Working with the CFO to understand the totality of the finance organization and its interaction with the rest of the business. Typically, a strategic engagement which will trigger a program with multiple work-streams: Finance Function Strategy, including:

• Vision and blueprinting, including effective interfaces to the business

• Finance Function performance setting and measurement

• Finance Function Performance, including:

• Process Re-engineering / control measures

• Organizational alignment

• Technology exploitation, including finance function and financial management info

• Working capital management

• Finance Function Service Delivery, including:

• Centralized / decentralized shared service centers

• Finance outsourcing advisory

• Customer probability analysis

We provide knowledge, advice and assurance to enable clients to transform their accounting and related administration into world class finance functions.A typical Finance Function assessment project will incorporate review of existing finance processes, people roles and supporting finance systems, and to assess bottlenecks and deficiencies; assessment of leading practice/benchmarks to generate future state options; and definition of a future state business model and implementation plan.

We can help clients explore opportunities for reducing costs, implementing leading practice, improving efficiency, streamlining finance staff roles and improving financial and operating controls. We bring independence from financial systems, deep finance expertise/acumen and have access to a breadth of accounting, tax, human capital and risk/control related skills.

Our team works with the finance executives in understanding the current organisation strategy and whether that allows the organisation to achieve its goals. The work we typically perform in this area is set out below:

• Provide initial guidance as to where processes and functions belong from a strategic ‘value-chain’ view;

• Set the framework for the new organisation structure resulting from the implementation of the initiatives;

• Ensure that benefits realisation has clear accountability to achieve;

and • Ensure process and structural improvements are locked in and supported.

One of the first tasks on an organization design assignment for finance is to review the current organisation charts. This will assist the team to understand the current level of resourcing as well as the strategy that the organisation is pursuing. Once the current structure has been outlined we then link the positions on the organisation chart to the functions performed in the finance area. This task allows us to identify areas of duplication as well as a mismatch of tasks. The outline of functions is also used in the process work to understand the number of handover points within a process. We work with management to design a new structure. This new structure is a function of

• The strategy they wish to pursue

• Leading practice indicators

• The level of process improvements that the team develops.

• The type of cultural leverage to be achieved.

Once a model structure has been developed it is tested with the business to ensure that it fits the overall enterprise design and will meet the needs of the core business units.

The aim of finance & accounting policies and procedure services is to improve the finance performance, reduce costs and satisfy internal and external users of finance function. We use the organisation structure of finance function for the team to identify those processes within the finance function that are the costliest to perform. The team then start construction of “Area Sequence” maps for each of these functions.

An area sequence maps is a high-level process map which sets out the major steps in each of the processes. The map also shows number of people involved in a function, systems, metrics, inputs/ outputs, bottlenecks/issues, handover points, areas for rework and timeline. The team also performs a “work distribution” analysis which analyses what activities staff spend their time on. This helps to confirm the data collected during the construction of the organisation charts. This is not used as a micro-management tool to assess the efficiency of individual staff members.

Management reporting provides the tools for planning, evaluating and controlling operations; ensures appropriate use and accountability of resources; accurately reflect business operations and provide enough information to support decision making process.

The first step in management reporting services is reviewing the quality of the management reporting processes and systems in place. The objective of this initial review is to assess how flexible, efficient and effective these financial processes and systems are with respect to accommodating the various financial and management reporting requirements including: responsibility reporting, cost center tracking, product line reporting and fixed and variable cost concepts.

The current state assessment assist in identifying the weaknesses in current process and systems.

The objective of this review is to improve the management reporting systems to ensure:

• Standardised and documented close process

• Reports are centred on key performance indicators

• Initial variance analysis and commentary are addressed and incorporated in management reports

• Reports includes financial information which the business has requested

Budgets reflect critical elements of the corporate strategic financial objectives. Budgets are usually linked to long term strategic plans of the corporate and therefore they’re important indicators of the corporate overall performance against their strategic objectives.

As it is the case for other process improvement review, the assignment starts with analysis of the current situation, assessment of current system, process and people within the budgeting function, identifying weakness and recommending improvements of the budgeting processes Budgeting processes include top management review/approval; procedures to initiate/approve budget updates; guidance to budget preparation; use of standard forms for routine components; scheduling for preparation/review of plan forecasts; cconsolidation and coordination of business unit budgets and plans; operational expenditure planning and capital expenditure analysis.

Strategic Finance solutions assist clients in managing the performance of their operations by measuring profitability and returns of each of their activities, products and services. The aim of such solutions is principally to analyze the cost behavior for identifying low value, redundant and duplicate use of the available resources and activities. Such solutions will also assist the clients in price-setting techniques and satisfying other internal and external reporting requirements especially in regulated environments.