Altesia Finance

Restoring trust in the figures and breaking down silos in Finance

to sharpen financial analysis at a European financial market infrastructure

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Project at a glance
Client
A European financial market infrastructure (interbank payments)
Function
Finance – FP&A
Challenge
A finance function being rebuilt, with no stable FP&A leadership, and a management team that no longer had figures reliable enough to steer the business and report to the board.
Solution
Two full-time FP&A profiles: an interim Head of FP&A and a consultant dedicated to revenue and service margin analysis.
Impact
Consistent figures between accounting and management control, a view of margins by service that did not exist before, documented and automated closing processes, and uninterrupted operational continuity despite the handover between consultants.
He took ownership of the subject very quickly, with very few questions.
Interim Head of FP&A European financial market infrastructure

Context

The client is a European financial market infrastructure, active in interbank payments.

At the time, the finance function was going through a difficult period: successive departures, absences, and no FP&A manager left in place to hold the chain together. The finance department no longer had anyone able to produce reliable information on time for the executive committee and the board. Trust in the figures had eroded.

The mandate given to Altesia aimed to restore trust in the figures, to build cross-functional collaboration between accounting and management control, and to bring operational rigour.

Approach

The engagement was structured in five stages:

  • 1

    Diagnosis and scoping by the partner

    Even before the consultants arrived, the Altesia partner in charge of the engagement, Jean-Baptiste Deghorain, carried out a diagnosis of the finance function and identified the priorities: the quality of the business insight delivered to management and the board, the robustness of the closing process, the need to create cross-functional collaboration between accounting and management control, and the potential for automation. This framing was maintained throughout the engagement through regular follow-up meetings, aligned with the CFO’s expectations.

  • 2

    Two FP&A profiles deployed quickly

    An interim Head of FP&A and an FP&A consultant dedicated to revenue and service margin analysis were deployed full time.

  • 3

    Full takeover of the gross margin scope

    The consultants took charge of the monthly and quarterly closings: revenue, direct costs and variable costs related to margin, capex monitoring (new projects, capitalisation and related depreciation), as well as the budget, the forecast and margin variance analysis.

  • 4

    Accounting and management control: one team

    Accounting and FP&A were not working towards a common goal: each produced its own part, and inconsistencies were discovered too late. The consultants brought the two functions together around a single closing calendar and shared controls: checking that the month’s expenses were complete, informing accounting of expected entries rather than discovering them at closing, and resolving discrepancies as a team.

  • 5

    Document, then automate

    The closing processes were documented, then automated wherever possible, with a clear objective: produce the figures at D+3 / D+4 rather than three weeks after month-end, and free the team from low-value manual tasks.

Results

The engagement gave the finance department reliable information and a view of margins it no longer had:

  • Reliable, consistent information between accounting and management control, presented on time to the executive committee.
  • Improved quality and relevance of the financial analyses provided to management and the board.
  • A view of margins by service that the organisation did not have before.
  • Closing processes that are documented, shared between accounting and management control, and partly automated, making them faster and less error-prone.
  • A finance function working cross-functionally towards a common result, rather than in successive silos.
  • Operational continuity throughout the engagement, including when the consultant changed.
  • Partner follow-up bringing sector insight and points of attention aligned with the CFO’s priorities.

The client’s feedback

  • Interim Head of FP&A, European financial market infrastructure

    The consultant took over the entire revenue and margin scope: monthly and quarterly closings, direct costs, capex monitoring, budget and forecast. He took ownership of the subject very quickly, with very few questions.