Group CFO

GL Recons Still Using Excel Are DEAD!

by Howard Rybko

Howard Rybko graduated from WITS in 1981 with a Medical Degree. He became involved with medical accounting from 1985 and developed an accounting package (A4Y) in 1987. He then founded LAN/IX a networking company in 1988, which listed as a part of a group in 1996.

Syncrony, a web based software development house was founded in 1999. He wrote KLIX an ERP system for office automation industry, which was in use from 2003 to 2012. Syncrony has developed many custom sales analytics and financial systems, including GreenLine Balance Sheet Integrity system which has been in production since 2017.

In my estimation, about 50% of Group CFOs still base their financial statements on numbers generated from spreadsheets. Which is a problem because nine out of ten spreadsheets contain errors, a fact I have driven home in my previous articles.

As a CFO, I know that the buck stops with you. But how are you supposed to present reports and make accurate forecasts based on numbers you can’t totally trust?

Few businesses can afford the yearly cost to license top-end balance sheet integrity and GL recon software that goes a long way towards reducing risk.

But I’ve got news for you, there are much more affordable financial close options available to reconcile your general ledger. If any of the following frustrations sound all too familiar, get in touch now to learn more about GreenLine balance sheet integrity software.

1. Fraud Detection

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could trust your reconciliations and be sure your auditors had frictionless oversight access? Then you could truly rely on the numbers in your financial statements.

It is time to move away from the traditional route of emailing recon spreadsheets and sending supporting documents by courier. This outdated ‘supporting docs in a box’ system makes fraud detection difficult, leaving auditors to rummage through boxes to locate the supporting documents they need. Not to mention that these documents then need to be scanned or retyped before being used.

Surely you have thought to yourself, ‘There must be a better way to do this’?

2. Trust my Numbers

It is challenging to feel confident about your reporting without being able to trust your numbers.
Company financial reports are constructed from GL balances and if these have errors, they can distort the balance sheet.

Furthermore, trusting the numbers in a balance holds inherent risks for banks lending capital, investors assessing the health of the business and for the company C-suite execs basing strategic decisions on these numbers. It becomes a case of target shooting in the dark.

As a CFO, you need to be confident that your balance sheet is an accurate reflection of the health of your company.

3. Time Wasting

Manually loading transactions into reconciliation spreadsheets piecemeal also wastes time and is extremely error-prone. Duplication of transactions is a relatively common occurrence; and alarmingly, many instances of restating of balance sheet figures have been reported.

It’s a maze of mistake potential: Cut and paste into the wrong locations, formula errors, missing or duplicated rows of data… these are just a few examples of where it could all go wrong. Human error or tampering provides dodgy documentation.

And whenever it’s wrong it’s your credibility that’s potentially on the line. The C-suite wants facts and figures and not excuses.

4. Monitor your Month-End

As a CFO who oversees a manual month-end close, there is no way for you to accurately assess work progress.

Peering around stacks of boxes, won’t tell which branches have submitted and which have not.

How much more reassuring would it be if you could track the progress of all branches, companies, preparers and checkers from your desk, in real-time?

Chat to me about a solution to all four of these challenges and be able to ensure the integrity of your financials once again.