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

Chapter 12Quick Annual Reporting: Within 15 Working Days Post Year-End

OVERVIEW

If you are not careful, your year-end accounts can take on a life of their own. Led by the auditors, who delay the audit to fit it into their work schedule, giving them the luxury of hindsight. The delay encourages the accounting team to process adjustment after adjustment only to find the accounts have gone full circle with the year-end audited accounts within 5 percent of the starting numbers. This chapter covers the need for change, how to get the year-end organized, the technology to adopt, the steps to minimize the stress, and how to control all the data coming in from different sources.

The annual reporting activity is part of the three major lost opportunities for the finance team. Slow month-end reporting, long annual planning, and a never ending year-end suck the life out of far too many accounting teams.

While annual reporting is an important legal requirement, it does not create any value within your organization, and thus seldom is it a task where your team has received any form of gratitude. Accounting functions therefore need to find ways to extract value from the process, while, at the same time, bringing it into a tight time frame.

Before you can have a quick year-end, you need to speed up month-end reporting monthly so staff are disciplined to a tight month-end. Your goal should be reporting monthly numbers and comments by day 3 (see Chapter 3 on quick month-end reporting). ...