How JCB International saved 10 days a month on currency work
A global card business processing transactions in a wide range of currencies replaced manual foreign-exchange conversion with DataFlow’s multi-base-currency accounting.
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- 10 days saved every month
- 2 days a week freed from currency conversion
- 8 yrs of automatic monthly management reports
- 189 countries where JCB cards are accepted
Inside JCB International.
Established in 1961, JCB International is a leader in the Japanese credit card industry, with more than 50 million cardholders worldwide and a reputation for superior customer service. The company employs 2,350 staff across 52 offices and 8 service centres. JCB cards are accepted at over 11 billion locations in 189 countries, accounting for annual sales of $52 billion. As a global financial operation, staff process transactions in a wide range of currencies, so the accounting function has to handle complex foreign exchange manipulation.
- Sector
- Financial services
- Established
- 1961
- Staff
- 2,350 across 52 offices
- Reach
- 50m cardholders, 189 countries
Currency conversion done by hand.
A global card operation needed parallel records across currencies, without an accounts team converting figures manually.
Processing transactions in many currencies meant the accounting operation had to handle complex foreign exchange manipulation. Every reporting cycle carried manual conversion work, both through the month and again at month-end closure.
Company Secretary Devadas Vassanth was one of the key decision makers on a new financial accounts solution. “We spent time reviewing the options available and the only alternative to DataFlow was Sun Accounts, which we felt was too expensive.”
- Manual currency conversion consuming accounts time every week.
- Additional conversion effort concentrated at month-end closure.
- A bespoke production package generating all sales invoices that any new system had to work with.
- A shortlist where the only alternative was judged too expensive.
Multi-base-currency accounting, not just multi-currency.
Unlimited base currencies, with parallel records of transactions and balances across all of them.
DataFlow supports sales and purchase accounts in any currency, offsets invoices in one currency with payments in another, and handles exchange differences automatically. Crucially for JCB, it supports an unlimited number of base currencies and maintains parallel records of transactions and balances across all of them.
Reports can be produced on demand in any number of base currencies, so there are no costly or time-consuming conversions left for the accounts team to make. Data generated in DataFlow can also be transferred to Excel or Word to meet the company’s year-end legislative requirements.
- Sales and purchase accounts in any currency, with automatic exchange differences.
- Unlimited base currencies with parallel balances maintained across all of them.
- On-demand reporting in any base currency, without a conversion step.
- Integration with the bespoke production package that generates JCB’s sales invoices.
- Standard P&L, balance sheet and monthly expense schedules.
Ten days a month, back.
On one process alone: two working days a week, plus two days at month-end closure.
Devadas Vassanth is precise about the saving: “By installing DataFlow we were able to eradicate the manual currency conversion processes and that has enabled the company, just on this one process alone, to save two working days per week in man hours and an additional two days of time during the month end closure.”
The system has kept pace as the business changed. “We have added a substantial number of nominal accounts and currency information over the years and found it to be coping extremely well. DataFlow has definitely proven to be a sound investment.” Having produced automatic management reports reliably for eight years, JCB International went on to implement the Analyzer module to push reporting efficiency further.
| Outcome | Before DataFlow | With DataFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Currency conversion | Manual, every week | Eradicated |
| Weekly accounts time | Two days absorbed by conversion | Two days returned |
| Month-end closure | Two extra days of conversion | Closed without it |
| Base currencies | Converted for each report | Unlimited, reported on demand |
| Management reporting | Assembled per cycle | Automatic, eight years running |
There wasn’t an equivalent product in the market that offered the multi-currency, multi-base-currency functionality we get with DataFlow.
What JCB International run.
Multi-currency accounting joined to the ledgers and the reporting on top of them.
Still converting currencies by hand?
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- We’ll ask about your business first
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