The financial closing process is often a blur with little time to consider measuring the results and areas that need process improvements or may indicate a financial statement fraud.  Financial statements are the ultimate scorecard for a company. A company's financial statements reflect the company's business results and trends, its products, services, and macro-fundamental events.
 
There is a competing demand for improved financial governance and increased transparency and reliability of data.  Finance and accounting organizations need to proactively manage the challenges of data quality and prepare for new regulatory requirements to avoid creating a “perfect storm” for their financial close and consolidation processes. How can these challenges be tackled in a concise and predictable manner? We’ll look at both the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) needed to measure the closing process as well as the metrics that can analyze your financial statements and indicate anomalies.
 
Learning Objectives:

• Define the key components of a governance process for your financial close that will reduce surprises and improve predictability.


• Learn how KPIs and metrics can help to identify process improvements and areas for automation.


• Learn the differences between operational metrics and financial statement metrics and the need for both.


• Obtain examples of scorecards for your financial close.