Automated financial reporting that saved 50+ staff hours a month

Komatsu Australia, a world leader in the supply of construction and mining equipment, produced its financial reporting through a manual, resource-intensive process. A team of three finance staff relied on Excel spreadsheets to gather and consolidate data from multiple systems, including SAP, Kronos and a large number of bespoke lookups.

The manual approach created real problems. Multiple versions of spreadsheets increased the risk of discrepancies and version-control errors, while the constant hand-gathering and reconciliation of data tied up skilled staff and required repeated reconciliations by the finance team.

Most significantly, the team spent over 40 hours each month updating the reporting pack, diverting their focus from more strategic, higher-value work.

We began with a thorough assessment of the existing manual process, tracing every number back to source and identifying the key pain points. From there we developed a detailed plan for the transition to an automated system.

We built connectors to extract data from pre-ingested SAP data in Palantir Foundry and from SharePoint, with real-time synchronisation so financial records stayed current.

Using PowerQuery, we handled the data transformation and loading into Power BI, and established a centralised data repository in SharePoint for bespoke lookups and any data not held in SAP, eliminating the version-control problems.

We designed and built a comprehensive Power BI dashboard delivering real-time financial insights. It let users view data in either AUD or USD, backed by an automated reconciliation of historical exchange rates, and switch between Month-to-Date, Quarter-to-Date and Financial Year-to-Date views from a single slicer, with drill-down capabilities and interactive visuals to support deeper analysis.

The automated system saved over 40 staff hours per month, and the finance team could deliver all standard month-end reports to stakeholders by business Day 4, work that had previously taken several days to prepare and distribute.

The reduction in manual labour translated to annual savings of over $50,000.

Freed from routine monthly reporting, the finance team gained time and resources to focus on business partnering and strategic initiatives.

The Power BI dashboard provided real-time financial data in AUD or USD, enabling more informed, timely decision-making with everyone working from a single, reconciled source.