"Yep," he said. "Claire may have found a solution to the site dilemma." Noah glanced at her as he prepared to leave. "Book a meeting tomorrow morning and let's go over this further. Include the developers and… Grace Simmons from the GFS team."
"GFS?" she asked.
"Global financial systems. They're part of the PMO who manage financial-related projects. They support the financial users and are responsible for accounting-related configurations in MADS. They'll want a say in this." He nodded, then turned and walked out.
Claire forced a smile. "Will do," she said to his retreating back. She should be ecstatic. She'd found a solution to a problem the team had been dealing with long before she was here. Instead, she was trying to understand what had just happened. Had Noah been about to touch her? And what did that mean? Her heart hammered inside her chest and she waved her hand at her face, trying to cool down its sudden warmth.
Claire checked the time again. She'd found a meeting time that worked for everyone and all but two of the attendees had settled around the conference room. Only Noah and Rick were absent. The overhead projector was on and ready to share her screen, so while they waited, Claire talked with the financial support team manager, Grace Simmons. She marveled at how a name could suit someone so perfectly. Grace was poised, polite, and soft-spoken, with an aura of quiet confidence. Definitely someone she wanted to emulate.
Rick walked in and found a seat. Claire watched the door. When Noah didn't follow him in, her gaze swung to Rick in question.
Rick caught the look. "Noah can't make it, but he filled me in. You want to get started?"
Claire frowned. Disappointment slammed into her. She'd been looking forward to discussing this with him further. Another thought intruded. Had Noah changed his mind about her solution? Was there something wrong with it she had overlooked? She pressed her lips together and exhaled through her nose.
"No worries," she said. She looked at Vicki, who had eagerly agreed to take notes for the meeting. "Ready, Vicki?"
At the other woman's nod, Claire opened the relevant screens on her laptop and gave the same presentation she'd shown Noah yesterday. Grace asked several pointed questions, which Claire answered with ease.
When the discussion died down, Claire summarized the basics and everybody agreed the approach would enable them to uniquely identify sites within the global system.
Claire was ready to wind down the meeting, but Grace stopped her. "This actually addresses another issue the accounting team has, separate from the update project. We can use these same codes to roll up our consolidated financial information. It will simplify our translation process for our existing financial reporting and work nicely with the new budgeting tool we're implementing. This is brilliant. Really good work, team."
Claire's mouth fell open. When she'd conceived the idea, it had been with a limited scope in mind. The thought that her idea might stretch into other departments and help across the board gave her such a confidence boost. She scanned the room. Grace was smiling as she jotted in her notebook, Delbert and Srini whispered excitedly between themselves, and Vicki scowled down at her laptop. Claire briefly wondered if the documentation system was causing problems, before continuing around the room. Larry's usual smirk was in place, and Rick… Rick gave her a nod.
"Nice work, Claire," he said. Heat infused her face at the quiet praise.
Grace pushed back from the table. "Let me know if you need anything from us, but I suspect Noah and Larry will have this well in hand. Thank you, Claire, for explaining it so well. I'm assuming we'll start testing soon?"
Claire smiled widely at the slender blonde. "Yes, I'll coordinate with Rick. I'm glad we found the perfect solution. And that it will solve other issues as well."
After everyone left, Claire bounced in her seat as she switched off the projector, then danced around, straightening the room. She could hardly wait to tell her dad how impressed everyone was with her recommendation.
Chapter 12
Norway Plans
Things were moving fast with Claire's solution. The financial team had cleared her report code proposal for use last week and pulled Noah in to help. Today, they were reviewing the plan and discussing reports needed to use the codes.
"We just need to build it like we do the income statement, except instead of rolling up G/L accounts, we roll up the report codes."
Noah raised an eyebrow. "Are we learning accounting stuff now?"
Del shrugged. "Nope. You don't have to worry your pretty little head about anything so difficult. This is a coder's behind-the-scenes thing I'm referencing." Larry snorted and chucked a giant foam finger at him. The guys had gone to the Astros game over the weekend and sports memorabilia littered the war room today.
Rick calmly moved a stray ball out of the way. "This solves every single issue we've identified with the sites needing to be unique. Noah, you and Claire need to spend some time getting this all configured. Our site list is out-of-date and you need to tell Claire which sites belong in what area. Once you have that she can upload it programmatically, so you don't have to set up each one manually."
Noah met Claire's gaze while Rick went on dispensing instructions to the other team members. He sighed internally. All this one-on-one time was going to test the limits of his control. More time spent with the tiny ginger meant more cold showers in his future.
"Hold that thought," Simon announced as he walked into the room. Everyone stopped what they were doing and gave him their attention. "We've got a problem with Norway. They have some legal oddities in the way they handle credits and returns that throw a kink in the works."
"And we're just now hearing about it?" Del asked. "This should've come up during the requirements-gathering trip."
"Apparently, it slipped their minds and the European accounting team didn't include it. We need to make a trip over there to understand what's going on. This is another one of those easier-in-person conversations. Everyone, pull out your calendars and let's figure out who is going and when. Getting this resolved takes precedence over everything else."
Simon was not happy. Between the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays next week and some hard deadlines the week after, the developers couldn't get to Norway until the second week in December. Claire listened as everyone looked through their calendars and coordinated with Simon on determining dates for their trip. The chief complaint centered on traveling during the winter months.
"Are you sure this isn't something we could do remotely?" Delbert asked again. He counted off the folks Simon wanted on the trip. "Rick, Claire, Noah, and myself all for a misunderstanding?"
