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7 Steps to Financial Integrity

James TaylorAccount ManagerThe GL Company Australasia

Presented by:

Financial Integrity

Ensuring that financial information accurately reflects the

underlying accounting transactions

… and that the accuracy of the information can be easily

verified

Who cares about Financial Integrity?

Who doesn’t?

Legal requirement to accurately report financials

Organisations need relevant, reliable, timely financial

information in order to operate effectively, to:

Control costs

Review revenue

Ensure on-going financial viability

Month EndMonth EndDoes it Send shivers down your spine????

Two Words…..

Challenges in achieving Financial Integrity

Time pressure

Difficult reporting, reconcilliation & validation processes

Imperfect toolsets

ERP Inquiry Screens & Report Writers

Spreadsheets

Business Intelligence & 3rd Party Reporting tools

Does this look familiar?

• Run directly against ERP system – good!

• Inquiry screens very limited & inflexible

• Report writers are technical IT tools

• No financial transparency in reports: hard-coded, static, no drill down

• Difficult & time-consuming to validate & reconcile reports

ERP inquiry screens & report writers

Spreadsheets & Excel-based solutions

• 95% of spreadsheets contain at least 1 error (KPMG white paper)

• Results can be manually adjusted - no audit trail on what’s changed

• Can easily be proliferated without security both internally & externally

• Many local copies are created, which is the correct version?

• Difficult to manage if the person who wrote them leaves

• No Control System. Who publishes what and when?

• Financial Integrity nightmare

Spreadsheets provide a familiar interface for Accountants but compromise financial integrity:

• Complex Meta Data / End User Layers (EUL) require

setup & on-going maintenance

• Limited financial transparency, difficult to reconcile

• Data often exported to separate database:

reports do not run over core accounting data

• Fixed set of reports - new requests require specification, development

(modification of Meta Data); a technical process prone to error

Business Intelligence (BI)

Useful for post-month end management reporting but does not necessarily provide Financial Integrity:

What’s needed

• Safe, secure, ad-hoc inquiry & reporting for accountants

• Real Time – post a journal, see the results immediately

• Pre-configured for the ERP system: meta data is built-in

• No staging – runs directly against core accounting system

• Financial transparency – drill to details & transactions

• Used by Accountants, not IT

• FAST – relieves time pressure at month end

7 Steps to Financial Integrity

1) Direct Inquiry

2) Interactive Trial Balance

3) Financial Transparency through drill down

4) Audit Unposted Batches

5) Review Currency Translation

6) Validate Financial Statement Lines

7) Analyse Results against Multiple Budgets

Step 1: Direct InquiryInquire directly over the Balance & Journals tables, not through a view, or against a data extract. Post a journal & see the results immediately.

Step 2: Interactive Trial Balance

Analyze Trial Balances & multiple accounts across segments in summary or detail for multiple periods on a single screen.

Step 3: Financial TransparencyDrill from consolidated account balances, to transactions to sub ledgers to quickly investigate issues.

Step 4: Unposted BatchesReconcile between journals & financial statement balances and investigate any unposted batches.

Step 5: Currency Translations

Review base and

translated

currency

summaries with

drill to Entered &

Accounted

journal amounts.

Step 6: Validate Financial Statements

Identify any

accounts missing

from financial

reporting lines by

validating parent

account rollups,

summary

accounts or

selecting totals

for ranges.

Step 7: Actuals ‘v’ Budgets

Analyze financial

results against

multiple budget

versions

simultaneously.

The 7 steps:

• Step 1: Direct Inquiry – Post a journal and see the results immediately• Step 2: Interactive Trial Balance - Analyse accounts across segments,

consolidated or detailed• Step 3: Financial Transparency - Drill from balances to transactions,

sub ledgers, journal entries• Step 4: Unposted batches – Investigate unposted batch errors• Step 5: Currency Conversions and Translations – Review base and

translated currency summaries• Step 6: Validate Financial Statement Consolidation Lines – Identify

any accounts missing from financial reporting lines by validating parent account rollups and summary accounts

• Step 7: Analyse Actuals Against Multiple Budget versions

• At the completion of the 7 steps, financial reports can be published in confidence, with their financial integrity intact

Really Real Time Inquiry Suite

• Easy interface to audit the data in the Oracle General Ledger

• Pre-configured ad-hoc inquiry & reporting for Accountants

• Can be used to validate or replace FSGs

• Secure environment used by Accountants but controlled by IT

A few ANZ customers we’ve worked with

Really Real Time Inquiry Suite for Oracle

Are you involved in Month End or Project Accounting?

We can help make your life easierwww.TheGLCompany.com