Fullerton Health chose VISEO and Anaplan to streamline their financial reporting

“We’ve been able to streamline our financial reporting and presentation process, where we have replaced Excel reporting with dashboards provided by Anaplan. Their responsiveness and dedication have made a significant impact on our daily operations,” says William Liao, FP&A Manager at Fullerton Health, Singapore.

William’s team faced challenges in consolidating financial data across Fullerton Health’s diverse business units. With manual processes prone to human errors and time-consuming Excel sheets, the need for an integrated and flexible solution became apparent.

The Challenge

Fullerton Health, a leading integrated healthcare platform in Asia-Pacific, needed to simplify and enhance its financial reporting. With operations spanning across different countries, William Liao and his finance team were responsible for collecting financial and performance data from multiple business units.

Their legacy reporting system was Excel-based, which posed several problems:

• Prone to human error: Manually summing Excel sheets for revenue and expenses led to mistakes and inconsistencies.
• Time-consuming: Gathering data from various country finance teams and consolidating it manually required extensive hours, particularly during key reporting periods.
• Lack of flexibility: When transitioning between financial models or presenting new KPIs to investors, the Excel-based process was cumbersome and difficult to adapt to the company’s evolving needs.

The Solution

To address these challenges, Fullerton Health adopted Anaplan, a cloud-based financial planning and analysis (FP&A) tool, tailored to automate and optimize their reporting processes. Key elements of the solution included:

• Automated dashboards: Anaplan replaced manual Excel reporting with dynamic dashboards, offering a real-time view of the company’s financial health.
• Error elimination: With integrated modules and pivot table functions, Anaplan minimized human errors by automatically pulling data from source systems and processing it efficiently.
• Adaptability: Anaplan’s flexible architecture allowed Fullerton Health to easily adjust financial models as their business grew, including early adoption of IFRS 16 standards.
• Round-the-clock support: William emphasized the dedication of Anaplan’s team, who frequently worked late nights and weekends to ensure urgent reporting requests were met.

Achievements Unveiled

With Anaplan, Fullerton Health experienced significant improvements:

• Faster reporting: The ability to generate financial reports on a monthly and quarterly basis without manual consolidation greatly reduced turnaround times.
• Improved accuracy: Automation eliminated manual errors, providing accurate and reliable data to the finance team.
• Segment-level insights: Anaplan allowed for deeper analysis, breaking down financial results by business unit, country, and segment, crucial for investor presentations.
• Enhanced KPI tracking: The system supported the tracking of healthcare-specific KPIs, such as balance sheet planning, giving the finance team more control over performance monitoring.

The Outcome

Fullerton Health’s financial reporting was transformed from a slow, error-prone process to a seamless, automated operation. The company could now:

• Present financial data with greater accuracy and confidence, improving trust with investors.
• Focus on strategic decision-making, thanks to the reduced time spent on manual tasks.
• Expand reporting capabilities to meet future needs, including healthcare-specific metrics and new financial standards like IFRS 16.

As William Liao remarked, “Now I can compute granular-level or high-level post-IFRS EBITDA at the BU, country, and segment levels with just a view. Anaplan has made our financial processes more flexible and scalable, empowering us to handle complex financial data effortlessly.”

*Scanomi