Lessons from uncertainty a new gameplan for closing the

WEBINAR

Presenters

Clive Newman

Vice President,

Business Services,

FLIR Systems

Sameer Shah

Senior Vice President,

Global Finance

Operations, Chubb

Vivek Saxena

Senior Vice

President, F&A

Service Line,

Genpact

Susie West

CEO

sharedserviceslink

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Questions

Your copy of the slides

The slides will be available

after the webinar at

www.sharespace.digital

• Intro and context

• Poll questions

• Challenges in closing the books on time during the pandemic

• Managing financial close while complying with restrictions

• Best practices for a well-coordinated virtual close

• Q&A

Agenda

As businesses adapt to the impact of Coronavirus, finance teams are adopting new ways of

working to deliver fast, actionable insights, close the books on time, and keep employees safe.

Today we will discuss best practices from finance teams that are transforming the traditional

financial close process while working remotely

We will address:

• New operating models that support remote working, enable new thresholds, and embrace

collaboration tools while maintaining robust governance

• Recommendations to effectively close the books on time despite new constraints and adopt

continuous accounting for long-term resilience

• How to maintain effective controls, such as increased ledger scrutiny for costs revenues, and

additional write offs to deliver complete and accurate financial statements

Context

7 ® 2017 Copyright Genpact. All Rights Reserved.

Poll question 1

© 2020 Copyright Genpact. All Rights Reserved.7

How has your financial close process been impacted by COVID-19?

• Very negatively

• Somewhat negatively

• It's had no impact

• Somewhat positively

• Very positively


Meet the panel


Clive Newman

Vice President, Business Services, FLIR Systems

Sameer Shah

Senior Vice President,

Global Finance Operations, Chubb

Vivek Saxena

Senior Vice President, F&A Service Line, Genpact

Susie West

CEO, sharedserviceslink

Challenges in closing the books on time during the pandemic

Invoke business continuity plans during peak-load times, such as month-end close

Business inputs unavailable for accruals,

provisions, etc

Financial close teams working

remotely

Staff availability

Changing business scenarios impact revenues,

costs, and cash flow

Delays in upstream sub-ledger activities

COVID-19 impact on financial close for some Fortune 500 clients

Delay in statement from the bank led to a one-day delay in

inter-company close

130% surge in AP and AR volumes led to delayed

sub-ledger close

Increase in accruals effort as AP invoices backed up due to remote working and a lack of laptops for the finance team

Global conglomerate Personal hygiene company Food distribution company

Automation tool for bulk journal uploads stopped

working in last two days of the close

Pharmacy retailer

Some applications had to be restricted to a few users for access from home to keep

protected health information safe from cyber risks

Limited input for accruals led to accruals being booked on historical data and estimates

By realigning resources to perform close tasks

(reconciliations, journals, etc) ongoing transformation

projects were delayed

Global health insurer Personal care business Global biopharma firm

Due to a lack of adequate capacity to connect using

VPN, team members had to connect via open network with additional controls

Global CPG organization


Managing financial close while complying with restrictions

Effective use of technology

Rigorous governance

Close collaboration

Adapting process policy

• Rapidly making more VPN licenses available

• Online closing tools

• Delivery of hardware to team members at home

• Governance calls with senior stakeholders prior to close

• Daily calls with GBS teams

• Adoption of video conferencing and collaboration tools

• Weekly reporting on performance against key metrics

• Set up a central, shared mailbox to log any issues for a quick turnaround

• Credit policy updates


Poll question 2


What has been the biggest challenge to your month-end close during COVID-19?

• Delays in upstream sub-ledger activities

• Getting business inputs for accruals, provisions, etc

• Lack of adequate infrastructure to support colleagues working from home

• Limited staff availability and/or productivity

• Effective operation of internal controls during the closing process


Best practices for a well-coordinated virtual close

80%

18%

2%

On-time close as per regular timelines On-time close with planned extension (1-2 days) Delayed close by 1 WD

Key enablers for a timely close

1. Close planning

2. Prioritization of activities

3. Process/policy relaxation

4. Infrastructure readiness

5. Focused execution

6. Collaboration

54%

46%

68%

32%

60%

40%

79%

21%

67%

33%

77%

23%

Lessons based on clients that closed their books on time in March

Adopting the enablers Not adopting the enablers


Best practices for a well-coordinated virtual close

• Remote governance using collaboration tools

• Proactively assess risks and plan mitigation actions

Close planning

• Reprioritizing resources across close activities and other projects

• Re-sequence activities • Daily backlog monitoring• Implemented daily KPIs

Prioritization

• Increased thresholds • Relaxation to only review items

below a certain monetary value• Elimination of non-critical events • Policy modifications

Process/policy adjustments

• Equipped team with laptops • Delivering wifi and dongles to

homes• Factored in system latency due to

extra logins

Infrastructure readiness

• Use close governance tools• Factoring upstream process

challenges • Identifying and planning for

dependency on third parties

Execution

• Multiple channels in MS Team • Daily team huddles• Extensive use of SOEs and

workflow• Proactive communication

Collaboration


Managing controls for remote ways of working

Technologies and system like

Blackline Close Task Manager

Rigorous review and certification of

processes

Prioritize transactions for

scrutiny

Prioritize critical vs non-critical activities

Trade off with timelines

Communication with external auditors


Lessons and best practices to carry forward

Accounting policies

• BCP exceptions• Specific BCP processes

Collaboration

• Consistent use of collaboration tools

• Mandatory training Business continuity planning (BCP)

• Rotational WFH during close• Mock drills• Robust resource back-up

strategy

Infrastructure

• Work-from-home (WFH) readiness

Process

• Risk assessment • Critical KPIs for BCP


Poll question 3


What has been you biggest takeaway from closing your books during the pandemic?

• Ensure infrastructure readiness for remote work

• Increase adoption of and provide mandatory training on the effective use of collaboration tools

• Have a robust resource back-up strategy for all critical activities

• Clearly define accounting policy exceptions within the business continuity plan

• Assess and identify high-risk activities and outline a mitigation plan


How F&A processes are set to change in the future

E-invoicing

Virtual close/reporting

Cloud-based systems of record

Cloud-based systems of engagement

Cloud-based systems of inventory

R2R centralization

30%

0%

40%

60%

50%

40%

FP&A centralization

Robust business continuity planning

20%

<5%

80%

>50%

70%

90%

80%

60%

40%

>30%

Adoption Jan 2020 Potential future adoption


Further insights


Look out for our Virtual Close Handbook with additional lessons and insights.

Stay in touch: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Thank you


Q&A

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www.sharespace.digital

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Lessons from uncertainty a new gameplan for closing the