The 3 Things Your Financial

Consolidation Software Doesn’t

Have…But Should!

“FINANCIAL PROCESSES SHOULD NO LONGER BE ISOLATED INTO SEPARATE SYSTEMS FOR

CONSOLIDATIONS OR BUDGETING AND PLANNING OR THE LAST MILE. DISCONNECTED SYSTEMS

REQUIRE TOO MUCH MANUAL INTERVENTION TO MAKE SURE DATA IS ACCURATE AND SYNCHRONIZED.

WITH THE RIGHT SOLUTION, PROCESSES CAN BE CONNECTED FROM THE TIME YOU PULL SOURCE DATA

FROM THE LEDGER ALL THE WAY TO THE DELIVERY OF DOCUMENTS IN THE LAST MILE.”

Kevin Gray, VP Solution Consulting

Finance organizations are being asked to do more – faster – in an environment of

ever-growing complexity and change.

As a result, companies are exposed to greater risk in generating financial statements.

Mistakes have a dramatic impact on reputation, stock, partner and investor relations.

For those companies looking to replace older CPM systems, there’s much more to

consider than the type of user interface or deployment options.

You need an in-depth look at critical features to look for in a modern CPM solution that

has the capability to adapt to business change and growth in coming years.

The Top 3

Accounting

Intelligence

1Adaptability to

Growth and Change

2Financial Reporting (“The Last mile of

Finance”)

3

Accounting

Intelligence

1

Double-entry logic as an extension of your ERP, all entries into the system

should have two sides – as accounting dictates. This

eliminates risks that one-sided entries pose to your

statements down the line. No one likes a restatement.

Control provide a control mechanism to monitor where

contributors are in the reporting process. Includes the

ability to track submissions and data sources, with

controls prevent contributors from making changes as

the process goes up the chain. Solutions should provide

full auditability.

Cash Flowshould show cash flow position within the software as

part of the generation of financial

statements. You shouldn’t have to do a post-close

analysis to figure out where the cash is.

Detail regulatory reporting requires a detailed breakdown of

data that is typically collected from different systems.

For example, if a bank has $100 million in mortgages on

the balance sheet, it now has to show details such as the

number of single-family and multi-unit mortgages and

identify which are delinquent.

Some things to consider when looking for

CPM:

Accounting Intelligence

ACCOUNTING INTELLIGENCE IS ONE OF

THE KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL CPM

SYSTEM. A CPM SYSTEM IS TRULY AN

EXTENSION OF A COMPANY’S ERP OR GL

SYSTEM AND SHOULD BE HELD TO THE

SAME STANDARDS.

“TODAY’S CONSOLIDATION SOLUTIONS

SHOULD DO MORE AND MORE OF THE WORK

FOR YOU. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO MONITOR

WHO SUBMITTED INFORMATION, HOW IT

GETS UP THE CHAIN, WHO HAS REVIEWED,

APPROVED AND ADVANCED IT, AND THEIR

COMMENTS ALONG THE WAY.

THE PROCESS SHOULD BE AUDITABLE AND

INHERENTLY CONFORMING, MAINTAINING THE

INTEGRITY OF THE DATA UNDERNEATH.”

Kevin Gray, VP Solution Consulting

Click here to read how a global leader like Brembo leveraged a single

application to manage all of their complex financial processes.

REPLAY THE WEBINAR NOW!

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Adaptability to Growth and

Change

2

Any system needs to accommodate for company growth.

Growth often comes through global expansion and M&A

activity. As such your system needs:

Built-in logic for converting currency (not leave it up to

the user to make adjustments). More importantly, the

logic needs to accommodate historical exchange rates

for retained earnings and apply it period-over-period.

You can’t get a true picture of performance until you

isolate the variance in converted budgets. This

typically happens in a post-close analysis in a separate

system using a manual spreadsheet process. CPM

systems should automatically manage such variances,

giving you the ability to evaluate at any time how the

business is doing irrespective of currency fluctuations

between budget and actuals.

For true management reporting, certain costs need to

be allocated out to get a more detailed picture of how

operations are actually being run. CPM systems should

convert local currency to a common currency for

performing such allocations.

Adaptability to Growth and

Change

CAUTION

Does your current system adapt to growth and

change? Find out more in this informative whitepaper:

Top Signs It’s Time to Replace Your Financial

Consolidation System

“GLOBAL COMPANIES NEED THE FLEXIBILITY

TO SUPPORT CURRENCY DIFFERENCES.

COMPANIES WITH BIG TRANSACTIONS –

SUCH AS INVESTMENTS IN OTHER

COMPANIES, DIVISIONS AND SUBSIDIARIES –

NEED TO COMPLY WITH ACCOUNTING RULES

FOR THE EXCHANGE RATE OF THE DAY.

USERS OF OLDER SYSTEMS THAT CAN’T

ACCOMMODATE CHANGING EXCHANGE

RATES NEED A WORKAROUND. LOOK FOR A

NEWER SYSTEM WITH BUILT-IN RULES SO

YOU CAN DO CURRENCY CONVERSION

RIGHT WITHIN THE SOFTWARE.”

Adaptability to Growth and

Change

Any company doing business in Europe is faced with

reporting requirements using local GAAP standards

and newer regional IFRS standards. Companies need

to show a set of year-over-year comparisons in the old

and new standards. Systems today should have multi-

standards awareness already built in.

Older systems don’t have the ability to effectively

handle M&A activity and other structural business

changes. Growing companies need systems with built-

in awareness to give insight into the impact of such

events such as:

Value of the investment at any stage, currency

conversions and exchange rates, net equity impact, roll

over into any dividend or investment eliminations, equity

picks ups, what if scenarios, etc.

And it needs to manage any intercompany

relationships as it grows.

CAUTION

Some systems claim to manage multi-standards, but

you actually have to create a redundant set of

information and reconcile it.

Kevin Gray, VP Solution Consulting

Financial Reporting (“The Last mile of

Finance”)

3

Many CPM systems stop at the ‘last mile’. But more

advanced systems will take financial information

through a controlled process and integrate it with

narrative information about results.

Look for a system that provides collaborative

workflow in a controlled auditable process for

managing reviews. An automated process is much

more secure than having your financial information

floating around in an email attachment.

Complete CPM solutions will automatically pull data

from the ledger, validate and manage data through the

closing process, and streamline the production of

financial statements and the various other packages

needed in the last mile.

“MODERN SYSTEMS SHOULD MAINTAIN LIVE LINKS INSIDE REPORTS BACK TO SOURCE DATA AND

ELIMINATE THE NEED TO COPY AND PASTE DATA. AND, IF YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR CONSOLIDATION

OR POST A LAST MINUTE JOURNAL ENTRY, YOU WANT IT TO FEED INTO YOUR DOCUMENT STRUCTURE.

YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO REMEMBER TO GO BACK LATER AND UPDATE TEN DIFFERENT SECTIONS

OF THE DOCUMENT.”

Kevin Gray, VP Solution Consulting

Financial Reporting

(“The Last mile of Finance”)

Click here to read: “How to Speed Up Your Closing Cycle”

CLICK HERE TO SEE COMPLETE LIST OF UPCOMING DEMOS!

Tagetik: Unified Performance Management Software

Kevin Gray is Vice President of Solutions Consulting for

Tagetik North America. Kevin joined Tagetik in 2008 and has

25 years of experience helping customers manage and

implement ERP, CPM and BI solutions. Before joining the

software industry, Kevin worked in accounting and financial

planning.

Contact Kevin:

KevinGray@tagetik.com

Kevin Gray

THANK YOU

www.tagetik.com