what they can do to affect those figures."
This shift has also improved preparation for the next crop of executive management by providing visibility to financial data and encouraging participation in questions around topics such as cost-saving opportunities and alternatives.
Aside from the outstanding functionality of the software, I’ve been particularly impressed with Epicor support. The response times and how they explain solutions have been excellent and help us learn how to use the solution more efficiently and effectively.
“Aside from the outstanding functionality of the software, I’ve been particularly impressed with Epicor support,” Groves emphasized. “The response times and how they explain solutions have been excellent and help us learn how to use the solution more efficiently and effectively."
Those attributes have given Groves the confidence to take on new projects, such as automating AP processing and utilizing statistical categories to analyze non-financial data, including a number of shipments or calculations based on square footage.
Groves concluded, “The capabilities that Epicor FP&A have delivered have been eye-opening for my team; it continues to enable improvements and earn high praise.”
