Fiserv (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading provider of information technology services to the financial industry, today announced that Virgin Media has successfully implemented CheckFree's Reconciliation and Exception Management solution to automate the reconciliation of customer revenue related accounts.
This implementation followed a full review of legacy systems in place throughout the organization and the subsequent need for a best-of-breed solution for Virgin Media's financial shared services center, located in Bradford, United Kingdom.
By consolidating its legacy reconciliation programs into a single enhanced platform, Virgin Media has streamlined its transaction matching, reporting and performance management processes while improving the efficiency of its operations. By automating its reconciliation system through CheckFree, Virgin Media has reduced the time required to complete the month-end close process. Additional benefits include, the elimination of spreadsheet-based reconciliation tools and other manual elements which has reduced error rates and diminished the need to re-code transactions to ensure comparability in core data.
"Moving to CheckFree's single automated reconciliation platform has provided us with greater visibility into our operations, allowing us to closely monitor the status of our accounts, improve process efficiency, provide support and training where required and reduce the likelihood of operational error," said Beverley Booth, head of Finance and Payroll Services, Virgin Media. "In addition, the solution has improved our core financial processes that go
well beyond reconciliation, such as incorporating data from bank service providers as well as overall performance management. CheckFree's consultative partner approach was a key factor in selection as we felt they really understood our business problems and provided a solution that could be configured to address the issues we faced"
With CheckFree's Reconciliation and Exception Management solution, Virgin Media was also able to link bank statement interfaces into its reconciliation system, allowing the team to access and integrate critical information faster. Now, transactions are automatically matched and reconciled based on predetermined business rules. Information technology resources are also utilized more efficiently as the reconciliation system can now be serviced by a single IT support team.
"Our primary objective was to deliver an automated reconciliation solution for Virgin Media's subscriber accounts that would provide significant advantages over previous manual processes and disparate legacy systems," said Mark Cappell, senior vice president and general manager, Operational Risk Management, CheckFree, now part of Fiserv. "The ability to have an accurate and complete view of the cash flow in these accounts allows Virgin
Media to simultaneously improve reconciliation operations and better mitigate the risk associated with delays in transaction processing."