Financial Consolidation

Consolidated financial statements should articulate the results of operations and the financial position of a company, including its subsidiaries, as a single enity.

Technology has a role to play in addressing some of the challenges inherent in this activity but, in the end, technology has to be synchronised with the process; in short, the technology needs to be geared to support your consolidation process.

Typically the key challenges faced in consolidation are:

• Reorganisations, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures
• Aligning data collection and the consolidation processes
• Cutting consolidation cycle times and shortening statutory reporting processes — without sacrificing control

Hyperion's consolidation solutions enable financial managers to monitor the effects of such M&A activities and to model future changes. Additionally, the consolidation process can be managed efficiently while ensuring compliance with laws and regulatory bodies.

Many companies have separate processes for the collection of financial results and operating results. Closing the books can be an extremely difficult task for complex and smaller organisations alike, often spanning more than a month and leaving little or no time for in-depth analysis. Hyperion Financial Management provides a single version of the truth, to support financial management and statutory reporting, letting you spend less time on processing and more time analysing your business.

Corporate thinking has moved on from using the GL, spreadsheets or other data warehouses to consolidate. ReportSource can deliver Financial Management solutions that deal specifically with the procedural issues generated by consolidation, as well as providing a single, auditable repository of current and historical consolidation activity.

Properly implemented, systems need not contribute to the overall complexity of consolidation. Rather, they can deliver mission-critical reporting and analysis to management, providing a strong control environment with high levels of transparency and accountability, and establish a true, enterprise-wide chart of accounts.

The most complex problem encountered is not defining the consolidation process, but making the process efficient and reliable. This can be achieved by implementing Hyperion Financial Management.

Click here for more details on Hyperion Financial Consolidation......