Case Study

A3 Simplifies Consolidation & Balance Sheet Reporting for ACS

When a Fortune 500 IT services firm found it impossible to handle budget sheet reporting and consolidations in Excel, they turned to A3 Modeling.

ACS, a Xerox Company

Affiliated Computer Services (ACS for short) offered outsourced IT and professional services to the largest companies worldwide until it was acquired by Xerox.

Employing over 74,000 people on 6 continents, ACS was a Fortune 500 company in its own right before being purchased by Xerox for $6.4 billion in 2010. With the acquisition came transition and new reporting and forecasting requirements. These requirements quickly became a source of pain and frustration and ACS tried to find a solution to meet them.

Before A3 Modeling

The main issue was new reporting requirements for fixed asset and balance sheet activity. With tens of thousands of transactions each month and a seemingly endless asset list of property, plants, and equipment, ACS struggled with new rules dictating that all balance sheet activity be categorized and reported monthly. After attempting to plug in at least three other brand name solutions, the team had nearly concluded the task to be impossible. It was simply too complicated for traditional statutory consolidation packages and there were simply too many line items for a human to track down every transaction individually and categorize by hand.

After A3 Modeling

Exhausted and still without a solution, ACS turned to A3 Modeling. After a quick prototype, A3 Modeling was able to automatically categorize each of the thousands of transactions and code every one against related fixed assets. The problem was, at long last, solved. The solution also allows for managerial review and overrides, and produces the required corporate reporting… all at the push of a button. It’s all automatic and now each penny is explainable as fixed asset value fluctuates.

For ACS, A3 Modeling not only made this task easy, A3 made it possible.