Key Financial Controls: Increasing the Effectiveness of the Record to Report Cycle

Explore a complimentary guide highlighting what is likely the most critical part of any company’s close cycle — how your key financial controls are managed within the overall compliance framework.

Every company, whether privately-held or publicly traded, has some form of a controls and compliance framework — although that framework and the way it’s executed will vary based on country, industry, public vs. private, private preparing to IPO, nature of the close (for example, a virtual close), and other relevant factors. Finance controls and automation are critically important to adhere to regulatory compliance standards, private governance, as well as external and internal audits.

However, the effectiveness of an organization’s controls and compliance framework depends entirely on the organization, its tools and the steps they’ve taken towards their compliance considerations.

Every organization’s controls and compliance framework will fall into one of these 3 categories:

Reactive

Reactive organizations are always one step behind when it comes to finding inaccuracies. Their controls are not defined or effective, and therefore they experience increased risk for compliance violations and revenue loss. Discover the characteristics of a reactive organization and 3 best practice steps they can take to improve their financial controls.

Proactive

Organizations with a compliance framework that is more streamlined than reactive, but not quite world-class quality, fall into the proactive category. These organizations typically have some finance controls and automation in place, but limit their efficiency gains to one part of the Record to Report, usually the reconciliation process. If your organization is proactive, explore the benefits your organization could be experiencing by expanding across other processes.

World-Class

Leading organizations, such as LKQ Corporation, have revolutionized their entire organization with their world-class Record to Report process. Discover the ROI that organizations with a world-class controls and compliance framework offer their organizations, and how to lead your organization to a world-class process.

What stage does your finance team fall into? How can you improve your finance processes?

An optimized framework for financial controls simplifies processes like the internal audit and streamlines adherence to regulatory compliance standards or a private board. Discover how finance controls and automation impacts all levels of finance and accounting teams — including the staff accountant, middle/senior management and executive leadership — and levels the organization to a new playing field.