At least 20% of your key reports could be incorrect 

This is a very bold statement but how many times do you hear things like, "Don't touch that report, John created it before he left and no one know how it works" or "Dave is away today and he's the only one that knows how these macros work"

Spreadsheets?

 

User tool or development platform? Are spreadsheets becoming the Sarbanes-Oxley nightmare that could send you to jail?

From the very early days of SuperCalc, the spreadsheet was an ingenious tool that was a great help to accountants and management in the forecasting and planning phase of a company. Now virtually everything is done with them. But have they crossed the line into the realms of an uncontrollable programming tool, challenging the very security of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems? Is the use of offline spreadsheets throughout the month end process, which requires continuous updating and multiple supporting spreadsheets to explain each number, the most efficient way to use your resources in finance?

Take the following scenario...

The CFO is asking for the management pack; the key spreadsheet that has all the data has been corrupted and the person that built it has just left the company. The new management accountant in charge of the board pack is concerned that the figures are not right and no one knows how the macros fit together.

What does the accountant do? Run the macros and keep his fingers crossed, or come clean that there is a problem with the closing deadline? The CFO is totally dependent upon his management accountants and as spreadsheet reporting is becoming more common, it is middle management that is holding the power.

This is an all too familiar situation but unfortunately this is how many companies are building their management packs for month end. Sarbanes-Oxley 404 insists that if you are using spreadsheets for reporting they need to be fully documented along with any updates. How many blue-chip companies can honestly say that this is happening?

(Click >>> for PriceWaterhouseCoopers white paper on Sarbanes-Oxley 404)

Management accountants have in effect become system analysts, programmers and accountants, and some of the spreadsheets are now mission critical to organizations. It is these accountants that have the integrity of the data in their hands. If they want to do a one-sided journal in the spreadsheet, they can: if they have made an error in a calculation, it’s the CFO who will end up having to explain this. 

ERP systems, written by established vendors, are hijacked whenever the data is dumped into spreadsheets and when macros are run to produce the key financial packs that executives rely upon. 

Move the finance data to a new database?

Progressive organizations understand that spreadsheets have filled the void caused by the complexity of the embedded ERP report writing tools and the need to decentralize this functionality to the finance community. Business Intelligence tools were touted as the answer, with dials and gauges catching the eye of many executives. But BI projects have left expectations high and dry: 

• Require significant and constant input from finance, over a many month project, before the tool is usable
• Not real time (does a Controller want to wait until the nightly update to see his adjustment journals reflected in his Income Statement?)
• You can't drill down to live transactions
• Additional user security must be designed, SOX approved, built and SOX managed
• Data integrity challenges – how do you ensure that the data remains in sync with your ERP system and that incorrect data is not published? Normally this requires an additional data validation exercise for the finance team

 

There is another way!

 

The GL Company’s Inquiry Suite has new technology that provides the flexibility of spreadsheets but which actually links into the secure ERP database. In effect, an executive can now look at a high-level board report but in just a few mouse clicks, can drill back into the general ledger to see exactly where these figures have come from. Also, with this new technology none of the actual figures can be changed so there is no doubt about whether the figures have come from the underlying secure database.

 

• Real time with drill down to transactions/documents.
• ERP security is used. No additional security set up is required.
• Installation/configuration takes less than one hour.
• All pre-built by accountants for accountants and their internal customers.
• Finance users are writing their own reports, independent of IT, after one day’s training.
• Performance – returns thousands of records in seconds.

 

Implementing the Inquiry Suite decentralizes and enhances financial report writing functionality without any loss of control. In fact, as you move your spreadsheet to dynamic Inquiry Suite reports your control environment will significantly improve and so will the efficiency of your month end process.

 

We have called this concept “Accounting Intelligence”, which is just what the CFO requires before he puts his name to the accounts. (Visit www.AccountingIntelligence.com for more information.)

 

The GL Company believes that this new technology will revolutionize the reporting cycle and keep your CFO/FD out of jail!

 

Click >>> for integrity check demo