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Centage > Case Studies > Streamlined Budgeting and Reporting Provides Greater Operational Efficiency

Streamlined Budgeting and Reporting Provides Greater Operational Efficiency

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)

Applicable Industries

Marine & Shipping

Services

System Integration

The Challenge

Arawak Port Development (APD) is a critical enterprise for The Bahamian Government and its citizens, with all international ocean freight passing over their bulkhead at Nassau Container Port. After going public in 2012, APD needed to start producing a range of financial statements that would satisfy the quarterly and annual filing requirements of the Securities Commission of The Bahamas, provide sufficient information to external auditors, and enable the APD Board of Directors to better manage the growth of the organization. APD's CFO, Dion Bethell, also wanted to increase the level of detail in his planning, while concurrently weaning the management team away from budgeting for items that had a low likelihood of occurring. Because APD is a critical economic hub for the country of The Bahamas, there was no room for error.

About The Customer

Located in the beautiful Bahamas, Arawak Port Development (APD) was created in 2009 to allow downtown Nassau to shine by moving the commercial shipping companies a few miles to Arawak Cay. Along with the move, APD took the opportunity to streamline both shipment and customs processing operations and has since been named the most productive port among 24 in the region by the Florida Shipowners Group, for auditors, and enable the APD Board of Directors to better manage the growth of the organization. APD is a critical enterprise for The Bahamian Government and its citizens, with all ocean freight passing over their bulkhead at the Nassau Container Port (NCP). In 2012, APD joined The Bahamas International Securities Exchange in a public-private partnership with the Government of The Bahamas in an IPO that raised $10M Bahamian Dollars (the U.S. Dollar and Bahamian Dollar are equivalent), and offered an unprecedented 20% of its shares exclusively to Bahamian citizens.

The Solution

The software installer for APD’s Sage ERP system recommended that Bethell take a look at Centage and its robust reporting and analytics capabilities to address his budgeting and financial reporting needs. After careful consideration, Bethell found that Centage’s solution would allow him the degree of oversight that APD now required, while also saving his team time and effort. Bethell loaded the current year’s budget into the solution in a dry-run to ensure they’d be able to close the books efficiently by their fiscal year-end. APD was essentially a start-up, and Bethell was able to easily load all of the prior years’ actuals with no loss of data. Centage’s driver-led budgeting is a critical element in creating an actionable budget that can be managed at a very detailed level.

Operational Impact

The solution gave Bethell the components he needed to create a sound, realistic budget.
Its ability to easily update variables and to complete what-if analyses were also substantial improvements over what was done in the past.
Publishing financial statements is no longer a chore.

Quantitative Benefit

Financial statements are due within 45 days of each quarter-end and within 90 days of year-end.
Instead of providing a mere two to three days for their auditors to review the financial statements and respond to them before publication, Bethel now completes the full range of statements, including the management discussion and analysis, within 30 days.
This enables his team to research and double-check data and ratios, while still giving the auditors a full two weeks for their review.