FINANCIAL CLOSE PROCESS AUTOMATION
Optimizing Record to Report
Organizations are relying on finance and accounting teams to produce more insightful reporting faster than ever.
Turbulent market conditions and the current distributed operating environment have increased demands for visibility into performance and compliance, and has heightened management and investor scrutiny. On top of this, finance and accounting teams are required to deliver these insights in a never before experienced remote working environment. In short, organizations are demanding more insights through their closing process AND enough time to use these findings to rapidly affect change.
The value of optimized Record to Report (R2R) processes has never been more important. Organizations that prioritize and invest in close process automation will find themselves with:
- Deeper and more actionable insights into their business
- Information generated faster and with less demands on finance and accounting team members
- Enhanced capability to develop and adjust scenarios reflecting current market conditions and enable meaningful variance analysis
- Heightened ability to not only react, but to capitalize on, evolving market and economic conditions
Evaluate your current record to report process
Finance and accounting organizations that find themselves struggling with these questions have an opportunity to drive additional efficiency and effectiveness, serve as a better partner to the business, and ultimately increase shareholder value.
- Are your reporting packages providing clear assessment on performance and actionable insight?
- Is your close fast enough to allow enough time to act on and impact the current month’s results?
- Do you have the right capability and ecosystem in and around your team to not just support finance but drive impact within the operation?
- Is there consistency to the data by/between your systems to be able to say you have one version of the truth?
- Are your ERP and reporting solutions setup to support where your business is focused, key growth areas, and current operations effectively?
- Is your finance team effective and efficient with cash flow forecast, reforecasting and multiple reporting obligations and requests for information?
- Does drilldown and follow up on actions and questions from reporting happen efficiently?
Advantages of Close Process Automation
Through MorganFranklin’s proven methodology and approach to optimizing R2R processes, we have a track record of helping our clients:
Generate more meaningful insights…
- Improve tracking of actual performance to stated expectations
- Enhance visibility into what is driving the numbers
- Enable a deeper understanding of business performance
- Enable rapid drill down into supporting levels of more granular detail
- Eliminate multiple versions of the “truth”
…faster…
- Spend less time gathering data and more time analyzing performance
- Shorten monthly, quarterly, and annual close cycles
- Accelerate the availability of insights and reporting
- Enable confident decision making based on current and relevant information
- Provide an opportunity to affect change in current period performance
…with less effort and rework.
- Eliminate manual, time consuming, and repetitive tasks
- Reduce duplication of effort and eliminate misunderstandings
- Reduce compliance costs
- Refocus finance and accounting resources to strategic areas of focus
- Increase retention and decrease recruiting costs
Close Process Automation through Enterprise and Cloud Applications
The market is filled with a complex array of solutions and applications that can help organizations empower record to report processes. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions enable core business transactions, while enterprise performance management (EPM) applications drive budgeting and forecasting, as well as consolidation and reporting. Close process automation solutions overlay workflow management capabilities, and reporting compliance tools facilitate disclosures and public filings. Meanwhile, robotic process automation (RPA) and intelligent automation tools challenge traditional paradigms and enable innovation through digital finance. Navigating this complex landscape can be daunting. MorganFranklin understands the ever evolving capabilities of these applications and helps architect solutions for our clients’ unique R2R challenges and objectives.
Interested in Learning More?
Optimizing Financial Close Strategy
Our experts analyze core challenges and opportunities to address and streamline the close, consolidation and reporting cycle complexities. Many finance and accounting organizations are increasing their needs/consumption of key financial information (results, cash forecast, re-forecast, etc.) and we share some perspective around process changes and investments organizations are undertaking to address the demand for timely, accurate, and meaningful financial information.
Our panel of experts discuss real scenarios where clients are optimizing their close cycles, improving processes and leveraging technology to the benefit of their organization.
Learning Objectives: This webinar will help participants:
- Embrace key considerations when optimizing the financial close and consolidation process
- Identify opportunities where you can more efficiently provide information, close the books faster, and provide key metrics earlier in the process
- Spot opportunities for optimization around cash forecasting
- Learn about situations where organizations are utilizing technology platforms to support more meaningful analysis and insight
Reach out to an expert or watch our free on-demand webinar today!