Simplifying Documentation Management with Cadency Close Task Field API

“Where did I save that document? “

“Is this the most up-to-date version of this contract? “

“My auditors need that readout from 2 quarters ago and the person who put it together doesn’t work here anymore – how will I access it?”

For many companies, these are probably familiar – and frustrating – questions, especially around audit time.

Any organization’s period-end close comes with a lot of challenges but keeping track of important supporting documentation shouldn’t be one of them. With today’s increasingly strict compliance guidelines, it’s not enough to simply check off a box and say a task has been completed – you need to be able to prove it’s been done.

Whether your organization is using SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive or some other repository to track and store your supporting documentation, your team still needs to take an additional, manual step to link your tracking process to the documentation. For many organizations, this manual step likely isn’t happening at all, leading to an increased workload when the auditors begin requesting supporting documentation and a potential miss if your team can’t produce all the related documentation.

With Cadency Close, there’s a lot of built-in audit support functionality:

1. Easy task set up and maintenance to ensure the right tasks are getting done at the right time
2. Configurable workflows to allow for the right level of approvals and collaboration where helpful
3. Close Binders to easily consolidate and export a virtual “binder” containing all the important information your auditors are looking for – what was done, who it was done by and when it was done
4. Helpful reporting and dashboarding to give visibility into the period-end status, identify risks and remove bottlenecks in the process

So, once your processes are defined and controls are in place using Cadency Close, it’s time to start layering in automation to drive deeper efficiencies and effectiveness, especially around maintaining and linking supporting documentation.

At Trintech, our vision is for your organizations to maintain your Systems of Record – whether that’s an ERP, another financial system or a document repository like SharePoint – while utilizing Cadency as a System of Controls, connected by the System of Integration.

In Cadency 9.0, users will be able to leverage one of the newest pieces of the System of Integration, the Cadency Close Task Field API, and their own internal automation in order to remove the pain point of linking supporting documentation within Cadency after it’s uploaded in a separate system.

Let’s say, for instance, one of your period-close tasks is running a variance analysis report in your ERP during your depreciation run. As part of this run, a report in SAP is generated – this is the supporting evidence that the “Run variance analysis report” task has been completed. Today, your team must leave SAP, track down that task in Cadency Close and upload the report as an attachment, then close out the task. This may not seem like a big deal or a time-intensive effort until you recall that this report needs to be run across several hundred different entities.

Suddenly that 5-minute task has a much larger cost associated with it.

But with Cadency 9.0 and the Cadency Close Task Field API, when that report link is generated a customer’s automation can send that link back to Cadency, automatically updating the related task with a direct link back to that report. Want to close out the task, too? Layer in Cadency Close APR and remove another manual step in the process.

And when it’s time for your next audit a direct link to the most up-to-date version of your supporting documentation is already attached and accessible to your auditors and in reporting, eliminating hours of time your team would have spent searching for and organizing documentation across disparate systems.

These layers of integration and automation drive several key benefits including:

1. Increasing your organization’s efficiency by reducing the manual period-close activities and time spent supporting an audit
2. A reduction in cost as fewer manual hours are spent on task management and audit preparation
3. Increased effectiveness gained through automation that ensures information is being uploaded correctly and in a timely fashion
4. Reduced risk of a miss in an audit or key control by requiring supporting documentation on those critical tasks

At the end of the day, our employees are our most valuable asset. There are myriad tasks that need to get done and the complexities of the Office of Finance – especially at the enterprise level – are incalculable. Don’t let something as seemingly simple as supporting documentation management result in tedious manual labor or hours of stressful work to support your audit.

For more information on how Cadency can transform your Office of Finance, contact us.

Written by: Sam King