When it comes to increasingoperational efficiency, fragmentation and manual processes are theenemy. Yet many companies fail to achieve true financial controlbecause they take a fragmented, departmental approach toreconciliation that incorporates multiple systems and frequentmanual interventions. Forward-thinking organizations are not onlyautomating reconciliation, but also integrating theirreconciliation and attestation processes to provide a singleversion of the truth based on accurate, real-time,transaction-level data.

Large companies process and reconcile millions of transactionsevery day, ranging from accruals and accounting (e.g., accountsreceivable, accounts payable) to cash deposits and bankreconciliations. These same organizations certify, or attestto, thousands of G/L balances each period. Many of thesebalance certifications are based on the detailed transactionreconciliations that the treasury and finance teams complete everyday.

Fragmented reconciliation systems and processes make itdifficult for finance to accurately track and report on accountinginformation. Any manual work involved in comparing and reconcilingdata between systems not only increases administrative costs, butalso introduces the risk of errors and slows down exceptionmanagement. If a company can't standardize the exception managementprocess, there's a risk of noncompliance with corporate andindustry controls.