I’ll be cutting off the branch I’m sitting on
Yesterday, in a conversation with a controller at a publicly traded company, he told me quite frankly “Between you and me — if I implement the automation you’re suggesting, I’ll be cutting off the branch I’m sitting on.” This is an important point: when we talk about automating financial reports, it’s not always easy to […]
Automation in Financial Reporting – And What Will You Do With the Time You Free Up?
For most of us, preparing reports is like running a marathon: endless versions, data gathering, updates, validation, and finally saving the file — hours upon hours of work. Automation can free up dozens of hours in every reporting cycle, but the real question is: what will you do with all that time? Here are four […]
How Do You Know It’s Time for Automation in Financial Reporting?
I’ve worked with several organizations in recent years, and surprisingly, it’s often the ones that seemed the most “organized” where I found the same recurring pattern—a reporting process that looks fine on the surface but consumes enormous amounts of time and is full of vulnerabilities. Here are some signs that might sound familiar: 1. There’s […]
Automation in Accounting – Already Here, Using Tools Everyone Knows
While most automation developments in finance departments have been aimed at ERP systems or dedicated solutions, it’s now possible to integrate two simple add-ins for Excel and Word that enable full automation of preparing financial reports—both internal and external—on any computer running MS Office. Instead of spending time in Excel, reorganizing data, manually creating reports […]