About Pattern Energy

Pattern Energy Services LP is a global renewable energy company that develops, constructs and operates various renewable energy assets — primarily wind and solar. The team’s existing business in North America, Mexico, Canada, Japan and Amsterdam recognized a need for global financial solutions that could optimize their processes.

The challenge: Streamlining global financial solutions

Managing financial systems can be highly difficult for organizations, and Pattern Energy is no stranger to these challenges. Operating on a global scale necessitates solutions that can easily manage complex financial processing. Pattern Energy’s business specifically requires many different file formats across several bank accounts and countries. Without the right solutions in place, managing invoices, payments, statements and other financial activities was time-consuming and inevitably error-prone. The lack of an advanced platform also entailed low visibility, a shortage of sufficient support and reduced accuracy.

That’s where SK Global comes in.

SK Global Software is a leading financial technology company that brings valuable enhancement to the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem/market. With a focus on global banking as well as treasury automation, streamlining customers’ banking, treasury and payment processes is a priority. SK Global’s industry expertise, along with its unparalleled software and support services aims to optimize the most arduous systems and build strong partnerships along the way.

“There’s been a push for automation in every industry, along with a need to have manual processes minimized and a stronger focus on analytics. Solutions from SK Global have helped us with this.”

– Nathan Kirkpatrick, Senior Director of Business Systems at Pattern Energy

The Treasury Automation Suite and ExFlow solutions combined to help Pattern Energy:
  • Utilize automation in payment, bank statement and settlement processing.
  • Leverage direct response messaging from banks — allowing real-time visibility.
  • Implement standard email templates for vendor payment notifications in different languages.
  • Employ multi-country support with a large inventory of bank formats.
  • Increase accuracy in auto-matching transactions from inbound statements and outbound payments.
  • Allow fully automated AP invoice interpretation, approval routing, PO matching and invoice posting.

The result of combining these solutions has given Pattern Energy true end-to-end process automation — not only easing and streamlining some of their most strenuous financial procedures but laying the groundwork for a scalable approach to the future.

The implementation: Continued support from SK Global to ensure success

This truly embedded solution is built directly into Microsoft D365 and feels like part of the standard ERP system — which makes training and implementation significantly easier for users. This is supported by the use of workspaces and user guides to simplify the process.

Moreover, SK Global Software continues to expand its capabilities to meet growing business demands. The Treasury Automation Suite grows with your company and Anthony Davis, Senior Manager at Pattern Energy, states this has been their “most scalable solution to support business growth.” Pattern Energy now uses this system for over 193 bank accounts across 104 legal entities, which includes regular updates that come with new features to support business operations.

Throughout implementation, Pattern Energy has developed a close relationship with SK Global. This has enabled them to suggest enhancements that have made it onto the core product, as well as giving them insights on best practices for these processes.

“SK Global has continued to help since the implementation of their software by being flexible and offering excellent support channels that provide answers to any product related questions.”

– Anthony Davis, Senior Manager at Pattern Energy

The results: Developing a successful relationship with SK Global Software

With the help of SK Global, Pattern Energy has successfully streamlined several processes and seen valuable results throughout implementation. This includes being fully able to utilize electronic bank reconciliation — with 600 bank statements automatically imported per year and a high transaction automatic match rate.

Moreover, the ExFlow AP Automation solution has offered improved visibility over their AP process with a centralized view of over 20,000 invoices across 149 legal entities and greater control as a result of a more advanced platform.

SK Global Software’s protected platform has also helped Pattern Energy see results in the form of increased security and reduced fraud risk through direct bank integration and automatic processing. This has included processing 12,000 electronic funds transfer (EFT) payments and 160 positive pay files per year.

SK Global continues to expand its solution offerings and build successful partnerships, giving customers confidence that they will be able to handle even the most complex financial processes that arise. SK Global will continue to work with valuable partners like Pattern Energy to guarantee successful implementation and serve as a support system when needed.

“SK Global offers a library of products to support many different industries and processes. They are a very knowledgeable resource that’s always willing to assist and help solve issues.”

– Anthony Davis, Senior Manager at Pattern Energy