A BPM Partners White Paper, June 2011
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Executive Summary

Financial consolidation has become an ever tougher first stage in the Last Mile of finance, particularly for international companies and those in financial services. The Finance group is stressed by tighter deadlines, more reporting requirements, and multiple national GAAP standards that are shifting in reaction to IFRS, as well IFRS itself. The XBRL reporting mandate is also among the causes.

Disclosure is a quicksand trap waiting in the Last Mile. More people must participate in disclosure than in the past: investor relations, sales, legal, accounting, and others. They have varying knowledge of disclosure requirements, and few tools to guide their collaboration and help ensure consistent disclosures. Disclosure remains time-consuming, tedious, and a risk area. Collaboration in disclosure tasks is important, especially when a company is reporting on results from far-flung operations.

A consolidation application should deliver specific benefits in the near-term, mid-term, and longer-term. Any consolidation system licensed today should, in the near term, reduce the manpower, time and resources needed to survive a specific closing period, increase accuracy, and meet applicable reporting and disclosure mandates.

In the financial close, a software system that includes disclosure management workflow can add great value.  Adjusting and disclosing data is where collaboration looms large, and a software solution should support that interaction with workflow and document version control.

A key guideline: select software that can handle processes and regulatory demands which become more complicated over time.

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