CFOs know how crucial it is to have accurate and timely financial reporting. Reports must be accurate and efficient to provide reliable information and analytics to the stakeholder. This article will discuss how CFOs can ensure the quality of financial reporting through specific measures. We will also identify best practices for leveraging technology to improve reporting processes, resulting in improved visibility and cost savings.
Collect Accurate Data
Manual data entry is the leading cause of data inaccuracies. With sufficient validation, an organization is protected from repeated incorrect data entry. Many organizations need a standard process for collecting, formatting, and accessing data.
Incomplete data is also another common problem for CFOs. When the software isn’t ready to collect enough data, it subverts assumptions and extrapolations, leading to further inaccuracies. Many organizations collect data manually in Excel spreadsheets and then transfer it to digital systems. An outdated and inefficient data collection system does more harm than good.
Organizations can perform the following checks and controls to ensure data integrity, accuracy, and reliability. The best way to ensure data accuracy is to collect data from the right and best sources, both internal and external. By evenly distributing data entry workload across teams, automating various processes, and setting up real-time data entry software, CFOs can eliminate data entry and processing errors. It can be reduced or eliminated. Organizations can also standardize data entry and access methods to reduce the potential for duplication and misinterpretation.
Enhance Internal Controls
Internal controls refer to certain procedures, policies, and rules a company puts in place to ensure financial integrity and accounting accuracy. Internal controls are critical to the success of any business because they help prevent fraud, help comply with laws and regulations, and improve the accuracy and timeliness of a company’s financial reporting. Additionally, internal controls help facilitate both internal and external audits.
Operational efficiency increases when an organization implements a robust and consistent system of internal controls. Using proper procedures to verify the accuracy of your company’s financial information will help ensure transparency and help you make strategic decisions for your business. Internal controls allow you to monitor your company’s performance systematically and ensure that goals and objectives are met. An early warning system allows companies to fix minor problems before they become severe and avoid fines from external audits.
Utilize Corporate Performance Management Tools
In a data-driven world, finance has become strategically important for all organizations, from charities, health and social care, and professional and recruitment services to financial services.
Corporate Performance Management tools (CPM) is one of the essential tools available to chief financial officers (CFOs) and their teams to make strategic decisions and support business operations.
The CFO uses CPM to drive corporate strategy, answer questions about marketing campaign success, new product line performance, and supply chain bottlenecks, and uncover detailed customer insights.
Performance Canvas Financials offers you a comprehensive, sophisticated and easy-to-use CPM solution that promises to streamline and intelligently automate your entire FP&A process from start to finish.
PCF is a unified and easy-to-use software for financial reporting and analysis, consolidation, dashboarding, budgeting and planning. This add-on software to your existing ERP system gives you complete control of the financial planning and analysis process.
Tying It Together
Financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting are three key components of decision-making critical to any organization. By ensuring better real-time data collection, processing, presentation, and analysis organizations can avoid pitfalls.
The most robust corporate performance management platform, Performance Canvas helps you perform robust financial analysis of your financial data by providing real-time, role-based access. Save money, increase efficiency and make better decisions with financial process streamlining and automation solution.
Start making fast and better business decisions today!
