Record-to-Report process prime for automation: Insights from SSON Analytics
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While being the backbone of many organization’s Offices of Finance and Accounting, it is now commonly acknowledged that this overreliance on Excel spreadsheets [coupled with the lack of visibility associated with its use] represents a very real risk to the success of your finance operations!
Given that automation is available to improve both process efficiency and effectiveness, the challenge many companies face isn’t why they should transform their process, but how. While Procure-to-Pay (P2) and Order-to-Cash (O2C) already feature on the list of processes a large number of companies choose to automate, there is an also an enormous degree of opportunity in Record-to-Report (R2R).
Compiling figures from the SSON Analytics Metric Intelligence Hub, let’s explore some of the data relating to R2R process metrics in Germany [within the banking and financial services industry] to understand where the benchmarks lie.
1. The below metric measures the number of days from the end of the financial cycle to the release of the final financial report to external parties. We can see that almost a third take between 15 and 30 days, yet a similar proportion have managed to whittle that down to less than 7 days! 
2. This next metric measures the percentage of general ledger accounts reconciled automatically (without reconciling differences or exceptions) / total general ledger accounts reconciled (both automated & manual) per monthly accounting cycle. We can see that well over half of the population in this dataset have automatic reconciliation for over 70% of their general ledger accounts.
3. The data in this chart below depicts the number calendar days when all general ledger postings are completed, reconciling differences are resolved and all legal entities are rolled up to report official period end results. The largest segment sit within the bracket of >5.5 days.
4. Our final chart shows us the total cost of financial reporting per $1,000 revenue (USD), and shows us that over ¼ of the population surveyed sit within the $0.00 - $0.10 per $1,000 bracket.
Summary
Ensuring the integrity of your balance sheet is a key priority. This means being on top of managing the month end close, account reconciliations, journal entry, and other key control areas.
While we’ve been looking at the current state of the R2R process, to better understand what the FUTURE of automating the R2R process looks like, Trintech has surveyed almost 200 companies across 31 countries to discover what has been automated, what is currently in the process of being automated and where organizations are looking to adopt automation in the future.
To get a complimentary copy of this report on critical R2R metrics – including six areas of improvement that offer the most value – download your copy here!
