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Automating Cash Applications: A Case Study on Frontline Education
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Event-Driven Application
Applicable Industries
- Education
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Maintenance
- Product Research & Development
Use Cases
- Personnel Tracking & Monitoring
- Time Sensitive Networking
Services
- Training
The Challenge
Frontline Education, a SaaS provider for K-12 educational institutions, was facing a significant challenge in managing their cash applications. The process was manually performed by uploading payee information sent from the bank into Excel spreadsheets, and matching them to NetSuite accounts in another spreadsheet. This process was not only time-consuming, requiring a staff accountant's time over multiple days, but was also prone to errors. The situation was further complicated by the company's business model. As a SaaS company serving education institutions, invoices are renewed annually to coincide with the beginning of the school year. With over 12,000 customers, Frontline’s finance team was dealing with a massive transaction volume in a small amount of time. The manual cash applications through Excel spreadsheets were not keeping up with the pace, and expanding the team was not a feasible solution.
About The Customer
Frontline Education is a SaaS provider that develops software for K-12 educational institutions. Their school administration software features everything from recruiting, hiring, time tracking, absence management, professional development, special education and interventions to give school systems elevated insights into their students and staff. The company is headquartered in Malvern, PA, USA. Amanda Rompola, Sr. Accounting Manager, manages a modestly-sized team of staff accountants and senior accountants to handle AP/AR for Frontline Education. Most of the company’s IT resources are allocated to product development, with a very lean team dedicated to internal systems administration.
The Solution
To address this challenge, Frontline Education turned to Celigo, a company that Amanda Rompola, Sr. Accounting Manager at Frontline, had worked with in a previous role. Celigo’s Cash Application Manager to NetSuite was implemented to automate Frontline’s cash application process. The solution retrieves payment information from Frontline’s bank, and immediately matches it to customers in NetSuite. This automation significantly reduced the time and effort required to process invoices. Before adopting the Cash Application Manager, Frontline used to dedicate an entire staff accountant’s day to performing cash applications. Now, everything from cash applications to bank reconciliations only takes two hours per day. Additionally, the elimination of spreadsheets and the ability to more efficiently review outputs substantially cut down on errors.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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