Acadian replaced manual handoffs across four global entities with a connected Business Central environment that simplifies consolidation and provides direct access to financial data.
Acadian Asset Management is a global quantitative investment management firm headquartered in Boston, with subsidiaries in the U.K., Singapore and Australia.
Without ongoing support for its on-premises Microsoft Dynamics GP, Acadian needed a system that could reduce the manual work involved in consolidating financial data across multiple entities, currencies and systems.
Acadian moved to cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, with Armanino connecting its global environments and helping migrate data, preserve key reporting and strengthen integrations.
Acadian gained greater visibility into subsidiary transactions, a more efficient global consolidation process and more time for financial analysis.
Acadian CFO Charmaine Catania oversees finance across the investment firm’s global operations, while Director of Accounting Rob Hardy leads month-end close, subsidiary consolidations and reporting to the firm’s parent company.
Hardy’s team must complete the close within five to six business days after month-end. For years, the company’s on-premises Microsoft Dynamics GP system provided a dependable foundation, and the finance team had built reliable routines around it.
“We don’t like change,” Catania said, laughing and relating a familiar feeling among finance teams that have built reliable routines around GP. Acadian’s IT resources kept the platform running even as performance slowed and common tasks became more cumbersome. With Microsoft’s plans to end support for GP, Acadian had a new reason to take action.
“The biggest driver for us was that GP was sunsetting,” Catania said. “That gave us a kick. It was time to move on.”
With the decision made, Acadian could address the specific issues that had developed around GP: workarounds that were having a negative impact on financial operations.
The reporting calendar had become especially demanding as Acadian expanded internationally. Third-party accounting firms maintained the books for the U.K., Singapore and Australia, each using a different local accounting platform.
“As the business grew internationally, the complexity really increased,” Hardy said. “We weren’t just closing one set of books anymore — we were coordinating multiple entities, currencies, third-party accounting firms and different accounting systems.”
Each subsidiary operated in its local currency, adding exchange-rate management and reconciliation to the compressed close calendar. At month-end, Acadian received financial records from each firm, manually reformatted the data in Excel, and uploaded each entity’s trial balance into GP. Hardy’s team then reconciled and consolidated all four entities before reporting the results to the parent company.
“We had the process down — get the information, put it in the template and move it over,” Catania said. “But it wasn’t ideal.”
GP held summarized trial balance entries, while the supporting transaction detail remained in separate systems. Investigating an unexpected amount could require another round of requests across firms and time zones.
“Too much time was spent moving and validating data instead of analyzing financial results and supporting business decisions,” Hardy said.
Acadian evaluated cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central alongside other enterprise platforms. The firm needed strong multi-entity and multi-currency capabilities without the scale and complexity of a much larger ERP. Leadership also needed an implementation firm with enough depth for a project spanning four countries.
Acadian considered three or four firms before narrowing its choice to the Microsoft provider it had worked with for more than 25 years and Armanino. Armanino offered a broad team, with Business Central and GP migration expertise, accounting and finance knowledge, and access to additional specialists as the project required.
Hardy saw the value of that structure in the range of expertise available throughout the implementation.
“Their understanding of both GP and Business Central and their knowledge of finance operations stood out,” he said. “They appreciated our consolidation process, reporting requirements and integration needs.”
Armanino’s lead manager had spent 15 years working with GP before becoming a Business Central consultant. That experience helped the team translate familiar processes, anticipate questions from longtime users and efficiently extract historical data and master records.
Armanino built separate localized Business Central environments for the U.S., U.K. Singapore and Australia, allowing each country to work within the version designed for its regulatory, tax and banking requirements. The four environments were connected to support intercompany activity, multi-currency transactions and consolidated reporting.
Armanino also provided a dedicated project manager to lead the implementation on Acadian’s side, coordinating data migration and review, integration testing and activities across Acadian’s finance and IT teams. That oversight helped keep the project moving while employees continued meeting their normal close and reporting responsibilities. Hardy described implementation as a recurring cycle.
“Every three weeks, you’re doing the next monthly close,” he said. “You’re chipping away at converting systems, and then you’ve got to jump in and spend a week closing the month and reporting to the parent.”
Acadian ran GP and Business Central in parallel for a quarter, allowing the team to compare results, refine processes and gain practical experience before fully switching platforms.
“Parallel periods are painful because they require data entry into both systems and double the work,” Catania said. “But from a risk standpoint, it made me feel better that we had more time to work through some of the issues. From a learning standpoint, it was extremely helpful.”
Business Central has changed how Acadian’s global finance team works at month-end. The subsidiaries now operate on localized versions of Business Central but continue to rely on external accounting firms to manage their books.
When a subsidiary completes its close, the records are immediately available within the connected system. Acadian can move directly into consolidation without downloading, reformatting and uploading a separate trial balance for each entity.
The new environment also gives Acadian access to the transactional detail behind subsidiary balances. Catania, Hardy and their teams can investigate variances and trace individual amounts back to the underlying transactions more directly, reducing – but not eliminating – the need to request supporting information from external accountants.
Business Central also supports more standardized workflows and improved access to transaction-level detail, reducing reliance on manual processes that previously supported consolidation.
The shift has also won over team members who were initially reluctant to leave GP. “They all chipped in and put their heads down,” Hardy said. “Now they’re saying, ‘Yes, I’m glad we did this. I don’t miss GP. I’m happy with Business Central.’ They see the potential for things to keep getting better, more efficient and faster.”
Catania sees the broader impact across the organization. “It’s definitely been transformational,” she said. “We have more transparency across all of our subsidiaries.”
Acadian is continuing to build on the implementation. Hardy and the finance team are exploring additional automation, budgeting, planning and reporting opportunities.
The platform now connects core finance processes within a cloud environment that can expand with Acadian’s priorities. Following the implementation, Armanino supported Acadian as the company evaluated additional enhancements and opportunities to improve its finance processes.
Asked what he would tell another firm still debating its future with Dynamics GP, Hardy offered direct advice: “You have to make a move. What are you waiting for?”
Acadian made that move with a clear view of the reporting commitments it had to protect and the capabilities it wanted to create. The result is a connected global finance environment that supports today’s close while giving the team more room to understand performance and plan ahead.
Microsoft is sunsetting Dynamics GP, making now the time to move to a more connected, scalable financial platform. As Acadian’s story shows, moving to Business Central can simplify finance processes and give your team more time for planning and analysis. Learn how our Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central team helps you move to a more connected, scalable financial platform.
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