AEI provides a platform for growth by owning, operating and developing energy infrastructure in emerging markets. AEI has assets in 20 countries and serve more than six million customers worldwide in power distribution, power generation, natural gas transportation and services, natural gas distribution and retail fuel.
Challenge
AEI achieved remarkable growth through numerous acquisitions. In 2008 alone, it acquired an interest in five major assets, adding more than 40 companies to its portfolio. Most of these companies had existing ledger systems in local currency and had to meet various statutory reporting requirements. As a result, the financial accounting group faced an increasingly complex reporting environment combined with immature internal financial controls.
To reach its goal of public listing and satisfy future regulatory reporting requirements, AEI needed to streamline the monthly and quarterly close cycle, and to be more nimble with corporate restructuring.
Solution Deployed
AEI selected Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management (FDM) as its consolidations platform and scalable, web-based infrastructure. Perficient was selected as the implementation partner for our proven track record in Hyperion EPM, technical expertise, and the ability to provide end-to-end training on the Oracle product suite.
Using FDM, local controllers and accountants map their GL accounts to the corporate chart, ensuring a consistent view of the businesses. Validation rules in FDM and HFM prohibit incorrect mappings, out-ofbalance ledgers, and provide other checks. The responsibility to resolve data issues lies with the local controller, and when all data is loaded they must electronically sign off on a series of SOX 302 and 404 attestations. The process is repeated by corporate accountants who manage adjusting ledgers.
HFM has allowed AEI to eliminate hundreds of consolidating spreadsheets. Intercompany activity is matched and eliminated by the system automatically, and discrepancies flow to a built-in report. Roll forwards, currency translations, minority interest calculation, and cash flow accounts are dynamically calculated in HFM according to rules defined by AEI.
Throughout the close cycle, system administrators and staff accountants have immediate access to the data. For each portfolio company, they can trace back to the source data using HFM, the SmartView plug-in for Excel, or web-based financial reports.
Business Value Delivered
- Global, streamlined process to capture, consolidate, view and report financial data
- Flexible and user-friendly interface to load GL data from any source system
- Consistent roll forward, cash flow and minority interest calculation process across the enterprise
- Robust controls and audit reports to monitor close process
- More nimble in managing future acquisitions
- Foundation for managing future transition to multi GAAP and IFRS reporting