Executive Summary
The key project goals were:
- To increase efficiency of daily and month-end accounting transactions.
- To reduce time spent on manual data entry.
- To cover financial analysis needs, by providing income, expenses and profit data per business unit and other financial dimensions.
- To improve assets management workflow.
- To ensure accurate data across all systems (Microsoft Dynamics NAV is not a single platform used in the bank).
- To fulfill external reporting needs: iSAF, VAT, Individual income and other.
- To go-live on already working platform: Columbus IFRS16 solution (on the same Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform) was implemented ~ 1 year before main project of financial accounting implementation.
Columbus and Šiaulių Bankas are successfully cooperating in IT projects for more than 6 years, and thus Columbus has gained reliable partner’s name.
Columbus has a strong background of financial management implementation for financial institutions using standard Microsoft Dynamics NAV functionalities and additional Columbus developed solutions.
Acquired Solution
Implemented Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution (now called D365BC) covers:
- Chart of account setup and mapping for integration with other banking systems.
- Multiple dimensions setup for accurate income and expenses calculation per business unit.
- Bank accounts and SEPA payments.
- Contacts (vendors, customers) cards creation based on templates.
- Multi-currency transaction handling: automatic currency rates import, currency usage in daily transactions, open currency positions revaluation at the end of the period.
- Fixed and low value asset workflow management, including integration with other banking system, starting from asset purchase, it’s tying with responsible employee, and up to its write-off.
- Future expenses and future income management.
- Purchase invoices handling, using manual data entrance and detailed information import from excel.
- Sales invoices handling, including multilanguage printouts and periodical invoices creation using pre-set templates.
- Accounts payable and accounts receivable management.
- Inventory accounting and light manufacturing solution for bank cards (VISA, etc.) management.
- VAT accounting, including partial non-deductible VAT accounting (“pro-rata”) and reporting to local VAT authorities.
- Expenses allocation to business units.
- Responsible employees accounting.
- Integration with core banking system.
- Integration with data warehouse system.
- Integration with asset management system.
- Integration with fuel accounting system.
- Standard reporting setup.
Project results
- Standard Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution, supplemented with Columbus IFRS16, Non-deductible VAT accounting solution, multiple integrations and list of smaller improvements is fully covering Šiaulių Bankas accounting needs.
- Implementation of new ERP system forced to review, purify, and improve existing as-is processes in accounting and related departments.
- Implemented solution increased human work efficiency in accounting department.
- Friendly and configurable user interface ensured fast comprehension on the new system and smooth go live.
- Flexible ERP technical infrastructure allows to expand primary implemented solution to correspond changing environment, technological progress, and growing business needs.
Aušra Kovalčik, Director of Accounting Department & Toma Jankauskienė, Project Manager of Accounting Department feedback
Challenges: The Bank’s internal accounting operations were performed in the same system as the banking operations, which was not sufficiently suitable to this kind of accounting.
Therefore, it was decided to acquire another ERP/finance accounting system for internal accounting operations.
Results after the implementation: After the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, the Bank's internal accounting and banking operations were separated.
The new system allowed us to see and track the relationships between various operations, their source documents and specific customers and suppliers, - this was not possible in the previously used system.
About cooperation with Columbus: The Columbus team was professional and very involved throughout the project.
During the implementation phase, we all pursued a common goal, the work was very intensive and professional, and we all together succeeded in finding individual solutions that were very necessary for the Bank.
Recommendation: We would recommend the Columbus Lithuania team as a reliable business partner.
In case of any issues/challenges, the response is always prompt and professional, and solutions are offered as to how these can be solved.
