Case Study: iCanvas
“Keystone helped iCanvas by automating our licensing fee accruals, giving us the ability to see profitability in real-time. In addition, the solution they deployed improved the productivity of our accounting team by streamlining our process for managing, calculating and reconciling quarterly licensing fees.”
Paul Kharitonov, Chief Technology Officer, iCanvas
Background
iCanvas wasted a significant amount of time and money manually calculating royalty payments on the sale of licensed images at the end of each quarter. They relied on a mix of spreadsheets and applications like QuickBooks and ShipWorks, which took over a week to manually update. The manual data manipulation resulted in lost time, mistakes and a lack of real-time aggregated views, explained Kharitonov. Further, iCanvas’ P&L did not reflect final licensing costs, and without a standardized process in place, they were unable to obtain a clear financial picture mid-quarter.
A Comprehensive Solution
iCanvas worked with the Keystone team to develop and deploy a solution that could automate their royalty payment accounting process. Keystone determined that NetSuite implemented with the SuiteGL plugin would be able to accrue licensing fees with each sale or credit and ensure accurate results on a daily basis. Further, the NetSuite solution would enable iCanvas to include royalty information in custom fields on transaction line records, allowing advanced saved searches to produce comprehensive royalty reports on-demand.
Results in Real Time
The NetSuite solution has provided iCanvas an improved real-time understanding of profitability that has increased their efficiency. “We were able to, and are still in the process of, streamlining our business processes based on the data and workflow availability of NetSuite,” Kharitonov explained. The improved reporting process has enabled the team to easily search, report and correlate royalty fees with the vendor and item data already in NetSuite.
A Knowledgeable Partner
“Keystone has been an integral partner for us in our journey with NetSuite,” said Kharitonov. “From the initial implementation, which was done on time and on budget, to large customizations in Phase II and III, to ongoing support, I have relied on Keystone to augment our in-house capabilities and provide the technical and business expertise in the NetSuite solution.”
Increased Productivity
By automating their royalty reporting, the NetSuite SuiteGL plugin solution has saved iCanvas’ accounting and IT teams over 8 days of work at close of each quarter and improved their overall productivity. “We are able to manage the tremendous growth and produce more with less overhead of materials and labor,” Kharitonov explained. “A large portion of our 300+% growth from 2014 to now can be attributed to NetSuite.”
The Client
- Established in 2006, iCanvas is an art curator and manufacturer, specializing in canvas and fine art prints and frames. iCanvas works with hundreds of leading artists to curate a deep selection for all styles of art and help people across the globe find art they love.
The Challenge
- iCanvas has a large catalog of images for sale, some of which are licensed and require a royalty payment to the respective copyright holder. iCanvas manually calculated the royalty fees at the end of each quarter in a time-consuming process that involved reviewing and correcting hundreds of spreadsheets.
- iCanvas did not have a clear picture of where they stood mid-quarter, as their P&L did not reflect final licensing costs.
The Solution
- Keystone Business Services developed and implemented a customized configuration of NetSuite using the SuiteGL plugin to provide iCanvas with updated accounting information as soon as transactions are created.
The Results
- Keystone Business Services streamlined iCanvas’ royalty reporting.
- The resulting efficiencies have saved iCanvas’ accounting and IT teams over 8 days of work at close of each quarter.
“Keystone has been an integral partner for us in our journey with NetSuite. From the initial implementation, which was done on time and on budget, to large customizations in Phase II and III, to ongoing support, I have relied on Keystone to augment our in-house capabilities and provide the technical and business expertise in the NetSuite solution.”
Paul Kharitonov
Director of Technology
iCanvas
Why Keystone Business Services?
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