|
Recent Client Assignments
We have worked with numerous top tier insurance
and financial services companies to improve their back-office
operations, including Prudential, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank,
Thomas Cook, and Dow Jones. Following are a few examples of recent
projects:
Tax Payment
Systems The internal audit committee of a large financial
services corporation uncovered $30M that had not been reconciled
within the special asset and liability account of Tax Operations.
The audit committee questioned the accuracy of the entire ledger
and demanded rapid resolution. Princeton Consultants went on a
fact-finding mission and discovered the sources of the accounting
mismatch. Due to system deficiencies, incomplete processes, and
amended Federal and State returns, information from the general
ledger had overstated the liability. The team solved these deficiencies
with best practice process improvements and system tools.
BENEFIT: Most of the $30M balance was
cleared while the new process provided support for reclaiming
$10M in unrealized refunds due to overpayments.
Payroll Processing
An internal audit at a Fortune 50 life insurance
company revealed that Accounting Services was performing at an
unacceptable level. Broken feeds between systems, process gaps
and inconsistencies, and the lack of metrics-tracking resulted
in over one hundred improperly calculated paychecks each week
requiring re-processing. Through interviews with management, Princeton
Consultants uncovered the specific procedures that were responsible
for the errors. To resolve the issue, the team re-engineered the
necessary processes and eliminated manual data entry where possible.
The number of overpayments was reduced, and a process was put
into place, which enabled the effective recapture of inaccurate
paychecks.
BENEFIT: With the new streamlined process,
the Operations VP was able to immediately re-deploy 50% of the
20 payroll processors.
Workload Distribution
The Tax Operations area of an insurance company faced a workload
distribution issue - approximately half of the staff required
overtime to complete normal operational functions, while the other
half was somewhat under-utilized. Princeton Consultants was engaged
to determine a more efficient means of completing existing tasks,
as well as to accurately plan and deploy resources for future
work. The project team performed a time and motion study and used
the results to develop models to predict work time and distribute
work more evenly among the staff.
BENEFIT: The new work model reduced overtime
expense while increasing employee satisfaction. In addition, management
gained the ability to track the status of work within the department.
Tax Operations
- Automating Entries Due to a large number of system
changes over a short period of time, distinct operational systems
within the Tax Operations department of a major financial services
company did not exchange information. As a result, the administrative
process relied heavily on manual data entry from processors, which
was inefficient and error prone. Princeton Consultants began by
studying the data structure of the disparate systems in order
to redesign this laborious process. The deliverable was a set
of tools that automated the data transfers, thereby eliminating
the need for manual intervention.
BENEFIT: The FTEs who had been fully dedicated
to inputting ledger entries were re-deployed. Cycle time improved
and the number of errors dramatically decreased.
|
