Remove the manual burden
Technology-enabled coordination and orchestration streamlines intercompany accounting across your entire organization. Automation removes the burden of identifying counterparties across multiple ERP systems. Integrated workflows ensure tasks are completed in the correct order and in the most efficient timeframes by removing the need for managers to waste time chasing up on their completion.
Automation allows users to collaborate more easily and resources to be deployed more efficiently. Employees previously occupied by keeping data moving are now freed to perform higher-value tasks. The result is faster resolution and timely and accurate elimination of intercompany transactions, cost savings, reduced cycle times and an accelerated close.
Streamline the intercompany process with a single view
The elimination of intercompany transactions is a collaborative process, which requires the counterparties to have full visibility of their respective balances, the difference between them and the underlying transactions. Counterparties in an intragroup trade also need shared access to a common view of their intercompany positions.
KPI monitoring gives an overview of intercompany accounting status and highlights potential delays in real time and in a visual way. Dashboards and alerts allow you to manage progress in real time, giving accounting professionals an overview of tasks that haven’t been started or completed. This visibility allows team leaders to review bottlenecks by task, individual, cost center and entity.
Eliminate intercompany mismatches early in the process
The key to minimizing delays around the agreement of intercompany differences is to start the procedure much earlier in the reporting cycle. Viewing intercompany mismatches early on in the reporting cycle allows individual companies to take remedial action and correct their positions before a consolidation is attempted.
Direct integration with ERP systems allows you to extract invoice details to help reconcile differences at a detailed level. Once the differences are resolved, adjustments can be posted directly into ERP systems through the intercompany process without the need to manually post reconciling journal entries. As such, automation effectively turns the intercompany process into a ‘preliminary close’ in advance of the normal monthly reporting cycle.
Manage intercompany risk
Eliminate endless standalone spreadsheets typically used by individuals to manage intercompany accounting with an automated system that gives you one version of the truth and an audit trail of activities detailing when they were completed and by whom. Workflows give employees ownership of each activity and lay bare the interdependencies of their tasks.
Being able to orchestrate and monitor your intercompany accounting is a fundamental part of your internal controls. Role-based security aligned with your underlying applications maintains the integrity of roles and access. At the same time, you can attach and store procedures and policy documents in task list items, which are immediately available to the individuals performing intercompany tasks.
Devise bullet-proof centralized governance and policies
Effective intercompany accounting hinges on standard global policies governing critical areas, such as data and charts of accounts, transfer pricing and allocation methods. Establishing a center of excellence with joint oversight from accounting, tax and treasury serves as a resource to address global process standardization and intercompany accounting issues.
Having a single company-wide process ensures you adhere to best practice and gives all finance stakeholders across the enterprise immediate visibility of issues, tasks and bottlenecks that need escalation and remediation. This can help you benchmark your performance, address underlying issues and facilitate post close reviews, and subsequently streamline your activities to encourage continuous process improvement and further accelerate the close.
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