Transformation Solutions

Finance Function Modernisation & Data Strategy Delivery

Challenge

An APAC petroleum major faced significant inefficiencies within its Finance function, stemming from heavy reliance on manual, paper-based processes and fragmented data systems. Despite implementing OneStream as its central platform, the finance teams continued to encounter disputes between multiple versions of the same financial figures across business units — a clear indicator of upstream data integrity and mapping issues.

The client’s priority was twofold:

1. Deliver a tactical “quick win” by digitising and automating the end-to-end invoice process.

2. Design a strategic finance data modernisation roadmap to ensure long-term control, accuracy, and scalability of financial reporting and analytics.

The transformation required both operational automation and enterprise-level data strategy alignment, ensuring the Finance function could evolve from reactive reconciliation to proactive insight generation.

Solution

Harmonic Strategy acted as the Transformation Strategy Lead Consultant, orchestrating the end-to-end journey — from process digitisation to finance data governance — through a combination of strategic design, automation delivery, and stakeholder alignment.

1. Finance Function Diagnostic & Process Mapping

• Conducted an as-is assessment of the Finance function across invoicing, reporting, and reconciliation workflows.

• Mapped data lineage from upstream booking systems to downstream OneStream reports, identifying key integration and mapping failures.

• Quantified process inefficiencies, manual touchpoints, and data discrepancies to build a clear case for automation and remediation.

2. Tactical Automation Delivery — Invoice Digitisation

• Designed and implemented a digitised invoice processing solution, integrating OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and workflow automation technologies to replace paper-based submissions.

• Streamlined data ingestion through API connections with finance systems, reducing manual rekeying and improving cycle time.

• Embedded workflow routing and exception handling, ensuring invoices requiring human intervention were automatically escalated with full audit trails.

• Demonstrated measurable time savings and accuracy improvements as the project’s first “quick win” proof point for the wider transformation.

3. Strategic Finance Data Model Development

• Defined a unified finance data model covering transactional, accounting, and reporting datasets.

• Harmonised data definitions and mapping rules across upstream systems, subledgers, and OneStream modules.

• Standardised metadata taxonomy to ensure all financial datasets could be referenced and traced consistently across business units.

• Created an enterprise-wide data dictionary and mapping framework for long-term maintenance.

4. Data Pipeline Automation & Analytics Enablement

• Automated data ingestion pipelines using ETL/ELT processes to ensure consistent, near-real-time updates to finance repositories.

• Embedded Tableau analytics dashboards to provide live visualisation of financial KPIs, invoice turnaround times, and reconciliation exceptions.

• Enabled scenario planning and regulatory reporting automation, giving executives a unified view of finance performance across entities.

5. Data Governance & Quality Framework

• Developed an enterprise Data Governance Framework to ensure accuracy, completeness, and control of all finance-related datasets.

• Defined roles for Data Owners, Stewards, and Custodians, along with escalation protocols for reconciliation discrepancies.

• Embedded data quality scorecards, audit-ready reporting workflows, and change management policies aligned with OneStream governance standards.

• Introduced an ongoing validation and control cycle, ensuring future integrations remained compliant with governance expectations.

Key Deliverables

• Finance Function Diagnostic Report & Process Maps

• Digitised Invoice Automation Workflow (OCR + Workflow Routing)

• Unified Finance Data Model & Metadata Dictionary

• Automated Data Pipelines with Tableau Integration

• Data Governance Framework (Roles, Rules, Controls, Quality Scorecards)

• Executive Dashboard for Invoice KPIs, Reconciliation Health, and Scenario Modelling

Client Benefits

• Reduced invoice processing time by >60% and manual handling errors.

• Achieved single-source-of-truth data consistency across all finance systems.

• Improved audit transparency and compliance readiness.

• Enabled real-time financial visibility through integrated Tableau and OneStream analytics.

• Strengthened foundation for future ERP modernisation and enterprise-scale data strategy.

Technology Stack Reference

Layer Tool / Platform Purpose / Role

Finance ERP & CPM OneStream Centralised financial consolidation, reporting, and control environment Automation & OCR ABBYY FlexiCapture / UiPath Invoice scanning, digitisation, and workflow automation

Data Integration (ETL) Azure Data Factory / Informatica Cloud Automated data ingestion and transformation pipelines

Analytics & Visualisation Tableau Real-time dashboards, KPI tracking, and executive visualisation

Data Governance Collibra / Alation Policy management, data cataloguing, and quality monitoring Infrastructure Microsoft Azure Cloud hosting and API integration for scalable automation and analytics