A lot of time of accounting and finance professionals is spent on reporting to various authorities - both internal and external. It thus follows, that if a lot of time is spent on data gatthering and data building for such reports, thereby resulting in high cost per report.
Often, an efficient and disciplined data capturing mechanism can ensure that lesser time is spent on reporting and that time can be used to produce high quality analysis or do other work.
Here are a few pointers to ensure high quality data recording:
1. Source Document - The source document is the manna for a finance professional. It should be ensured that all the data that is required to be captured, is captured from the source document - and that source document has all the data (including PAN, Service Tax Number, Billing Address etc.)
2. Narration - This is the single most important aspect to record data. All details, including invoice number, name of supplier, purchase details, units, rate, due date, cheque number etc. should be recorded in narration. Basically this would help you to dig out any detail quickly without referring to the original source document.
3. Linking & Referencing - Use "bill-wise tracking" to ensure that all payments and receipts are readily traceable to the source documents.
4. Use Control Accounts - Use control accounts to park and post the entries for transactions requiring reporting which may not be directly available from a ledger. eg: Debtors Receipt Control Account (to record receipts in a month seperately from cancellations, discounts etc.) or Asset Held For Disposal Account (to bring together gross block and accumulated depreciation of a fixed asset at one place before calculating profit or loss on sale of asset)
5. Use of MS-Excel - all transactions which require reporting should be captured as they occur by another person different from data entry person in MS-Excel etc. and reconciled with the accounting system.
6. Hard - close of books - in case reporting is not monthly, still the company should perform a monthly hard close to ensure that all amounts are reconciled and up-to-date. That way, at the end of reporting period, except for the last month's data, all data is present, correct and verified.
Hope you find the above practices useful to reduce the turnaround time required for reporting.
Often, an efficient and disciplined data capturing mechanism can ensure that lesser time is spent on reporting and that time can be used to produce high quality analysis or do other work.
Here are a few pointers to ensure high quality data recording:
1. Source Document - The source document is the manna for a finance professional. It should be ensured that all the data that is required to be captured, is captured from the source document - and that source document has all the data (including PAN, Service Tax Number, Billing Address etc.)
2. Narration - This is the single most important aspect to record data. All details, including invoice number, name of supplier, purchase details, units, rate, due date, cheque number etc. should be recorded in narration. Basically this would help you to dig out any detail quickly without referring to the original source document.
3. Linking & Referencing - Use "bill-wise tracking" to ensure that all payments and receipts are readily traceable to the source documents.
4. Use Control Accounts - Use control accounts to park and post the entries for transactions requiring reporting which may not be directly available from a ledger. eg: Debtors Receipt Control Account (to record receipts in a month seperately from cancellations, discounts etc.) or Asset Held For Disposal Account (to bring together gross block and accumulated depreciation of a fixed asset at one place before calculating profit or loss on sale of asset)
5. Use of MS-Excel - all transactions which require reporting should be captured as they occur by another person different from data entry person in MS-Excel etc. and reconciled with the accounting system.
6. Hard - close of books - in case reporting is not monthly, still the company should perform a monthly hard close to ensure that all amounts are reconciled and up-to-date. That way, at the end of reporting period, except for the last month's data, all data is present, correct and verified.
Hope you find the above practices useful to reduce the turnaround time required for reporting.
