The 5 benefits of Collaborative Disclosure Management

1. One-time construction

An (annual) closing process is often time-bound, and early in the process deadlines are often followed less emphatically. As a result, too little time is left at the back of the process for building the related documents, such as annual reports or management reports. This puts extra pressure on the group finance department, which always does the final checks and writes the final piece in the process. A good EPM tool will ensure that you only have to build a template once and that it can be done in both Word and PowerPoint. Once this is built, all you have to do at the end of the year-end process is press the button to update the data. This gives more space at the beginning of the process as well as more time to analyze data.

2. More time for data analysis

Often the group finance department is left with very little time due to unavoidable delays earlier in the process. A pity, because it is here in the organization that the overarching conclusions can be drawn. The team is often happy if the report can be delivered on time and without numerical errors. Due to the lack of time, the really valuable analyses are skipped. With CDM, less time goes into building reports. This leaves more time at the end of the process to take a good look at your own data. Similarly with the delivery of monthly figures. Many customers who are not yet using a CDM module spend a lot of time copying and constantly correcting figures for late adjustments. With an integrated solution, you can start analyzing the figures even before the last entity has submitted its figures. This allows you to explain substantiated monthly figures and make adjustments to the company where necessary.

3. Working on reports with multiple users simultaneously

CDM starts with "collaborative" for a reason! Contemporary solutions work well together, so that many processes that are normally sequential can now be picked up in parallel. This is one of the major time gains that can be made in such a process. By cleverly building the documentation, you can outsource each chapter to a different colleague and thus work together toward the final goal.

4. Clear audit trail

Contemporary EPM solutions have extensive audit trails. Who clicked when and where? What was it before the modification was made? With an integrated approach to modern CDM modules, you don't have to compromise on this kind of functionality. Adjustments are flexible, even outside the regular paths adjustments can be made at the very last moment. Optionally with approval mechanisms to maintain internal control before adjustments are accepted in the final version. But because exactly who has done what is tracked, you can explain this to the auditor at a later time with substantiation.

5. Data always up to date

The data of the rotated reports are always up-to-date with the latest figures. So with 1 press of a button your monthly management information is completely up to date. One more time through the document to check if the net result is updated everywhere? Those days are over! A late journal entry in the profit and loss account can in fact easily be retrieved with a data refresh before you send the document to the printer.

Discover our CCH Tagetik FIT!

Previously, improving year-end turnaround time was primarily for larger companies that could make the investment to optimize these processes. Fortunately, this is no longer the case these days. To speed up the process of an annual close, we have developed all these components in a Fast Implementation Template (FIT) in CCH Tagetik. With the FIT, you can have a closing process in a proven consolidation solution after a very short implementation period. In developing the FIT, we gathered all the best practices from the past few years and incorporated them into one application.