ART Enhances Productivity & Accelerates Growth

Founded in 2000, Pinnacle Financial Partners (PNFP) is a publicly traded financial institution with asset size of over $40 billion. Headquartered in Tennessee, the financial entity has a strong hold in numerous states in the southeast and offers services including personal banking, loans, credit, wealth management, financial planning, shared equity programs and more.

Before ART was introduced into accounting operations, financial analyst Jonna Wall recalls ‘’We had a very stringent close process, very manual, but it was necessary in the highly regulated banking world. So lots of paper, printing and lots of time spent. It was not efficient, but it was all necessary due to the nature of the world we work in.’’ Multiple mergers in recent years led to an exponential rise in the size of the balance sheet and the sheer number of accounts that were brought over which led to an increased workload around the month-end close process.

After testing the system for four cycles, PNFP was convinced and satisfied with the capabilities of SkyStem’s ART. It was implemented shortly thereafter and led to increased efficiency in the Bank’s operations and higher motivation in the workforce. As Jonna says, “We had a great adoption rate, people in our accounting department wanted to grow in other areas of finance. So, by us taking on this tool, it allowed for the team to expand their roles. Our people don’t only do reconciliations all day. They do regulatory reporting and other internal reporting. It’s a big positive change for us.” With a team of professionals and experienced executives, getting buy-in wasn’t hard as management was well-aware of the effort that goes into the month-end close process and the importance of saving time and extending growth opportunities to the people.

ART provided these key benefits to Pinnacle Financial Partners for the month-end close:

Modernization:

ART introduced a fresh and dynamic way to approach the month-end close process. It replaced printing, paper, manual signatures, scanning and storing with a powerful workflow and repository.

Decreased Workload:

By digitizing the month-end close process, ART drastically reduced the workload carried by the accounting department.

Saved Time:

Implementing ART shaved off hours and streamlined the workflow, enabling team members to focus on other activities instead of working on reconciliations all month long.

Growth for Employees:

Automation enabled finance team members to cross train in other areas which in turn contributed to their growth. They were able to work on other activities such as regulatory reporting.

Impressing Auditors:

Before ART, auditors requested items from employees, which consumed a lot of their time. Since implementing ART, they can give direct access to the auditors who can pull any data they need at their convenience. This has eliminated a lot of back and forth between the Bank associates and the auditors. As a bonus, the auditors enjoy the self-serve method.

• In the years since adopting ART, PNFP’s accounting team has been able to do the work much faster and has enhanced the overall month-end close process.
• The ease of use and simplicity of the software kept the adoption rate high. The users were trained well through the set up and implementation process by ART’s dedicated customer support, who continue to make sure that any required help is met with a swift and meaningful response.
• Adopting ART has brought a fresh and newer way of handling month-end close and has provided visible benefits to the employees, executives and the auditors.

For other organizations looking to evaluate month-end close software, this experienced financial analyst from PNFP remarks :