5 Ways CFOs Benefit From Compliance Control

Before

As the CFO, your focus is based on the financial performance of the entire organization. You rely heavily on your team to provide complete and accurate data in a timely fashion. You analyze the information they provide and report those results to the CEO. For scenarios that have a negative impact on the organization, you have to do some digging.

You have to identify the root cause of the situation to prevent those scenarios from happening again – and you usually have limited details of the transaction. You are also responsible for banking relationships. You provide reporting that banks require on a specific schedule. You must be aware of, and most likely approve, major capital improvements.

You’re in charge of the annual financial audit. This includes the ability to put controls in place as the auditing team sees necessary. Compliance control could be used for fraud prevention as well as to control costs. You have to understand what is included in your accrual postings to verify their validity.

Problems arise when you don’t have accurate reporting. You have segments of the business in different software systems, and you need to merge all of the data into one ‘big picture’.

If you have to make changes, you dissect the information from these different sources back down to segments, and then re-compile the data. This entire process relies heavily on second hand reports and other people’s opinions – a labor intensive task that is prone to miscalculation and error.

After

1-You have real time reporting at your fingertips.

2-Not only do you have compliance control, you can drill down into any transaction to get the facts – rather than relying on “editorials” from various departments.

3-You finally have control of indirect spend. You make decisions based on accurate financial reporting – not guesswork or opinion.

4-You have simple email approvals for your executives. This makes them happy because they don’t have to sign into “yet another” system.

5-There’s a secure and transparent audit trail which keeps you happy because that ensures everyone is compliant.

This series is excerpted from our Whitepaper on the Benefits of Purchase to Pay.