# Presentation: 048619

## Financial Systems Standardization

- Financial Systems Seminar
- Leslie F. Sorensen, CMA, CPA
- Financial Systems Administrator
- Weyerhaeuser Company
- 12/3/98

## Weyerhaeuser Company	

-   Weyerhaeuser is an international forest products company whose principal businesses are the growing and harvesting of trees; the manufacture, distribution and sale of forest products; and real estate construction and development.
- 1997 Sales - $11.2 billion
- Employees - 35,800

## Weyerhaeuser Company	

- Weyerhaeuser is the world’s largest private owner of softwood timber and the world’s largest producer of softwood lumber and market pulp.
- It is also the top forest products exporter in the U.S. and among the top U.S. exporters overall.

## Weyerhaeuser Company	

-  Manufacturing Facilities
-  13 Pulp, Paper & Packaging
-  44 Corrugated Box
-  28 Recycling Centers
-  34 Lumber
-  10 Composite & Oriented Strand Board
- 49 Distribution Centers
- Timberlands ownership is the equivalent of 1 acre of every square mile in the U.S.

## History	

- Geographically based, culturally diverse organization structure
- Largely autonomous region offices
- Multiple financial systems - up to 20 years old
- Multiple charts of accounts, translated for consolidations reporting
- Organization structure changed to product line basis

## Why Standardize?	

- Forest Products FIT project recommendations
- Consolidate data centers
- Standardize Financial Applications
- General Ledger
- Accounts Payable
- Payroll
- Accounts Receivable & Fixed Assets were previously centralized

## Why Standardize?	

**Benefits**
- Better utilization of company resources (cost)
- Consistent data and conventions
- Common data definitions  Accounts/Vendors
- Common accounting conventions
- Common processing rules

## Why Standardize?	

**Cost**
- Manage & maintain one set of application systems
- Manage & maintain one mainframe computing facility
- Facilitate sharing of best practices
- Reduced training costs
**                                        **

## Why Standardize?	

**Consistent Data and Conventions**
- Provide comparability across units and between businesses
- Consolidations data is derived from the same account key and definitions as the supporting detail

## Company-Wide Areas of Standardization

- FS2  Team Formed & Scope Approved
- Accounting Key Designed
- G/L Design & Conventions
- Accounting Definitions
- Accounting Conventions
- A/P Design  & Conventions
- Payroll Design & Conventions
- LAN & LAN Standard Support
- GL Financial System Administration

## 	Lessons Learned

- Broad based support required
- Train! Train! Train!
- Thoroughly define requirements/scope
- Obtain interdisciplinary views & buy-in on designs from the beginning
- Define the order of implementation
- Cookbooks - Discipline,  Methodology & Continuous Improvement
- It’s tough to integrate 3rd party software
- Implementation challenges are people oriented issues, not technical ones
- Provide & encourage forums for users to exchange ideas
- Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!

## 	Pearls of Wisdom

- 10. Fix JV Solution!
- 9.  Our business is different
- 8.  That problem will be fixed in the next release
- 7.  Of course it’s been tested.  We’d never implement it if we hadn’t tested it!
- 6.  Payroll is NOT just the process of paying people - it’s much less!
- 5. That’s a cookbook task.
- 4. Dun & Bradstreet systems _are_ integrated.
- 3.  We fully support immediate implementation.  However, we have no resources to commit at this time
- 2. MAXIMO is not a damned accounting system!
- 1.  Standard is as standard does!