Situation

The client was working through a complex ERP consolidation effort across multiple systems. Historically, that work depended heavily on internal analysts who understood the data, the process, and the classification structure. When those resources were no longer available, the company still had to move forward with the work accurately, securely, and on schedule.

That created pressure on several fronts. Source data needed to be cleaned and normalized across ERP outputs. Transactions had to be classified through a deep hierarchy. Existing classifications were not always reliable. The work also had to be performed within a tightly controlled environment, which limited flexibility and required delivery within the client’s security framework.

The issue was bigger than spreadsheet cleanup. The client needed a way to replace a knowledge-dependent process with one that was more structured, more repeatable, and better suited for future cycles.

Solution

ProsperSpark supported the engagement as a structured delivery project built around the realities of the client’s environment.

The work began with analysis of the client’s data structure, source outputs, and classification requirements. From there, ProsperSpark developed an Excel-based process supported by Power Query transformations, VBA enhancements, and a structured classification framework to help standardize how data was cleaned, reviewed, and categorized.

Because the project had to be completed inside a secure client environment, the solution also had to be practical. ProsperSpark worked on client-issued devices and adapted the delivery approach to fit the client’s security requirements rather than forcing a process that would not work in that setting.

Project management was a key part of the engagement. Weekly sprint planning and ongoing monitoring helped keep the project aligned with deadline expectations while allowing the team to refine the classification process as new scenarios surfaced.

The end result was not just a completed round of work. It was a more repeatable process the client could carry into future consolidation efforts, with less dependence on individual analyst knowledge and more structure behind how the work gets done.

Results

The project was completed within the required timeline, giving the client a path to finish a complex ERP consolidation effort without rebuilding internal analyst capacity first. That alone mattered. The work was happening in a controlled defense environment, under deadline pressure, and after the loss of key internal process knowledge.

Beyond timeline execution, the engagement helped create more structure around how source data was reviewed, normalized, and classified. Based on internal project notes, classification coverage improved from roughly 30% at the start to 99.5% of data-set costs classified by the end of the effort. This reflects a 69.5 percentage-point improvement in classification coverage and points to a much more complete and usable output for the client’s consolidation work.

The project also produced 300+ classification rules, which is important because it shows the process was not being handled through isolated manual decisions alone. A rule base of that size suggests the team built a more consistent framework for handling recurring transaction scenarios across multiple ERP outputs. That kind of structure makes future cycles easier to manage and reduces reliance on individual judgment for each pass of the work.

There was also a staffing impact. The source material indicates the client was able to move forward without rehiring additional analyst support for the consolidation cycle. Framed conservatively, that suggests at least one analyst hire was avoided for this phase of the work. Even without attaching a dollar amount, that is a meaningful operational outcome because it reduced pressure to replace specialized internal knowledge immediately just to keep the project moving.

The long-term value came from repeatability. Because the final process was more structured and reusable, future consolidation cycles should require less setup, less rework, and less dependence on rebuilding the same logic from scratch.  A 20%+ reduction in future-cycle setup effort is a reasonable directional estimate based on the process improvements documented in the project materials.

Taken together, the results were bigger than a completed spreadsheet effort. The client finished on time, improved classification coverage substantially, created a stronger rule framework, reduced dependence on analyst headcount, and came away with a more repeatable process for future consolidation work.