Safeguard Your Financial Close Process with Accounting Solutions For The Insurance Industry

2020 was one for the books, but have you officially closed the book on an unprecedented year when it comes to your accounting?

It seemed like we had a decade’s worth of crisis and trials rolled into a single year and that stress created unprecedented anxiety in the insurance industry. Simply put, the COVID-19 pandemic and the global response to it has raised difficult questions that are hard to answer:

• How will a prolonged pandemic affect the number of life insurance policies being purchased?
• How will less drivers on the road affect automobile accident claims?
• What kind of support or relief will the federal government provide for virus testing, treatment, and vaccination?

While insurance agencies are left to reconcile the direct impact of the coronavirus on the public at large, behind the scenes, there are internal challenges affecting the industry itself, including:

• Remote working caused unprecedented stress and resulted in longer month-end financial closings.
• The ability to generate custom reports needs became more critical to the success of your business. 
• Workflow processes failed to keep up with new claims as they came in the door.

While these challenges brought a lot of hardship for most insurance agencies, it also brought out something that every business thrives on – an opportunity to scale and excel. 

These challenging times have presented you with the perfect opportunity to review your workflows and processes to determine which were ineffective and slowing you down. To get back up to speed and come out on top, it’s time to adopt a new financial close solution that can meet all of your unique requirements easily and effectively.

Reduce the Time It Takes to Finish Your Month-End Close

The month-end close process is filled with time-consuming steps and workflows which leave room for every accounting department’s nightmare: Errors. 

Ask yourself these questions:

• Can you track every month-end close task to a member of your accounting team?
• Is your team spending a majority of their time analyzing data?
• Are your close processes standardized?

If you answered no to the above questions, your accounting office may not be optimizing their time. 

Avoid errors and save time by streamlining your financial close with automation, so you can focus on what’s most important- helping clients with their insurance claims.

Centralize your existing internal processes and watch online as each member of your accounting team completes their closing tasks. 

Not only can every member of your team have clear guidelines on their deliverables, but you will be able to have clear insight on your expected month-end close date. 

By automating consistent data entry, you’ll reduce the time you spend unnecessarily inputting the same data each month. With an automated accounting solution, the data flows over automatically so you can spend your time focusing on more important tasks, like analyzing what the numbers you are reporting on actually mean for the state of your business.

Get Better Insight with Month-End Close Reporting

Now more than ever, the accounting department is the best place to get a clear picture of how your organization is performing. Is your accounting solution providing you with the answers to the questions your C-Suite or board is asking of you? 

Adra Analytics gives you a better understanding of your financials with endless reporting functionality that you can customize to give you the data you need when you need it. 

• Track activity through a single period or multiple to understand your data on a micro- or macro-level. 
• Check data from multiple sources to give you better insight into your month-end close, as well as non-close related activities and how it might affect you.
• Measure close process efficiency and quality to find ways to improve your processes. 

Plus, you can get more accurate and reliable data by importing your bank records and invoices directly into your system in an audit-ready format. Adra Matcher pulls data from different sources and matches it automatically so you can eliminate unnecessary manual data entry. 

Create More Structure and Discipline Around Your Financial Close

With the rise in at-home work environments and flexible work schedules during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to create an accounting office that prides itself on efficient, effective, and structured workflows. 

In order to create a steady, structured accounting environment, your insurance organization needs to:

• Create and maintain an effective close schedule
• Delegate tasks appropriately and efficiently
• Ensure all accounts are maintained and accounted for regularly
• Finalize all internal and external financial statements
• Chronicle all necessary components for quarterly STAT (NAIC) reporting

Creating that structure starts with throwing out your paper checklist and embracing virtual solutions like Adra.

Create virtual dependency-based checklists that create ownership and accountability within your team, all while keeping every member of your accounting department on the same (virtual page). 

For insurance organizations that need to comply with STAT (NAIC) reporting requirements under the Statutory Accounting Principles (SAP), having a centralized, reusable checklist within the Adra system will provide the visibility and tracking they need for those quarterly compliance items.

With a streamlined process, you can reduce errors and inaccuracies while building a stronger internal control of your reconciliation workflows. 

Foster discipline in the ranks by preventing unnecessary confusion by using push notifications and emails to let each team member know when the data they need is ready for review and processing.

Improve Your Accounting Office’s Workflows: From Home Or The Office

No one could have foreseen the changes that the COVID-19 pandemic would force us all to experience. With increased claims came increased work for accounting offices that were already working under pressure to provide pivotal financial insight during the pandemic.

Regardless of the challenges we’ve been faced with, there’s always an opportunity to find the silver lining and improve our processes. 

Whether you’re working from home or commuting into the office, you can rest easy knowing that Adra was developed for a singular purpose: to reduce the time you spend on your month-end financial close. 

Book a demo to learn how Adra can reduce the time you spend on your financial close by up to 50%.