How do you build a business case for an accounting or SSC request system?

The business case is built on how much the company already spends on handling requests to accounting and the shared services center (SSC) manually, and what share of those hours a system will take over. Calculate conservatively, using active time, and validate the numbers with a pilot in one area: the decision on all of accounting or the whole SSC is made based on its results.

Losses first, the system second

What convinces a CFO is the cost of the current process. Calculate it in hours, then in money using the hourly cost:

• the number of requests by type;
• active time per request;
• clarifications and repeat requests;
• sorting the shared inbox.

How to collect this data, with an example calculation, is covered in the answer "How do you calculate the request workload of accounting or a shared services center?".

Next to the hours, list the cost of errors that today only an accountant's memory catches: a reconciliation statement not requested in January means a corrected tax filing in April. They don't fit into the formula, but the CFO will recognize them.

"The impact only exists on paper"

A methodology that can be checked removes this doubt:

• Active time, not elapsed time. A system doesn't directly shorten waiting in a queue or approvals, so the calculation only includes the time an employee actually works on a request.
• Count the effects one after another. Some requests move to self-service, the remaining ones are handled faster, and part of the routine moves to automation. Each effect is calculated on what is left after the previous one, so the same hours are not counted twice.
• Leave out the downtime of employees waiting for an answer. It is hard to estimate honestly, and without it the calculation stays a conservative minimum.

"Nobody will be laid off, so where's the money?"

Freed-up hours are work you don't have enough people for today: a new legal entity or a new service without a proportional increase in headcount. Requests through the portal give the manager numbers for each area and each assignee, and they justify headcount needs with those numbers rather than a sense of workload.

This is what happened at ITG Corporation: after moving its internal services to the SimpleOne platform, headcount grew by only 2% while the workload increased significantly.

"What if it doesn't work?"

Propose a pilot in one area: the one with the most requests or the most clarifications. A single process can also be a pilot, for example account reconciliation statements with vendors and customers.

Agree in advance on the numbers that will decide whether to go further, for example:

• the share of requests coming through the portal;
• due date compliance;
• assignee workload and active time per request before and after.

Which criteria to choose is covered in the section "How not to take a personal risk: a pilot with criteria" of the answer "What can go wrong when you bring accounting and facilities onto your ITSM tool?", and how to measure "before" and "after" in the answer "How do you measure the business impact of an ITSM implementation?".

The final project cost is calculated by an implementation partner based on your specific requirements. Include the total cost of ownership over several years in the business case, not just the license price.

How it works in SimpleOne ESM

SimpleOne ESM is a set of SimpleOne platform tools for managing internal services. The manager sees pilot metrics in traffic light scorecards, and after the pilot the next areas and departments are connected to the same portal.

In the business case, also name the departments that will join after the pilot: at ITG Corporation, the platform grew from IT to accounting and facilities, then procurement and marketing. How this works for a shared services center is on the SSC automation page.