Account-to-Report Maturity Assessment - A process oriented approach for evaluating the performance of your Finance & Accounting operations
Maturity assessment offers a pragmatic approach to evaluate the performance of an organization because it – unlike performance indicators alone – gives an insight to areas of improvement and helps setting realistic goals by decomposing the maturity into different dimensions and applying a ‘stages of excellence’ approach helping companies to orient and benchmark it’s performance.
Account-to-Report maturity is assessed considering different dimensions of the organization and provides a well-rounded view on whether Finance & Accounting departments “are doing things right” or whether specific areas may need improvement.
The six maturity dimensions are:
Process Efficiency
Systems standardization and integration
Strategic Objectives and KPIs
Data quality and availability
Process performance and compliance transparency
Staff empowerment
Along these six dimensions, data is collected in a maturity survey structured along 10 Account-to-Report processes areas of our Business Flows reference model. The survey results provide a diagnosis of the “as is” situation and more importantly insights on what dimension(s) should be focused on to achieve the desired level of maturity. This is where we apply a “Stages of Excellence” approach which serve to orientate companies by providing a benchmark for performance.
“Stages of Excellence” summarize the main characteristics a company must have at respective maturity levels as a benchmark which allows the organization to compare “where it is now” and “where it wants to be in future” in terms of its performance.
At the highest maturity level, the organization takes a proactive attitude about challenging circumstances impacting the financial health of the company, and has the capabilities to anticipate significant events impacting tax and accounting practices, as well as compliance. Account-to-Report mastery also implies that the finance department is advanced in the way it operates and can focus attention on achieving efficiencies and perfecting financial management processes while minimizing increases in costs and risks.
For further details on the approach, please refer to the full article.
The assessment is captured into a comprehensive report enabling prioritizing measures and initiatives for reaching the next maturity level.
For whom is the maturity assessment useful? When can it be applied?
Our maturity assessment offers a pragmatic approach to evaluate the performance of an organization because it gives an insight to areas of improvement and helps setting realistic goals. It can be used by CFOs to assess and benchmark Finance operations across the enterprise. Moreover, our maturity assessment is useful for Finance Department Heads as it offers insights on specific areas of operations for improvement. Business Transformation Managers and Process Managers also benefit from a maturity assessment as it provides them a toolkit that can be applied prior to, during, and after the business transformation initiative.
For inquiries on the Account-to-Report maturity survey and how to conduct an assessment for your organization please feel free to contact me.
Best regards
Ikemefuna Allen