In the last ten years I supported a lot of companies streamling their financial consolidation process. The consolidation process are supported by advanced systems like SAP BOPC. Streamlined financial processes and security (governance) are key points in these projects. However at the end of the project I’m always surprised how the figures from a complete and advanced system flows into the annual and management reports. Mostly by using the copy & paste functionality of Microsoft Office. I’m not the only one surprised. The last mile of finance is a major struggle for accounting staff, controllers and finance directors. I collect a couple of quotes:
“Our financial consolidation supports our financial data within 5 days. Afterwards it takes us more than two months to publish the financial statement.” - Group controller listed company
“Up till 5 times I’m reviewing the same reports. Every time a last minute correction comes I have to change it in 4 different environments and afterwards check on rounding and consistency.” - Senior Controller
“The collection of financial and non-financial data takes such a huge effort. Collecting all kinds of information and sending more than 60 people emails is everything but efficient.” - Accounting employee
“It will save a lot of costs if we’re able to incorporate our auditor and publishing agency in the financial closing process.” - Finance director
There are solutions available for your last mile in finance. SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management is a very useful tool to support the process. Easy to use by a Microsoft Office user interfaces and functionalities to be complete, be consistent, eliminate a lot of email and speeding up the process of the financial closing. An overview of the benefits:
Save time, avoid risks, and decrease cost of disclosure process
The SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management application can play an important role in the financial closing process from financial data to publishing the figures internally and externally.
Time-saving and flexibility
SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management speeds op the disclosure process from source data to financial reporting information in Microsoft Word and Powerpoint.
To reach this goal SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management integrates verbal and financial data in one web based system for a single view across the entire organization. This will lead to optimization of the workflow process because it is possible to work in different parts of the same report at the same time.
Data are easily linked to Financial Reporting data and can be updated with SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation.
Cooperation between different disciplines and teams
SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management points responsibilities of different tasks and reporting parts to different users and teams in workflows. This will automate integration of financial data and verbal data and structure dataflow better.
Ownership of the disclosure process will be held at the finance organization, what will lead to clear responsibilities.
Compliance and control
SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management offers the possibility to produce confidential documentation internally. Eventually SAP BusinessObjects Disclosure Management has the possibility to create XBRL-based statements that will be a reporting requirement by Tax Offices.
