Client Profile

Customer Name: NOW Finance

Established: 2013

Employees: 100

Sector: Financial Services

NOW Finance is a leading, Australian-owned, non-bank lender providing simple, data-driven personal loans. Their business is based in Melbourne with offices in Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth, servicing customers across all states and territories in Australia. They believe in the power of no-fuss lending solutions, built on sophisticated data and AI capabilities with products designed to help people improve their lives and stay in control. 

NOW Finance offers flexible loans for customers looking to consolidate debt, improve their homes, go on holiday, finance a new car, and more. NOW Finance is a subsidiary of Wingate, a finance and investment house specializing in property, global equities, consumer finance, and private equity. 

Version 1 was engaged to implement Oracle NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (PBCS) levering the NSPB Framework to provide a solution for their Revenue & Expenses, Balance Sheet and Cash, Salary & Wages, Debt & Capital, Assets, and Financial Reporting. Data was seamlessly integrated from their Oracle NetSuite ERP solution with the standard NSPB adaptor. We used our NSPB implementation method and pre-built assets to accelerate the project, which was deployed in only 12 weeks. 

Version 1 worked closely with NOW Finance to review their existing complicated spreadsheet. They were using a spreadsheet-based model to: 

  • Input and run calculations (with 100s of calculations and dependencies) 
  • Drive Salary & Wages planning by position 
  • Amortise loans over the loan period 
  • Maintain the debts through their funding facilities 
  • Determine the asset’s lifecycle and tax forecasting 
  • Pull data from various above sub-models by GLs or BS lines 
  • Pull data from various above sub-models and derive the forecasting by GLs or P&L lines 

We guided the client through a process of identifying the key business requirements and capturing that information and logic in a new requirements template that was used as a reference point to validate the design and solution build. Through this process, we transformed and improved how NOW Finance would operate without the constraints of Excel driving the solution. 

We then approached the requirements with a multi-dimensional design and tree structure of dependency tracking. A separate cube for amortization schedules helped to achieve complex matrix-based calculations, and a standardized naming and order of measures for each module will make future maintenance and enhancements easy.

Challenge

  • Replacement of complex spreadsheet solution which could not be supported or changed due to key-person issues. 

Solution

Version 1 experts worked with NOW Finance to test the solutions early through showcasing and then hands-on testing, demonstrating the solution and comparing it to the requirements, to ensure the solution worked as expected.

Once this process was complete our Oracle-certified experts implemented the following:

  • Oracle Netsuite Planning and Budgeting with Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow financial framework
  • Cloud-to-cloud integration with Oracle NetSuite ERP
  • Built custom BSO cubes for: 
    • 5 Pillars (Number of Non-Financial measures drive the company’s financials)
    • Salary & Wages
    • Debt & Capital
    • Assets
    • Balance Sheet & Cash Flow
    • Revenue & Expenses
  • Numerous automated calculations
  • Bespoke, branded input forms, and reports 
  • Workflows and Task lists to manage the planning processes

The deployment was carefully planned, migrating all aspects of the solution and data while enabling the production integration.  

Post-validation testing was done to check the solution behaved in the same way as the test environment.

We support NOW Finance through our Managed Services Team, providing coverage if they have issues, questions, or require minor changes to the NetSuite Planning and Budgeting solution. 

Real Differences, Delivered

  • Streamlined and automated planning and budgeting business processes. 
  • Streamlined close processes with check-list based user task assignments. 
  • Cloud SAAS FP&A system with proper access control, audit trail, version control and what-if analysis capability. 
  • Fully driver-based financial planning with clear business logic. 
  • Single platform to access the actual, planned & budgeted information (both financial and non-financial) from a single source. 
  • Seamless integration with customer’s NetSuite ERP. 
  • Metadata management and data sourcing from a single source of truth. 
  • 100% automated forecasting for Income statements and Balance Sheets despite the complexity and dependencies of calculations. 
  • Automated data integration with source NetSuite ERP system to pull data into NetSuite Planning and Budgeting for Actuals reporting. 
  • Dynamic, real-time reporting with Excel Smart View functionality. 
  • Standardized data submission/reporting templates created via SmartView and saved as Data Forms for future proof.