Qubix | Case Study - NOW Finance

Now Finance switched from a complex, un-documented and un-manageable spreadsheet solution for budgeting, planning and reporting to NetSuite Planning and Budgeting.

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 that are 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.

Qubix 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 NetSuite ERP solution with the standard NSPB adaptor. We used our NSPB implementation method and pre-built assets to accelerate the project, deploying in just 12 weeks.

"Now Finance was looking for a future proof budgeting solution to grow with the business. Our brief was to move our complex and unmanageable Excel spreadsheet into the NetSuite Planning and Budgeting tool. The Qubix team took on our challenge and then some and helped to create for us bespoke amortisation calculations and a planning and budgeting tool which is fit for purpose with the ability to enhance and expand as the business grows and changes."

Anita Mina
Financial Controller

Qubix 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
amortize loans over the loan period
maintain the debts by their funding facilities
determine the assets 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 the way 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.

Qubix 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.

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.

"The project went off without a hitch. Weekly checkpoints and hard work by both teams in the build and planning phases meant for a smooth transition from Build to UAT and UAT to go live. Thanks again Qubix team all your efforts are very much appreciated."

Anita Mina
Financial Controller

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

Challenges

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

Solution

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

Results

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 Statement and Balance Sheet despite the complexity and dependencies of calculations.
Automated data integration with source NetSuite ERP system to pull data into NSPB 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.