Our client is a $4 billion multi-unit restaurant company that is consistently recognized by FORTUNE magazine as one of " America 's Most Admired Companies." They operate six exciting concepts and manage a portfolio of 1500 restaurants across the U.S.

In order to accomplish the 'financial consolidation and reporting' function, each of our clients1400 outlets were using a BOH client server application to input and track their Sales and Expenses. This information was sent to the corporate office via files, emails and phone communication. The corporate office, then, used to input the information in the main AS400 system and make corrections, if required. The corporate executives had to wait until the time the outlets and the corporate systems matched and consolidated their financial figures to produce an income statement. Delay in arrival of financial figures on corporate desks was postponing strategic operational decisions.

Our client was also facing the problem of inconsistent P&L information across its outlets and corporate office because of multiple & duplicate entries in different applications.

Cognizant developed a web-based application that provided a common interface and a centralized repository for all transactions in the POS & BOH systems. In addition, the repository was integrated with other data sources on disparate platforms. The application generates the P&L report by merging the data from the centralized repository. A rule engine was developed to ensure accuracy of the data and compliance with accounting rules & policies. This resulted in streamlined data flow and avoided inconsistencies & duplication.

A robust reporting tool was created for various role based MIS reports. These reports could be drilled down from brand level to line item level.

Benefits to our client included:

• Annual labor cost savings of 1.8 million from participating outlets
• Payback period of 2.7 years realized against target 5.1 years
• P&L generation on a daily basis rather than weekly or monthly
• Automatic consolidation of P&L data
• Automatic identification of incorrect transactions by means of rule engine
• Elimination of duplicate entries
• Easy fraud / oversight detection
• Extensive drill down reporting capabilities