Surgical precision: How RACS modernised budgeting with Workday Adaptive Planning

The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) is the leading advocate for surgical standards, professionalism and surgical education in Australia and New Zealand. As a non-profit organisation, they support more than 8,000 surgeons and trainees in areas ranging from surgeon training and accreditation to research and policy development.

Legacy tools compromised RACS’ planning efficiency

The RACS finance team were using the outdated Microsoft Forecaster application and Excel spreadsheets for budgeting and planning

However as Microsoft would soon be discontinuing the support for the product, they needed to find a suitable replacement urgently.

There were also other factors driving the change. The RACS finance team was spending far too much time trying to maintain an inflexible budgeting tool that no longer fit their needs.

The budgets were rather static and lacked sophistication without driver-based modelling.

Stretched teams and error-prone spreadsheets

Department managers who were responsible for contributing to the planning process were using error-prone spreadsheets to complete annual budgets and developed their own workarounds.

These managers had limited insight into their financials and would constantly bombard the finance team with questions, putting extra stress on an already stretched team.

It was frustrating for everyone involved, and such a manual and laborious method compromised the effectiveness and efficiency of the planning process.

RACS recognised the need to improve and change the way they completed their annual budgets, and there was urgency to do so. They needed:

• To modernise the way they conduct planning
• To encourage ownership for department managers and provide easy, personalised access to insights
• A fit-for-purpose solution that could be implemented quickly
• A solution that could be maintained by finance

Moving from spreadsheets to strategy by defining key business drivers

RACS first conducted an evaluation process to compare leading budgeting and planning tools.

A proof of concept challenge was issued, and they eventually chose Workday Adaptive Planning.

The proof of concept challenge required QMetrix to model several of the most complex models within Workday Adaptive Planning and present it back. QMetrix did so, with further suggestions to improve the models.

The project kicked off with several workshops to thoroughly understand the RACS business, their financials and key drivers from Revenue models through to Payroll, CapEx and even Travel which were an essential part of annual P&L budget.

Together we identified key drivers within each of the models, then modelled it up in such a way that it was easy and intuitive for the department managers to really understand the underlying elements that drove the numbers.

This ultimately resulted in more accurate budgets and plans.

60+ users, now operating with driver-based models and a self-service solution

Another key component of the workshops was to understand how far RACS wanted the solution to extend out to the business in the first phase.

In this case it was to every single cost centre manager ‒ over 60 users.

Previously, the RACS finance team had to run through different spreadsheets with each individual contributor so they could complete their budgets accurately.

With Workday Adaptive Planning, each user can now have a different view within an intuitive user interface.

The managers can easily update and manage their own budgets, and submit it for approval within the workflow, lending to greater ownership and saving time for the finance team.

Adam Shepard, Finance Manager at RACS says, “Sometimes with new technology you feel you’re moving one step forward and then two steps back, but with Workday Adaptive Planning we saw the benefits right away.”

Swift deployment and real-time precision

To aid a successful implementation, QMetrix also proposed change management factors that RACS needed to consider when deploying the solution to all different parts of the business across various states.

The solution was delivered on time in less than 2 months and within budget.

This included scoping and analysis, through to modelling 8 different revenue models, 4 expense models, data integration to MS Dynamics Great Plains and training.

Impact for RACS

• A more accurate and comprehensive annual budget which captures all the necessary details, assumptions and workings from each department
• Workflow and version management provides finance with the necessary controls to easily manage and oversee the budget process
• Ownership of the planning process and collaboration from over 60 department managers
• Real-time access to the financials for department managers, who are able to drill down to the transactions to self-service their own queries in a user-friendly interface