Customer Story

Institut Pasteur pursues first time correct financial SAP data with Automate Studio

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4,400+

lines completed in SAP in 1 hour

33

institues on 5 continents

1887

foundation is started

Institut Pasteur, a private non-profit foundation founded by Louis Pasteur in 1887, is an internationally renowned biomedical research center, spanning a network of 33 institutes with a presence on all five continents. A recognized world leader in the areas of infectious diseases, microbiology and immunology, Institut Pasteur has 130 units that are devoted to the study of cancer and genetic and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as genomics and developmental biology.

The challenge

Corinne Fortin runs the Institute’s Administrative and Financial Affairs Department which has ongoing initiatives to increase process efficiency and improve optimization. Fortin’s team was previously using a tool to integrate accounting documents, however the recent adoption of SAP significantly changed their activities. This presented some limitations due to an increased volume of data which lead to long processing times to complete transactions.
“Every one of our accounting documents has 200-300 lines,” said Fortin. “Since the SAP mask has a maximum of 8 lines, each new entry or modification was time-consuming and created a lack of motivation among our staff.”
In anticipation of annual reporting and the completion of a new cost breakdown, Fortin and the project manager in charge of the SAP implementation made a list of analytical operations that still required manual effort for business users. There were two obvious constraints:

  • they were more time consuming compared to the previous tool
  • they required increased involvement of service providers to implement the new system

“We knew we needed to research tools that could be adapted to SAP,” said Michel Mathy, Project Manager, Information Systems Department (ISD) at Institut Pasteur.

Solution

Institut Pasteur sought a solution that could be utilized by the business to provide major advantages like mass data integration, easy integration with SAP, and time savings.

The institute started a pilot project using Automate Studio, and after several months of testing they were happy with their results. “It was very fast and effective for transactions,” said Mathy. “The speed and clarity of Automate Studio support was also invaluable in the project’s success.”

During the pilot, Precisley trained both technical and operational key users, enabling their teams to increase their SAP skillset.

“We were able to complete 9,345 lines of analytical breakdown in a very short time to prepare annual statements,” said Mathy.

Institut Pasteur was able to process the equivalent of a year’s worth of invoices with multiple allocations in a single day. Using Automate Studio, the management control and accounting teams created transactions using Microsoft Excel, and easily integrated large volumes of data.

“Once the matrices were created, it was really very simple,” said Mathy. “We were able to find and correct data errors on the spot with Automate Studio, which can be done in the blink of an eye since you can see an entire file on a single screen.”

Industry

Health and biomedical research

Challenge

  • Increased volume of mass data entry and extraction
  • System was too complex, and not intuitive for end users
  • Recurrent data entry tasks were tedious and time consuming

Results

  • Utilized solution that is easy for both operational and technical users
  • Improved data quality
  • Reduced time to complete 4,400 lines in SAP from 15 days to 1 hour

Solution

Automate Studio

“We were able to find and correct data errors on the spot with Automate Studio, which can be done in the blink of an eye since you can see an entire file on a single screen.”

Michel Mathy, Project Manager, Information
Systems Department (ISD) at Institut Pasteur

“We don’t ever want to go back to our lives before Automate Studio - especially with how easy it’s made annual statements!”

Corinne Fortin, Administrative and Financial Director for Institut Pasteur

Solution

Institut Pasteur sought a solution that could be utilized by the business to provide major advantages like mass data integration, easy integration with SAP, and time savings. The institute started a pilot project using Automate Studio, and after several months of testing they were happy with their results. “It was very fast and effective for transactions,” said Mathy. “The speed and clarity of Automate Studio support was also invaluable in the project’s success.”

During the pilot, Precisley trained both technical and operational key users, enabling their teams to increase their SAP skillset.

“We were able to complete 9,345 lines of analytical breakdown in a very short time to prepare annual statements,” said Mathy.

Institut Pasteur was able to process the equivalent of a year’s worth of invoices with multiple allocations in a single day. Using Automate Studio, the management control and accounting teams created transactions using Microsoft Excel, and easily integrated large volumes of data. “Once the matrices were created, it was really very simple,” said Mathy. “We were able to find and correct data errors on the spot with Automate Studio, which can be done in the blink of an eye since you can see an entire file on a single screen.”

Microscope

Lab test

Results

After implementing Automate Studio, Fortin’s team significantly improved the ease of performing analytical adjustments–such as end of year entries for annual statements or breakdown of requests. They also achieved higher data quality. “We are very satisfied with the solution,” said Fortin. “We don’t ever want to go back to our lives before Precisely Automate – especially with how easy it’s made annual statements!”

“While SAP cannot go above 999 lines, we can now create 4,400 lines in 1 hour with no errors once the files have been prepared, instead of taking a minimum of 15 days!” said Mathy.

Institut Pasteur plans to continue using Automate Studio to improve their internal organization through:

  • Use of forms:making it possible for internal clients who are non-users or non-specialists to interact with SAP for tasks like sales order entries.
  • Master data management:since reference systems have wide-ranging needs and the transactions available in SAP are limited, Automate Studio allows you to own and develop core baseline data reference systems for suppliers, clients, and lines of allocation.
  • Mass management of order creation:the solution facilitates the mass creation of orders by completing all necessary areas.
  • Mass updating of reference systems such as the reference system for sales item pricing.

“Automate Studio provides a range of functionalities that encourage the diversification of its use,” said Fortin. “This enabled us to meet a much wider range of business needs than simply improving our accounting entries.”

Future plans

Other departments within Institut Pasteur are currently adopting Automate Studio, which has led to increased productivity, time savings and reduction in the number of data entry errors.

Institut Pasteur is currently looking into using Automate Studio for mass asset transfers, recovery of supplier and client reference systems, and recovering data from the cost center for validation.

The FD and ISD at Institut Pasteur are hoping to utilize Automate Studio to study the mass modification of framework contract fees and article fees, and update sales orders and client order forms that are accessible to internal users outside of SAP. “Automate Studio is the best solution for implementing change!” said Fortin.

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