Kimberly Clark Corporation

Kimberly Clark has been a common household name for over a century in the pulp and paper business. With over 65,000 associates and reported sales of $19B, the Knoxville, Tennessee corporate site housed 400 associates that provided global supply chain accounting, general accounting, accounts payable, accounts recievable, logistics, and human resource functions. Employment began in January 2005 at the Knoxville shared service location in the Supply Chain Accounting division in the pulp paper division and later transferring to the health care sector.  

The first role at KC involved coordinating the continuous improvement of month end close procedures for two facilities with $200M in sales as part of an $800M corporate spin off to Neenah Paper, Inc. This also entailed assisting auditors for manuals, procedures, systems design and data analysis for SOX spin-off compliance.

The second phase of employement pertained to a cost analyst role in the health care division.  The team's main focus point was to perform a footprint consolidation that consisted of relocating mill finance teams, new role assignments, and SAP software implementations. After completing this project, the next assignment was to prepare the Supply Chain Accounting division through training and development efforts with our partners to outsource and off-shore the division. 

The list below outlines all noteworthy accomplishments during the time as cost analyst:

• Trained multiple replacements to perform similar functions outsourced to an offshore location by writing and reviewing SAP R/3 CO Module Standard Operating Procedures to enhance training, increase job performance, and achieve high success rate allowing for language and cultural differences for period end and standard costing processes to be completed before the scheduled project deadline; demonstrated loyalty, professionalism, and training skills to insure a seamless transition of selected accounting functions. 
• Accomplished cost vs. planned variance of 1% during SAP implementation three months before deadline requirement for two foreign plants after successful conversion of the Health Care sector.  Software implementation allowed accuracy through material costing measures with Business Warehouse and Business Explorer Analyzer tools to include cross-departmental exchanges for standard inventory values utilizing rate of operations, bill of material checks with waste calculations, and other indirect material costs.
• Educated plant finance team on Monthly Flash Variance Reports compiled from SAP data for division sector and facility site management cost review meetings. This entailed managing division on-line intranet web resource files and reports for cost analytical reviews to eliminate manufacturing cost variances in excess of $100,000 and facilitating SAP Mill Training seminar to non-financial management personnel for integrated procedure changes to cost of manufacturing activities with a system application review
• Coordinate division’s conversion and splitting of US and Mexican manufacturing site cost structure and financial data from Legacy AS400 system to customized SAP ERP package with Business Warehouse reports to provide real-time data to effectively meet the corporate scheduled global marketing and production demands providing a total cost savings of $5M
• Develop strategy to consolidate, streamline, and merge Mill Financial Team responsibilities that provided $200K yearly cost savings by realignment of facility and division financial team assignments to a centralized Supply Chain Accounting division for US and Mexican manufacturing sites and two warehouses. The processes performed involved consolidating, streamlining, training, and managing financial team procedures that eliminated one cost analyst position. 
• Conducted internal review of SOX compliance measures to ensure proper delegations and authorizations as required by corporate compliance measures over balance sheet and profit/loss journal entries, production, current cost standards, and inventory maintenance with Mill Financial Team merger and consolidation.  This review fostered $1.2M savings in dutiable value for internal reporting for customs.  
• Initiated cost saving measures of $100K for procedures to bypass software restricted accounting activity for cross-company transactions from non-SAP sites to SAP sites to remain in compliance with US GAAP, SOX compliance, and international accounting regulations per Mexico’s customs duties and tariffs regulations
• Implemented measures for new intra-company billing process from the former Legacy Accounting System to SAP to account for SOX compliance regulations, software restrictions, and international accounting regulations for US & Mexican facilities.

The list below outlines all noteworthy accomplishments during the time as cost accounting associate:

• Analyzed Cost of Sales and Inventory Cost procedures in accuracy and training for software calculations and US GAAP regulations during Internal SOX Audit with all auditors in the Neenah Paper Division spin-off.
• Increased reporting efficiency by 30% by implementing a month end automation process for a facility’s month-end close process for manufacturing, cost of sales, and general ledger activities for supply chain accounting to utilize existing systems to reduce project time by seven hours; ongoing phases include moving a $137M sales mill to a one day process. (Click here for Appendix 1: Corporate Reorganizational Projects).
• Standardized facility work-papers of $160M to provide uniformity with $15B corporation compliance for Sarbanes-Oxley and Legacy/SAP system conversion in US and Mexico operations that required independent research and analysis.
• Confirm a facility’s ending general ledger balances to develop account activity explanations for non-accounting personnel and reconciliations which required a reclass of $107M absolute dollars with $2M in liability savings.

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