Stronger Together: Implementation Team Kicks off Clients’ Journey to End Month-Ends

When we get a notification of a client ready to go through the implementation process, we assign one to two people to work directly with them.

The implementation team will reach out to the client with a discovery call and then have what we call a pre-implementation call. During that process, we go over all of their businesses ‘ particulars and how they run specific operations.

The client fills out a questionnaire that helps prompt conversation, and we define all of the implementation components. Then, we develop a detailed project plan that lets everyone know their tasks during the process.

We start working on the implementation portion, and during that time, we are meeting with the client weekly.

We work through the assigned tasks to accomplish the project plan, and to do this; we also have training and testing. For us, this is a new training methodology where clients watch training videos on their own time, and then we have a testing script for them.

Then we have a one on one in-person meeting to talk through things they don’t understand. We found this hands-on approach to learning is meaningful because the client gets to interact with the product to adapt and learn the technology. So, this has been a tremendous change for us, and we see positive outcomes.  Once the training and testing are finished, we “Go Live”.

We also encourage clients to continue that growth after their initial implementation. We talk about that during the implementation process. It’s just too much to do all at once. It doesn’t lead to success for the clients.

It’s not necessarily a predefined thing. You might have clients that go live, and all of the components that they have implemented at go live. That’s all they want; they don’t want to go any further.

However, you have clients who will continue to improve. We have a division that handles all clients who live with their core product but want to continue to advance and make improvements. Our goal is to Make Month-Ends, End – and we want clients to keep working on it until they get to that point.

It all depends on what they are implementing. It could take anywhere from four to seven months, but it really does depend on what is included.

It also depends on the amount of time that a client has to dedicate to implementation. It does take a lot of time and effort because it’s their system. Depending on their organization, they might have limited resources. So, it could stretch out a little longer, or they might have someone who can dedicate all their time to it, and then that’s going to accelerate things.

I think the sense of ownership. We approach our clients intending to share how great Multiview is, and how it can help them, how this product can improve the finance and accounting teams. The majority of our team have been in their place and understand the month-end process’s frustrations because we were accountants in an organization before coming to Multiview.

It is rewarding when we know a client is excited about the things that they’re going to be able to do once they get Multiview installed. I think it is a different methodology from a lot of companies that install software.

I think the dedication of time and resources. You’re not going to plug it in and walk away; you want to get the most out of your investment.

When clients don’t have the people and or resources, they also don’t have the financial resources to hire someone to help. So, if we know that ahead of time, we can plan accordingly.

We can stretch the implementation process out a little bit longer. We can potentially do more for the client, but they might incur some cost associated with that, but it would be smaller than getting a consultant in. So they may say, “I am going to need help. If you’d be willing to do these tasks for me, then I can look it over, which will help save me some time.”

We don’t sell that as a service, per se, but we have had clients who have come in and said, “I don’t have the resources to do this, what can we do?”

However, there still has to be some level of engagement on their part. This is just spreading it out so that it takes less time in a day to fit it into their schedule.

The first significant milestone is the chart of accounts. Based on the way our system operates, we usually see clients decreasing their chart of accounts considerably. So that’s a big win for clients. The next significant milestone is reconciling their GL history details from their old system – that’s now showing up in Multiview. Quite a bit of work goes into that, but it also allows them to have all that information on hand the day they start using Multiview. The next is working through the various processes to gain efficiency by putting in as much automation as possible. Another milestone is when you have the structure and the security of the data. Often, people don’t have that, and so it gives them new tools, and that’s always a delicate, critical part of the process. It is a milestone when they get through it. Then, of course, going live and their first month!

Well, I have an incredible team. I work with so many intelligent, creative people.

However, the thing that gets me most excited is our work towards helping clients make their Month-End, End.  I will go into an example of a small hospital, and they currently have two people trying to do all the financials. Every single month they spend 15 days on month’s end. They’re trying to make business decisions 15 days after the month, and that’s not good business practices. If we can move from 15 days, down to one day, their organization will be able to make decisions faster and better because the data is more available, and they’re going to be able to have a life.

The new self-service videos are a big win, and it’s something that we’re just now rolling out because a lot of people want to do it on their own time.