[aaykarbhavan] THE LAST MILE OF FINANCE--ferf-FEI

 

The Last Mile of Finance

Much progress has been made over the past 20 years in the Office of Finance. The "lights-out" processes imposed by Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), general ledger and consolidation systems have dramatically reduced human errors and processing delays. However, the processes of reconciling, closing at local and group levels, and reporting continue to burden the Office of Finance.

 

This "Last Mile of Finance," has received significant coverage over the last six years particularly since the administration and execution of these processes are quite often the source of errors, staff overtime and significant management anxiety. The Last Mile, also known as the record-to-report (R2R) process in the Shared Services and Finance & Accounting Business Process Outsourcing (F&A BPO) industry, is defined asT "the final series of quality assurance steps involved in preparing a company's financial results for public release and regulatory filings." It encompasses everything from the sub-ledger close in local entities to the group regulatory filing and annual reporting.

 

The Last Mile of Finance has recently gained elevated importance, due to the pressures on the finance organization:

• To sustainably and continuously reduce costs and become lean;
• To adapt to the ever-increasing volumes of compliance and regulation, on a global scale; and
• To sustain and assure the organizations risk profile in an ever-changing and dynamic business environment.

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CA Ramachandran Mahadevan,M.Com.,F.C.A.,

I-708,Mantri Tranquil,Subramanyapura Post,

Bangalore-560061

Karnataka,India.

+91 80 42011024

 

 

You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing."

 

--Dale Carnegie,

American self-help author and lecturer