CadencyDirect Connects FP&A to the Office of Finance

Through the ServiceNow^®Platform, Financial Planning & Analysis no longer needs to wait on a siloed financial close process

As companies around the world march steadily onward into the digital transformations that blur the lines between traditionally siloed operations, the goal is simple: use digital transformation to streamline efforts, reduce risk and costs, and create more efficient company operations. From top to bottom, this is a challenging endeavor that is complicated by disconnected technology used across all operational teams.

Deloitte’s recent Finance 2025 report explored the pitfalls of increasingly complex transformation initiatives, and determined that seamlessly integrated technology solutions are not only important — but pivotal — to make these efforts a success. But when it comes to the operations of the Office of Finance, this level of integration mandates the mixing of two things: a robust and mature financial solution that satisfies the needs of the Office of Finance, and an enterprise-level workflow management software solution that has the flexibility to connect and work for every department in the organization.

CadencyDirect^® by Trintech (available on the ServiceNow platform) bridges this gap by exposing a best-in-class comprehensive Record to Report (R2R) solution tailored for the Office of Finance to an enterprise workflow management software system designed to easily integrate across every team within the company. Safely and effectively distributing traditionally siloed financial data through automated integrations to a larger enterprise-wide tool not only helps leaders across the company have a pulse on the Financial Close, but drive their own work through automated tasks that work independently of a time-consuming manual process.

FP&A Process Flow Needs Efficient Account Certification Communication

One of the many areas of company operations commonly siloed from direct R2R data is Financial Planning & Analysis. Whether performing a flux analysis, determining the need for a complex variance analysis reporting, or forecasting spend and revenue — the financial planning and analysis process flow relies on accurate, up-to-date and current financial data for all company accounts. And it’s the responsibility of the Office of Finance to certify those reconciled accounts for accuracy and completion.

That “rubber stamp” of approval on account reconciliations and certifications serves as a major gate to give FP&A the confidence to move forward with their work, gathering account details from the system of record. But the technology solutions used for certification by the Office of Finance are typically unavailable to the FP&A team. This mandates manual communication from R2R processors when specific accounts are certified and ready to be used for FP&A (and many other) tasks. And in the busy time of period-end close, a manual financial planning and analysis process flow creates delays that impact FP&A efficiency.

Rather than relying on emails or instant messages between the FP&A and R2R processors, a successfully integrated solution can immediately leverage account certification and reconciliation events to trigger automated finance workflows and tasks that notify the relevant FP&A team members. Through managed triggers and configured automated workflows, FP&A is systematically notified when any account is certified and ready for their analysis.

Enabling FP&A Best Practices: Automated Account Certification Tasks

As the only native Built on Now^TM application for the financial close, CadencyDirect enables ServiceNow customers to configure automated workflows for finance based on updates in the account certification process. For example, during the period-end close, workflows can be triggered when an account is certified, whether those workflows are single-task events or multi-stage and complex efforts that involve multiple teams. This means that when an account is certified, CadencyDirect will automatically trigger the relevant workflows for FP&A (or various other teams) to perform their own processes with the knowledge that they are working with accurate, reconciled account data.

Per FP&A best practices, if the FP&A team wants to perform variance analysis reporting as soon as possible for high-impact accounts, when those accounts are certified by the Office of Finance, the FP&A team can be notified automatically. Automated, enterprise workflow management software creates faster response times, ensures accurate data, and increases overall efficiency without the human effort that is typically required to relay that information between the teams.

The Power of Tailored Financial Tools Within Enterprise Workflow Management Software

Ultimately, R2R solutions are specialized because the needs of the Office of Finance are unique and complex. Implementing a true end-to-end solution for financial transformation means having the best tool for the CAO and CFO’s teams, but doesn’t mean that the critical financial close data managed in that solution must be siloed.

Financial close operations inform a tremendous amount of business efforts outside of the Office of Finance. With CadencyDirect on the Now Platform^®, teams across the organization can achieve the increased efficiency, reduced cost, and reduced risk only a true enterprise-level automated financial close solution delivers.

To learn more about CadencyDirect, whether you’re an experienced ServiceNow user looking to focus on finance function transformation, or are just starting your digital transformation journey — download the solution brief.

Written by:

Christopher Witt
Director of Product Management for CadencyDirect