When it comes to increasing operational efficiency, fragmentation and manual processes are the enemy. Yet many companies fail to achieve true financial control because they take a fragmented, departmental approach to reconciliation that incorporates multiple systems and frequent manual interventions. Forward-thinking organizations are not only automating reconciliation, but also integrating their reconciliation and attestation processes to provide a single version of the truth based on accurate, real-time, transaction-level data.

Large companies process and reconcile millions of transactions every day, ranging from accruals and accounting (e.g., accounts receivable, accounts payable) to cash deposits and bank reconciliations. These same organizations certify, or attest to, thousands of G/L balances each period. Many of these balance certifications are based on the detailed transaction reconciliations that the treasury and finance teams complete every day.

Fragmented reconciliation systems and processes make it difficult for finance to accurately track and report on accounting information. Any manual work involved in comparing and reconciling data between systems not only increases administrative costs, but also introduces the risk of errors and slows down exception management. If a company can't standardize the exception management process, there's a risk of noncompliance with corporate and industry controls.