A report card on the state of finance and accounting. A lthough more and more companies have streamlined, outsourced and automated their finance departments, there still are plenty of companies that do business the old-fashioned way. The following is a look at findings from the most recent analysis of the study.
Larger companies benefit from economies of scale in both the manufacturing and service sectors.
In these companies, highly skilled finance managers and professionals are still spending approximately half their time on transaction processing rather than supporting decision making by management. In the study, the gap between the average and top performers is stark. The typical company requires 95 days to prepare the annual budget. Companies with world-class finance departments do it in fewer than 60 days. When they see how best practices can deliver significant bottom-line improvements, the job of selling change to top management is much easier.