Winning CFOs: Implementing and Applying Better Practices, with Website

CHAPTER 11

More Emphasis on Daily and Weekly Reporting

Why is the monthly reporting so important? For leading organizations, decision-based information is based around daily/weekly information on progress within the important areas of the business. In these organizations, the month-end has become less important, and consequently the management papers have been reduced to 15 pages or less.

In one company the senior management team (SMT) has a 9 o’clock news report every morning followed by further weekly information. At the monthly management meeting to discuss the results, even the human resources manager is able to enter the sweepstakes guessing the month-end result. Talking about the monthly numbers is a small part of the meeting, which happens in the first week of the following month.

I believe as a corporate accountant, you have arrived when members of your management team intuitively know during the month whether it is a good or bad month, which enables them to do something about it if it is a bad month.

Corporate accountants should look at providing this daily and weekly reporting:

• Yesterday’s sales reported by 9 A.M. the following day
• Transactions with key customers reported on a weekly basis
• Weekly reporting on late projects and late reports
• Reporting some weekly information of key direct costs
• The key performance indicators, which are reported daily/weekly (see Chapter 19)

Yesterday’s Sales Report

If the CEO and SMT receive a report on the daily sales, they will better understand ...