TMS steel mill services aligned for the future
25%
More efficient financial processes now require approximately 25% fewer hours for financial close.
12
The data storage allows TMS to keep 12 years of archived data, including journals and calculated accounts.
30
The new system’s flexible implementation includes more than 30 workflow profiles.
At a glance
Client
TMS International
Industry
Manufacturing
Our role
Implement a OneStream platform
Our solution
Flexibility to tailor and adapt
Efficiency with flexibility
Scenario
TMS needed to update its financial consolidation and reporting, moving to a OneStream platform.
Approach
Grant Thornton implemented a platform model that delivers for today and adapts for tomorrow.
Result
TMS saves time — and is positioned to integrate new systems and add new capabilities.
Scenario
A vision for new capabilities
Many manufacturers are undergoing a fundamental change, expanding their capabilities to new services, products and technologies.
TMS International has served clients for 90 years, and today it is the world’s leading provider of on-site industrial steel mill services. Its people, services, technology and equipment are embedded with clients in 17 countries and connected to a global network of raw materials. TMS empowers steel mills around the world 24 hours a day.
TMS needed to update its financial consolidation and reporting system. While its functionality was adequate for today, it lacked adaptability. However, the company also needed to minimize the impact that any transition would have on current users and daily operations. It could not afford an abrupt change to an unfamiliar interface and sought an implementation partner to help ensure the financial close processes in the new tool would succeed — while also taking advantage of the tool’s new capabilities.
TMS was attracted to OneStream as a solution provider, based on the product’s reputation and its intuitive features and functionality. Plus, TMS saw that OneStream could expand to budgeting, forecasting and even predictive modeling for site and machine maintenance. The company wanted a roadmap to these new capabilities.
Approach
A platform for growth
OneStream offers more than just a tool — it is a platform for future capabilities — but TMS needed a partner to help ensure a smooth transition.
The Grant Thornton OneStream practice was able to quickly present TMS with a look and feel for a new interface, iterating changes based on feedback during the design and early build phases.
The OneStream practice and Grant Thornton Technology Modernization service tailored a team to collaborate with TMS, helping to ensure understanding and efficiency. The team fit well with the client’s culture, helping it to find synergies and work closely for success. The Grant Thornton team ensured that the client’s solution owners gained a sense of ownership early on.
The Grant Thornton team also worked behind the scenes to enable the transition and ensure that the new platform would have all the data and functionality the TMS team needed — even when that meant reworking data. As a long-established global company, TMS had a massive archive of data to transition. That process can be complex and time-consuming for these implementations, especially if companies want to ensure the data is ready to fuel advanced insight on the new platform. After the team moved over core metadata, it refined the data to match the company’s current business model and the platform’s new capabilities.
The Grant Thornton team delivered three primary functions:
- Discovery: Scoped the project, aligned the chart of accounts and defined a detailed implementation plan with a timeline and dependencies
- Implementation: Implemented the TMS Consolidations solution, including:
- Developed process standards based on best practices to ensure OneStream replaced legacy processes, including an application design to support the detailed chart of accounts and accounting
- Created more than 30 workflow profiles
- Established an automated load solution for the close process, using a distributed batch harvesting process that certifies and loads operating unit trial balance data with confirmation rules to allow easy visibility to data quality controls
- Archival: Developed a means for TMS to store 12 years of archived data, including journals and calculated accounts
Now, the company is positioned to grow, with flexibility in the platform and the ability to drill down and interrogate data in a more intuitive way.
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Result
Success across five parameters
Now, TMS has a platform that empowers greater efficiency and results in financial analysis. Users can complete financial processes with less manual effort and have more autonomy over their reporting. The improved ad hoc reporting capabilities even extend to executives, who can use the intuitive OneStream interface to yield insights on demand.
The solution’s ad hoc reporting was well received, while TMS executives said the biggest win was the guided reporting that Grant Thornton configured. The new OneStream platform is now delivering ROI across the five parameters of cost, time, accuracy, insights and flexibility:
- Cost: The team’s quick and collaborative implementation meant that TMS was able to terminate their former system’s licenses earlier than anticipated.
- Time: More efficient financial processes require approximately 25% fewer hours for financial close.
- Accuracy: Refined metadata, validated processes, additional controls and better reporting yield a more trustworthy close process, improving accuracy.
- Insight: New capabilities to drill into and uncover underlying details provide a more powerful and intuitive process to uncover data quality issues, enhancing insights.
- Flexibility: The unified platform moved financial consolidation out of an on-premise solution, allowing cloud storage and computational solutions that provide a foundation for expanding into other business processes, onboarding acquisitions and adapting to other future changes.
TMS now has better insight, efficiency and scalability. As the company begins to implement a new ERP solution, its OneStream implementation is ready to integrate. The flexibility in the Grant Thornton solution model, with guidance that has helped TMS streamline its ERP implementation.
Now, data is better aligned to an updated entity hierarchy for tax and treasury functions, too. The company can even use the platform to empower new asset management capabilities, planning for equipment usage, maintenance, retirement and more.
TMS can even develop more powerful enterprise planning, with a second phase of the project that develops OneStream budgeting and forecasting capabilities. After a smooth transition to its new financial analysis platform, TMS is aligned for future needs, growth and capabilities.
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Content disclaimer
This Grant Thornton Advisors LLC content provides information and comments on current issues and developments. It is not a comprehensive analysis of the subject matter covered. It is not, and should not be construed as, accounting, legal, tax, or professional advice provided by Grant Thornton Advisors LLC. All relevant facts and circumstances, including the pertinent authoritative literature, need to be considered to arrive at conclusions that comply with matters addressed in this content.
Grant Thornton Advisors LLC and its subsidiary entities are not licensed CPA firms.
For additional information on topics covered in this content, contact a Grant Thornton Advisors LLC professional.
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