Many of you attended our training session last July when Patrick Griffiths of Sirva took us through their use of policyIQ for account reconciliations – but Sirva isn’t the only organization realizing huge benefits by using policyIQ for tracking account reconciliations.

Trouble keeping track of the reconciliation process

I’d like to introduce you to Ralph Rhoads, Senior Specialist – Accounting, at Asarco, LLC in Tuscon, Arizona.  Asarco is one of the world’s leading producers of copper, and has been in the business of mining and copper production for over 100 years.  In early 2009, the team at Asarco came to us looking for a way to better manage their account reconciliation process.

With over 400 accounts that were reconciled on a monthly basis, and another 300 that are reconciled quarterly, the accounting managers at Asarco had their hands full trying to stay on top of the reconciliation process.  Were reconciliations being done on time?  Were they reviewed by the right individuals?  Was the documentation being stored appropriately?  With no automated way to keep track, these were not easy questions to answer.

Bring in policyIQ

After making the decision to implement policyIQ for Account Reconciliations, Ralph and the team at Asarco worked with the policyIQ team to create a template that captured the specific details that they wanted to be able to report on every month.  Those details are things like the account name and number, the total account balance, and the amount of any unreconciled balance.  The full detail of the account reconciliation is still captured in their Excel format, which is completed and attached to each reconciliation form.

After the initial setup, policyIQ was rolled out for a few months as a “pilot”.  Those individuals completing reconciliations tried out the new process and provided feedback.  The pilot resulted in a few changes to the template and the overall process – but was largely met with a positive responsive.  For those doing the reconciliations, it required little extra effort to enter the details into policyIQ – but it was easy to track what was complete, what was still to do, and what hadn’t been reviewed yet.

For the reconciliation reviewers, the oversight into what was completed and what was still outstanding gave them the tools they needed to keep on top of the process.

The auditors are given access to policyIQ, with the ability to drill into any month and view the complete reconciliations and all attached supporting documentation.  There is no longer any question about whether the right information is being retained – it’s all right there in one place.

We asked Mr. Rhoads if he could sum up the benefits that Asarco has realized since implementing policyIQ:

The use and implementation of policyIQ at Asarco cannot be readily measured in terms of cost savings or time savings, however, there is an obvious efficiency return, in terms of how the reconciliation process can be tracked and viewed by the system clients. The ability to create custom reports on the process, allows our managers and reconcilers to track the stages of completion, for their assigned reconciliations. Additionally, the auditors can view the reconciliations and track any uncompleted or overlooked accounts.

Interested in Account Reconciliation Success?

If you are interested in learning more about how policyIQ can be used for account reconciliations, check out your policyIQ online Help for more information.  The Solutions manual in the Help guide will point you to written materials, as well as the recorded training session that was presented in July.

And as always, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team if you have any questions or want some help to get started!