Financial managers responsible for the closing process in their organisations and/or those with responsibility for identifying and exploiting e-business opportunities within the finance function. The course is of particular relevance to delegates from larger organisations or those companies whose closing processes are time consuming and/or inefficient .
Many companies continue to devote an excessive amount of time and effort on financial reporting at period ends. Considerable cost savings are available to organisations that eliminate inefficiencies in the closing process. More importantly perhaps, eliminating inefficiencies in the closing process can release time and resources within the finance function - time which can and should be spent more productively on value-adding activities.
THIS COURSE IS RUN BY CIMA MASTERCOURSES
Why is faster financial closing needed?
- Current and future trends in reporting
What makes financial closing complex?
- Technical and accounting issues
- Information collection, transfer and manipulation
- Business organisation
- Cultural issues within the organisation
Why do 'quick fix' solutions rarely work?
- Six common misconceptions
What is current 'best practice'?
- Quantitative measures
- Qualitative measures
The benefits of faster closing
- Cost savings
- Improved business support
- Enhanced image for the finance function
- Illustrated with a case study
More radical approaches to improved financial closing
- Soft Closing and the virtual close
- Illustration with case study
Project management, design and timing
- Successful project management
People and change management issues
- Developing a case for change
- Leading a change process
- Managing resistance to change
Software for improved financial closing
- How technology can contribute to improved financial closing
- Technology choices
- How to make the right software choice
Process redesign
- An introduction to process redesign
- How to re-engineer the closing process - key issues
- Process re-engineering - core re-engineering techniques
- Practical tips and guidance
Conclusions, agenda recap and wrap up