PDF《“Beyond the 'final mile' of group》

Beyond the '

final mile'

of group (corporate) financial reporting A FSN &

Oracle White Paper

2 Beyond the '

final mile'

of group (corporate) financial reporting - A FSN &

Oracle White Paper Contents Introduction

3 The challenges of the financial reporting supply chain Regulation and compliance Stakeholder Management Real-time reporting

4 What sort of architecture would work? Pre-consolidation The need for shared capability Post-consolidation

5 The organizational challenge in the final mile The ad-hoc approach Standalone '

Last Mile'

solutions

7 How Oracle responds to the integration challenge

9 Summary

11 3 Beyond the '

final mile'

of group (corporate) financial reporting - A FSN &

Oracle White Paper Introduction The group (corporate) financial reporting process has been in a constant state of flux since the introduction of the Sarbanes Oxley Act in 2002.

Regulation and compliance have been in the '

driving seat'

, stretching the breadth of reporting, accelerating reporting deadlines, introducing new information requirements and ushering in a new era of electronic filing based on the global XBRL standard. But the greatest impact has been on the final throes of the financial reporting supply chain C the so called '

final mile'

C loosely defined as the stage between the final group consolidation and the presentation of the fully adjusted results and disclosures to internal and external stakeholders. In many cases the response to the demands of the final mile has been haphazard, with temporary fixes and '

bolt on'

solutions for XBRL, document management, collaboration and financial control, jeopardising productivity in the group finance department and increasing compliance costs. It'

s an approach which is strikingly at odds with the clear trend for integration over the last decade in which the earlier stages of group (corporate) reporting have become increasingly joined up and streamlined. This has created a yawning gap between the tightly integrated pre-consolidation phase of the reporting supply chain and the poorly supported processes around the production of financial statements, management accounts and statutory filings. So the challenge facing the group (corporate) reporting function is twofold. Firstly, how to integrate the key process steps within the final mile and, secondly, how to integrate the final mile with the earlier pre-consolidation phase of the reporting cycle so that the benefits of data quality, enhanced control, process visibility, speed and productivity flow seamlessly through the reporting supply chain C from start to finish.

4 Beyond the '

final mile'

of group (corporate) financial reporting - A FSN &

Oracle White Paper The challenges of the financial reporting chain Over the last decade, tremendous progress has been made in the pre-consolidation phase of the financial reporting supply chain, for example, the ease with which data can be harvested from subsidiaries and submitted to group. The ability to readily capture information from integrated ERP systems together with financial data quality management and advanced analytical and reporting tools has led to a step change in financial integrity and the ability to respond to new information requirements. Fig 1: The extended financial close processes But significant challenges remain in integrating the pre and post consolidation phases and in responding to the special challenges of the post-consolidation phase namely;