White Papers

3 New Approaches for the Data Driven Chief Financial Officer standard, but have always been presented with the external financial stakeholder in mind. Quarterly financial statements served a similar purpose, but now also include the Board of Directors who commonly meet four times a year to review financial performance. Monthly financial statements have historically been used by management as one of the primary gauges of organizational performance; after all, most operational issues show up at one point or another in the financials. The preparation of each of these annual, quarterly, and monthly financial statements relies upon a financial close process. The financial close process is designed to achieve an accurate cut-off and validate the balances in the general ledger. The accounting staff will undertake a variety of checks and balances and account reconciliations to ensure financial reporting integrity is protected – but all this takes time. The close process is frequently measured in weeks, and less often in days. However, intuitively we recognize that the pace of the business no longer aligns to a monthly, quarterly, or annual reporting cycle. Business moves more quickly than this. So, the challenge for finance is to find ways to accelerate the dissemination of information without eroding credibility. Ad hoc reporting is failing to fill the gap for family offices Real-time reporting has evolved to fill in the gaps created by these time lags and supplement the content of standard financial reports with operational data. Ad hoc reporting often follows a process as depicted and described in Figure 2. supplement the content of standard financial reports with operational data. Ad hoc reporting often follows a process as depicted and described in Figure 2.

• Cover