The Financial Controller and CFO's Toolkit, 3rd Edition

Chapter 6Month-End Reporting Refinements

OVERVIEW

When the first month-end has been reengineered, there are some other changes that will make a substantial difference to how fast your month-end can be. This chapter explores the other changes that you need to make, Day 1 and virtual reporting case studies, and why 4,4,5 week period reporting suits all organizations.

Once you have achieved a much faster month-end, you will have the time to implement some further refinements covered in this chapter. This chapter is an extract from my white paper, “Rapid Reporting in Three Days or Less and Error Free.”¹

AVOID LATE TIMESHEETS

I personally believe timesheets are only required if they are used for revenue generation, and even that is debatable. One accounting firm in the United Kingdom has dispensed with timesheets as it correctly pointed out, “We spent a lot of time filling out timesheets only to invoice the client a different amount of time in most cases.” The accounting firm now agrees on a fee range and discusses with the client where the fee should be on the scale. Their staff turnover has dropped dramatically and they estimated up to six percent of time was invested, by all staff filling out timesheets in six-minute units.

Get staff to complete non-revenue-generating time sheets by day –3 and to include their best guess for the remaining two days. You could even get them to project forward for the full week. Even if the estimates were 100 percent wrong, there would not ...