- Case study
Superior housekeeping on record to report
How a global hotel chain took a fresh approach to daily income journal reconciliation
Who we worked with
A household-name in hotels with resorts, and vacation properties around the world.
What the company needed
The record-to-report team spent too much effort on daily income journal (IJ) reconciliation. Processes were manual and employees didn’t have much time to resolve variances or do any analysis. This led to delays, inefficiencies, and the potential for revenue loss.
How we helped
We brought in robotic process automation, powered by Genpact Cora, to transform the daily IJ reconciliation process.
What the company got
- Improved the productivity of the daily IJ reconciliation process by 20% in less than six months
- 100% accuracy when processing reconciliations
- Ability to resolve revenue audit queries faster
- A complete audit trail of revenue numbers, plus more timely reconciliation and greater control over revenue reporting
A leading hospitality company wanted to address its errorprone, inefficient manual process for IJ reconciliations with a technology fix. We worked with the company to bring in robotic process automation to IJ reconciliations. That eliminated delays, allowing the team to process reconciliations 20% faster—with 100% accuracy.
Challenge
Automate to eliminate delays and errors
Delays and errors riddled the IJ reconciliations process at a global hospitality firm. Because it relied on manual processing, the finance team wasn’t making the best use of its resources.
In particular, the finance team was having a hard time coping with deadline pressures and meeting customer service expectations. Because it was manually updating revenue numbers using Excel, it struggled to meet reconciliation submission timelines across multiple time zones. And it didn’t have the time it needed to identify root causes when it found variances in IJ reconciliation, to resolve open items, or to add value to the business with insights.
It was clear that the company had to reimagine its end-to-end daily revenue reconciliation process, automate manual steps, enhance controllership, and improve efficiency.
Solution
Design thinking, domain knowledge, and Genpact Cora
To address the challenges, Genpact used its Lean DigitalSM approach, which combines design thinking and Lean principles, digital technologies, and domain knowledge. We assessed the back-office environment, mapped manual steps, and identified which processes to automate.
We introduced robotic process automation (RPA), powered by Genpact Cora, an AI-based platform that accelerates digital transformation, to the IJ reconciliation process and automated rule-based activities.
For consistency, we also brought in standard templates for daily IJ reconciliation across all finance operations. This involved aligning finance teams through a reporting center of excellence, which also allowed teams to share ideas and best practices.
Going forward, the company is looking at how a workflow tool can automate the way that it identifies and resolves exceptions when reconciling income journals.
The Impact
An agile, efficient finance team adding more value to the company
By introducing RPA to its processes, the hospitality company is transforming how it manages daily income reconciliation across all its hotels. In less than six months the company has:
- Delivered 100% accuracy as it processes daily IJ reconciliations and exceptions
- Reduced the risk of incorrect revenue recognition
- Increased the productivity of its finance teams by 20%, which gives them more time to review, provide feedback, and resolve open items
- Helped the finance team make faster, more informed decisions and operate with greater agility
- Improved governance and tracking to complete reconciliations on time
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