Yum!

Challenges:

YRIT, a subsidiary of its US listed headquartered parent (NYSE: YUM), opens a new restaurant every week. Given its accelerated growth, YRIT was keen to streamline its operations. It did not believe that a reduced finance function in the long run would provide the right career opportunities for its existing accounting team of 20 people. But in the shorter term, it still had to contend with the spike in workload as it refranchised all its restaurants in Thailand.

At times, manual processes had to be applied to thousands of transactions across hundreds of stores. This was not only time consuming but vulnerable to human error. Accounting staff had a backlog of transactions, including managing various contract categories with landlords and recharging utility bills. These transactions needed to be reviewed and approved by the management team every month. Workload spiked during the refranchising period -- just the number of invoices alone increased by 300 per month.

The team was under pressure and short staffed, but were still required to manage day-to-day duties, and provide the management team with data it needed to run the business. This involved clearing balance sheet reconciliations as well as outstanding balances with the franchisees. The company had to find a way to manage the transition with high-level expertise that understood its multilayered model and could retain high standards of accounting processes and compliance with local tax regulations.

The decision to outsource to Mazars was made with the knowledge that finding and training new hires for permanent accounting jobs might not serve its needs in the long run.

Solution:

To resolve YRIT’s tax and accounting challenges, Mazars implemented solutions that helped the company maintain stability and smooth out its workflow processes.

A strategic decision was made to outsource all accounting to Mazars, who offered support in key roles such as preparing payments to suppliers, reviewing and recording staff expense claims in JDE and issue invoices and receipts to franchisees.

Mazars prepared monthly and quarterly accounting reports, monthly tax returns, balance sheet reconciliations and made sure that all deliverables were consistent and accurate. On top of that, Mazars went out of their way to support YRIT with any additional inquiries they had.

Results:

Since adopting Mazars’ solutions, YRIT’s workflow and transaction processes flow more efficiently, and the team holds regular meetings to discuss issues and find solutions collaboratively.

Most critically, placing Mazars in charge of tasks and responsibilities associated with YRIT’s expansion prioritized the focus on improving processes, reduce inefficiencies, track issues through to resolution – crucial aspects of business operations that might not be a key concern for in-house teams consumed by day-to-day operations.