Each month-end close, Matt Guth and his accounting team at Citizens and Farmers Bank (C&F Bank) found themselves buried trying to complete over 400 manual account reconciliations. Not only was this part of the close process extremely time consuming for the team, it also required a substantial amount of paper documentation at a time when most organizations were looking to go paperless. Matt and his team knew they needed a better close solution that would reduce their time spent on reconciliations and eliminate the substantial paper documentation.  

The C&F team was seeking cost effective software that offered flexibility for their close processes.  After exploring some of the month-end close options on the market, the C&F Team concluded that SkyStem’s ART was the best solution for their needs. Matt and his team were thrilled when they discovered ART offers organizations an “Audit Management” feature which enables auditors to directly access account reconciliations during their audit procedures. This feature alone saves the C&F team and their external auditors a significant amount of time by eliminating the back and forth communication when an account reconciliation is requested by the audit team. 

Since the C&F Team was so accustomed to a manual and paper-intensive close process, it took some time to get familiar with the new account reconciliation process using ART. Everyone was so excited to transition to a more digital and automated process that they tried to change too many things at once. Matt emphasized that all changes under ART have brought value to the team, but it's good to take things one step at a time to avoid too many growing pains.  

After implementing ART, the C&F Team noted a 2022 process improvement of over 90% using the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) metrics. If your organization is still using manual processes or paper documentation for your close process - it’s time to give ART a try! 

You can review the webinar with Nancy Wu and Matt Guth on the C&F Team’s journey from manual reconciliations to automation here

We also invite you to learn more about SkyStem and schedule a free private demo here to see if ART would be a good fit for your organization.