Celigo Case Studies Automating Cash Applications: A Case Study on Frontline Education

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	Automating Cash Applications: A Case Study on Frontline Education Celigo

Automating Cash Applications: A Case Study on Frontline Education

Celigo

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
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. Read More
About 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. Read More
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. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

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

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 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.

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.

Impact #1	The implementation of Celigo’s Cash Application Manager has not only improved efficiency and accuracy in Frontline Education's cash application process, but it has also increased overall job satisfaction within the finance department. With the automation of the majority of the cash applications, the staff accountants have been able to engage with more interesting projects, rather than spending their time with manual data entry. Furthermore, despite being non-technical, Amanda’s team is able to maintain their own integrations, thanks to the quick turnaround and guided support from Celigo’s customer success team. This has made troubleshooting and maintenance simple endeavors, further enhancing the operational efficiency of the team.

Impact #1

The implementation of Celigo’s Cash Application Manager has not only improved efficiency and accuracy in Frontline Education's cash application process, but it has also increased overall job satisfaction within the finance department. With the automation of the majority of the cash applications, the staff accountants have been able to engage with more interesting projects, rather than spending their time with manual data entry. Furthermore, despite being non-technical, Amanda’s team is able to maintain their own integrations, thanks to the quick turnaround and guided support from Celigo’s customer success team. This has made troubleshooting and maintenance simple endeavors, further enhancing the operational efficiency of the team.

Benefit #1	Reduced the time required for cash applications and bank reconciliations from a full day to just two hours per day.
Benefit #2	Automated two-thirds of the cash applications, reducing the need for manual checks.
Benefit #3	Significantly reduced errors by eliminating the use of spreadsheets for cash applications.

Benefit #1

Reduced the time required for cash applications and bank reconciliations from a full day to just two hours per day.

Benefit #2

Automated two-thirds of the cash applications, reducing the need for manual checks.

Benefit #3

Significantly reduced errors by eliminating the use of spreadsheets for cash applications.

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Overview

Automating Cash Applications: A Case Study on Frontline Education

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit