Emerged from a strategic divestiture, Winland Foods chose Nakisa to automate their lease accounting and ASC 842 compliance. This resulted in ongoing time savings of up to 80 hours each month, increased operational efficiency, and improved decision-making.

Winland Foods is a food manufacturer and global food producer based in Illinois, USA. The company specializes in private-label and branded foods for retail and co-pack customers, focusing on various product categories. 

Winland Foods emerged in 2022 from a strategic divestiture from one of the largest U.S. food manufacturers. This transition to an independent entity involved significant operational adjustments, including in lease accounting and financial reporting. 

Today, Winland Foods manages multiple lease contracts and assets through Nakisa Lease Accounting (NLA). These include buildings (offices), production facilities, equipment such as printers, forklifts, and pallets, as well as new rail car leases. They leverage SAP S4/HANA via SAP RISE, and their lease portfolio in NLA is seamlessly integrated with their ERP, which enhances automation. The leases span the U.S., Canada, and Italy, with reporting and disclosures aligned to ASC 842 standards. 

Before diving into the case study, let’s introduce the Winland Foods team:  

• Yves Dumoulin, Senior Accounting Manager at Winland Foods. Yves is a CPA with 17 years of experience, specializing in external reporting and SEC filings, including 10-Ks, 8-Ks, and 10-Qs for registrants. At Windland Foods, he oversees month-end close, corporate entries, and account reconciliations.  

• Sammy Grochowski, Accountant at Winland Foods. With extensive experience in both public and private accounting, Sammy is a skilled professional who initially managed intercompany and foreign exchange accounting at Winland Foods. Currently, he oversees lease QA, ensuring accurate data entry and modifications before final review and production. 

Nakisa saves me significant time in my role, as I no longer need to go manually post any leases—everything is now fully integrated in the system. It saves me up to 80 hours a month on manual tasks I’d otherwise have to handle. This frees up a lot of time for other tasks and areas. 

Sammy Grochowski,

Accountant at Winland Foods

Winland Foods’ lease accounting challenges during the post-divestiture and transition to independent operations

Following divestiture from the former parent company, Winland Foods needed to implement significant operational changes to support its new independent structure. The team faced several challenges during the post-divestiture phase: 

• Implementing multiple new software systems. Any company emerging after a divestiture must realign its operations and adopt appropriate technology, which can initially feel overwhelming. During this transition, Winland received lease accounting support from its former parent company, which had been using Nakisa Lease Accounting (NLA) with positive results. Building on this experience, Winland Foods chose to leverage NLA for their manufacturing lease accounting needs. This decision helped streamline key aspects of the transition, ensuring continuity in their lease data management and simplifying the shift to independent operations. 

• Reconciling lease liabilities and assets. During the transition to the new system, some discrepancies in lease liabilities were unavoidable, as the previous company's system did not account for certain variables. The Winland Foods team needed to recalculate all leases using their own incremental borrowing rates (IBR) and review all transferred assets and liabilities that did not reconcile due to various factors. This added complexity to accurately reconciling the financial statements during this period of transition. 

• Tracking new leases and subleases during the transition period. With the previous company no longer overseeing new leases and the new system under implementation, the Winland Foods team had to manually track new leases and subleases, adding complexity to calculating carryover lease balances. 

In addition to these post-divestiture challenges, lease accounting for manufacturing generally requires managing a high volume and variety of assets, such as real estate, equipment, and vehicles, with varying lease terms and classifications. Frequent lease modifications, complex asset classifications, and embedded leases in supplier contracts require careful compliance with lease accounting standards. Variable lease payments, impairment risks, and decentralized lease data can add further complexity, necessitating robust ERP integration, regular reassessment, and collaboration across functions to ensure compliance and accurate financial reporting. 

All these challenges created hurdles for the Winland Foods team during the post-divestiture phase, but they were effectively addressed. Let’s explore how Nakisa supported Winland Foods throughout this process. 

Solution: Nakisa’s lease accounting software and expert support  

Winland Foods chose Nakisa Lease Accounting cloud solution for its enhanced flexibility and innovation. In addition to the rapid implementation of the new system, Winland Foods required expert guidance and responsive support throughout the post-divestiture phase. The Nakisa team delivered on all fronts, ensuring that the new entity had historical lease data, reconciled balances, the latest features, and top-notch support.  

Historical data: All lease data for manufacturing assets from the previous company was seamlessly transferred. Nakisa’s software and team facilitated collaboration between the previous team and the new independent entity, ensuring a smooth transition. 

During the implementation, we worked closely with several people from Nakisa. Since we couldn’t access data from the previous company directly, they served as vital intermediaries, guiding us on which reports to request and assisting us in preparing load files for the new system. When the initial load file from the previous company didn’t match our data, the Nakisa team provided detailed guidance on the necessary adjustments to ensure compatibility with our cloud Nakisa version.

Yves Dumoulin,

Senior Accounting Manager at Winland Foods

Aligned balances: To eliminate all discrepancies, it was critical to ensure that balances from the previous company matched those in Nakisa’s system. With dedicated efforts from Yves and Sammy, and the support from Nakisa’s software and experts, the data was successfully compiled and reconciled, which enabled Winland Foods to start fresh with Nakisa’s postings. 

When we started over with Nakisa, everything aligned perfectly. The postings in Nakisa matched the data we transferred from the old system. What I’m most proud of is that it was a smooth transition, and the software fully met our expectations.

Yves Dumoulin,

Senior Accounting Manager at Winland Foods

Nakisa’s experts were consistently available throughout the post-divestiture transition, providing guidance and training to Winland Foods’ team during key phases of implementation. 

Nakisa’s responsiveness and support with tickets have been great. When we have questions, it’s easy to get quick assistance, even for cases when it’s not about an issue, but rather a question we had because we weren’t familiar with Nakisa Lease Accounting processes. We never have to wait long for answers, which has been very helpful.

Sammy Grochowski,

Accountant at Winland Foods

Results: Automated lease accounting and robust, system-generated reports save up to 80 hours monthly

Yves Dumoulin and Sammy Grochowski both brought experience in managing lease accounting manually, without a dedicated solution. In comparing this manual approach to using Nakisa, they emphasized the substantial time savings, improved data accuracy, and enhanced efficiency that Nakisa provides. 

Yves Dumoulin noted that migrating leases into Nakisa eliminated all the manual work they previously required. He shared that he was looking forward to the year-end process in Nakisa. With its automated generation of disclosures for 10-K and 10-Q filings, Yves expects significant time and effort savings. This automation will allow him to focus on strategic tasks beyond lease accounting. 

I know how challenging it is to compile all the 10-K and 10-Q lease disclosures manually, and I was impressed by how you can generate those reports directly from Nakisa’s software.

If we had to handle everything manually, we'd need a dedicated person just for lease accounting. With all the leases added this year, manual processing could take up about half of someone’s time annually.

Yves Dumoulin,

Senior Accounting Manager at Winland Foods

Sammy Grochowski echoed these benefits, highlighting that Nakisa’s automated postings to SAP have eliminated the need for manual entries, saving him up to 80 hours each month.  

Sammy Grochowski also noted that generating schedules of future payments greatly aids the budgeting process. When the finance team needs to plan for upcoming costs, he can quickly pull detailed reports outlining all future expenses. Additionally, having all monthly activity reports in one centralized location simplifies lease accounting reconciliations, ensuring alignment with general ledger balances for accurate reconciliations and roll-forwards. 

In summary, Nakisa’s software and support team played an important role in Winland Foods’ successful transition to independent lease accounting operations. With automated postings to SAP, comprehensive system-generated reports, and many other robust features, NLA ensured compliance with ASC 842 and enhanced operational effectiveness for Winland Foods. 

Looking for enterprise-grade manufacturing lease accounting software?

Nakisa’s lease accounting software is designed specifically for the intricate demands of large, global enterprises. Supporting multiple languages and currencies, it ensures parallel compliance with IFRS 16, ASC 842, and local GAAP standards. Powered by a cloud-native, highly scalable architecture, it leverages advanced technology stacks for optimal performance and configuration. Key benefits of Nakisa include seamless bidirectional integration with ERP systems such as SAP ECC, SAP S/4HANA, Oracle, and Workday, safeguarding data accuracy and integrity. Our comprehensive solution automates and streamlines lease administration and lease accounting across various asset types—real estate, vehicles, equipment, and machinery. 

Discover how Nakisa can elevate your lease accounting with a free tailored demo.