We never believed in strategies, where numbers are locked for a minimum of 12 months and all decisions should assist to one and only goal to reach the budgeted numbers. I guess very few companies have planned with the current coronavirus or its economic implications. Scenario planning is the new way of strategy, where companies can pick versions based on the evolvement of certain variables. But how and when do we know that one scenario is beneficial than the other under certain circumstances or moreover it is high time making the change? At the end of the day, we all want to make better decisions, faster than ever using as short information as possible.
The question might be raised: how can we create this supportive information flow? The answer is to use advanced reporting tools.
A comprehensive, structured trusted data-based, real-time reporting system will support your business decisions not only on management but also on the front office level, so business actions can be more real-time and the information flow to actions becomes significantly shorter.
WHAT ADDITIONAL BENEFITS DOES YOUR COMPANY TAKE FROM AUTOMATIZED FINANCIAL REPORTING PROCESSES?
+ You will reduce the manual task of your finance team who, therefore, can allocate their professionalism to more important things than preparing millions of spreadsheets.
+ Consequently, you will reduce costs and time at the company level.
Your report will be easy to change according to the actual requirements with several sources of data on a user-friendly dashboard, in real-time.
WHAT KIND OF BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL REPORTS DOES YOUR COMPANY NEED?
They can be:
+ several types of internal management reports (eg.: utilization and efficiency report, actual-budget comparisons, financial forecasts, cash flow statements, salary, and other HR reports) with various frequency and requirements, supporting internal decision making, in compliance with local / group requests and standards (eg.: IFRS, UK GAAP, etc.).
+ and the obligatory external financial reports (: financial statements, tax returns, etc.) on the monthly and annual basis for the local Tax Authorities.
Fortunately, both need the same digital technologies. What can be this?
There are different optional levels of automatization – from juggling with excel functions to using self-service reports – based on the actual digital age of the company. Just a few of them:
+ ETL (EXTRACT-TRANSFORM-LOAD)
Sources can be: Excel, access, Smartsheet.com, databases, other files (CSV, TXT, JSON), etc.
+ API, interfaces
+ Data warehouse
+ BI dashboards with AI
+ etc.
If you would like to learn more about these technologies and the optional steps of digital evolution, click here.
PROCESS DIGITALIZATION & BPO (BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING)
Having an effective and real-time reporting system needs lots of investments in time and money, however, there can be a plug-in approach as well. You might find it worth considering that you reach these reporting tools and your business goals as a part of outsourced services, combining them with professional accounting and advisory support.
If you choose BPiON Accounting services, we provide the following reporting opportunities:
Finance & controlling reports:
+ Recurring management reporting
+ Ad hoc analysis
+ Financial Planning – Budgeting and forecasting
+ Cash-flow report
+ Ageing report
+ Various cost accounting methods
+ Financial statements under IFRS, US GAAP or local GAAP
+ Monitoring and implementing statutory requirements
HR&Payroll reports:
+ Salary cost allocation reports (by divisions or cost centers)
+ Critical change report
+ Detailed payroll report (including benefits, deduction, net salary, employer tax & contribution)
+ Absence reports
+ GL report
+ Headcount report
+ Simulated payroll calculation report
+ HR controlling analysis
If you consider the automation of your accounting & payroll processes and reporting, we suggest that you prepare smart and proper goals (what kind of reports and how often do you need them?), analyze your current processes (how many systems do you use? where is the master data? etc.) then, based on this information, find the most effective way of process transformation.
If you haven’t got enough capacity, you can involve a third party project manager into the process revision, transformation, change management.
Finally, we would like to emphasize that the above-mentioned perspective of reporting is rather what does exist with accurate quality and credibility, but new technologies like AI become more popular, which opens a new landscape of management reporting in the future, or even today…
In case of any question, BPiON experts are at your disposal.
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