Integrating Financial Data to Gain Operational Insights
How a Workday Adaptive Planning solution improved visibility, efficiency, and accuracy for a public zoo.
Client
Since 1868, the Lincoln Park Zoo has grown alongside the City of Chicago—from swans to science and trading post to metropolis. The zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of Chicago and providing the highest quality of animal care, education, science, and conservation.
Challenge
The Lincoln Park Zoo used a business intelligence platform to assemble budget and financial forecasting reports. The platform required a plug-in component for budgeting, which did not fully integrate into the zoo’s financial systems. When the zoo was informed that the platform would no longer support the budgeting plug-in, they sought a new software solution with built-in reporting and budgeting capabilities to optimize productivity and functionality. The zoo wanted a user-friendly software solution that would increase visibility and—in turn—boost internal contribution and collaboration. To accomplish that, the zoo required a flexible and secure cloud-based platform that would be simple to install for every end user and serve as a single source of financial truth.
Approach
Having worked with Lincoln Park Zoo on projects in the past, the EisnerAmper team knew their chart of accounts and recommended Workday Adaptive Planning as the best fit for the zoo’s specific challenges. We worked with the zoo’s finance team to determine how to efficiently migrate their data. Based on the increased business context, we provided enhanced end-user training to ensure the zoo’s staff could work together and get the most out of their new software. Our professionals were also available to answer questions and resolve problems throughout the process—minimizing confusion and disruption.
We told EisnerAmper what we needed, and they made it happen. We relied on their expertise and experience working with the zoo to not only recommend, implement, and execute a software solution, but also to provide problem resolution and staff training to make sure we would get the most out of it.
Results
With Workday Adaptive Planning, we helped Lincoln Park Zoo implement a software solution that combined reporting and budgeting, providing a much-needed centralized view of the zoo’s financial activities.
This allows the zoo to tie their financial data to operational insights—enabling them to visualize and plan for the future. The zoo now generates external facing reports with the push of a button. The improved functionality strengthened internal collaboration and communication, reduced turnaround times, and increased accuracy.
Experienced EisnerAmper professionals worked with the zoo to connect the dots between their financial systems, and we continued to work with them to optimize their use of Workday Adaptive Planning.
Workday Adaptive Planning