Meet our DLC Finance and Accounting Consultant, Paulyn Beyan!

Favorite things to do outside of the office: When not spending time with my family, I volunteer with several charitable organizations that focus on disadvantaged communities.

How has your background impacted your experience as a consultant? I have experience working for various industries (Automotive, Defense, Banking, Accounting & Management Consulting) and multiple professional experiences (Finance, Supply Chain, and Accounting). These experiences allow me to bring a breadth of knowledge and perspective to my client. I can think out of the box, communicate effectively, and work on projects in creative ways. 

What’s a typical workday like for you? My day starts with reviewing my To-Do Schedule, reading and responding to emails and meeting notifications. I connect with my client to ensure that the projects and my daily priorities align with their expectations. After our meeting, I collaborate with other team members—attending online meetings and communicating via emails and Teams. I carved out sufficient time to work on projects and strived to meet the deliverables deadline.  I close the day by connecting with my client to update him/her on the activities I had worked on and then update my To-Do schedule for the following day.

What motivates you to wake up and go to work every day? I enjoy being a strategic partner for my clients. I enjoy teaming up and collaborating with my clients on various projects and working with them to find solutions and complete complex projects.

What kind of work have you been doing? For the past year, I have worked on developing Management reports to assist C-Suite Directors in communicating with the Board of Directors and Executives. These reports use Power BI, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Excel to communicate through visualization of the company’s Key Performance Indicators (KPI). I have also had a chance to work with Supply Chain clients to assist them with managing their vendor relations and accounting processes.

Where did you deliver the most value to your client? My clients’ ultimate benefits are from the automation and the standardization of reports. This leads to the accuracy and timeliness of reports and builds a good rapport for the team as a productive and accountable team. Additional benefits are revealed when the client can use the information reflected in these reports to make important decisions that impact the company.

Linking data to finance and accounting, explain environments that have had a lack of reporting infrastructure/inefficiencies and how you have brought organization and solutions: The Chart of Accounts (CoA) for the company I worked at was in a General Ledger (GL) system that was separate from its international parent company’s GL Account. As a result of this GL system setup there were lots of issues—inaccuracies and redundancies. I was tasked with mapping the two Chart of Accounts so that we could use the information for Monthly reporting and Annual Plans. I worked with my directors and the system administrators (Parent & Subsidiary Companies) to identify and generate the latest Chart of Accounts from the system. I built a template in Microsoft Excel to merge and map both Chart of Accounts. I also developed a SOP that the team could use in the future to update the template with the latest Chart of Accounts. As a result of the mapping of the CoA, we were able to use the CoA data to build our monthly Management reports (Balance Sheet & Capital Expenditures report) and used the template during the monthly reforecasting cycle.

What’s your process? I worked at an organization that had a huge staff turnover and inefficient process to manage monthly Accounting Reconciliation processes. My first goal was to develop a Standard Operating Procedures that could be used by staff regardless of the multiple staff turnover issues. My second goal was to develop a monthly process to manage to the Accrual reconciliation process. This consisted of communicating with various stakeholders—Vendors, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable teams –to get their buy-in on the process. I worked on setting up a monthly deliverable schedule for each of the team and advised my director for us to move the deliverable collection timeframe one week before the end of accounting cycle period. As a result of the changes, we were able to timely review the data to make sure it was consistent with the General Ledger System’s inputs and process the accrual reconciliations and meet the Company’s Account Team’s deadlines.