Parallels

The Company: About Parallels

Parallels is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers and businesses. 

Parallels is a rapidly growing software company with offices, subsidiaries, and accounting systems in multiple countries. Parallels grew both organically and through acquisitions to create a complex set of business requirements for managing continued profitability.

The Situation: Managing Growth

Rapid growth created an environment with several different accounting systems, including Dynamics SL, Sage, QuickBooks, 1C, and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. In addition, each subsidiary utilized a separate chart of accounts and a unique reporting process. 

Managing a growing multi-national business such as Parallels required a centralized set of books and reports which could be rapidly created and distributed to key decision-makers scattered across several geographical locations. 

At the end of each reporting period, each subsidiary closed its books, created Excel spreadsheets, and emailed the results to a central accounting group. The central accounting team manually compiled the spreadsheets and created a set of consolidated financials. 

The process of manually converting several sets of books with different charts of accounts was both time consuming and error-prone so Parallels looked for a way to automate this process. 

The Solution: Acumatica ERP

Parallels considered add-on solutions provided by several existing vendors as well as a Hyperion (Oracle) solution. 

Acumatica was selected because it provided a system that met Parallels’ complex business requirements with a low total cost of ownership. The web-based system was able to serve all international locations after being deployed on existing hardware in the Parallels on-premise datacenter. 

Acumatica provided a single automated system to translate currencies, consolidate ledgers, and implement customized reports. 

Customized roles were created to support the existing operational and approval processes established by Parallels. This allows employees in the parent company to see the complete set of consolidated books, while subsidiaries can only access sections that pertain to their business. 

Parallels deployed Acumatica in their existing data center and set group security permissions so the system could be accessed by team members around the world. Since no client software is required, new employees can be granted privileges and start using the system immediately. 

The Results: Acumatica ERP Implementation Benefits

Acumatica improved the Parallels consolidation process, saving on time, accuracy, and providing additional business insights. 

Acumatica also offers Acumatica Manufacturing Edition and Acumatica Distribution Edition.