Re-building Finance for a Post-COVID World

1. Re-building
Finance for a
Post-COVID
World
Re-imagining finance to help you react to
uncertain times
ADDRESS CONTACT
529 5th Ave.
New York, NY 10017
TEL: (203) 847-4068
E : sronan@citrincooperman.com
CITRINCOOPERMAN.COM

2. Presenter
STEVE RONAN
Practice Leader - Strategy & Business Transformation,
Citrin Cooperman
T: (203) 847-4068
E: sronan@citrincooperman.com

3. Agenda
3
01
03
04
How has COVID-19 changed (or accelerated) the finance imperative
What is prioritized now
Finance technology
05 How and where to start and what results to expect
02 Defining finance excellence

4. How has finance adapted
to COVID?

5. COVID created urgency for finance
5
Reports produced after monthly close Report continuously
Pre-COVID Post-COVID
How are we doing year-to-date? How are we doing today?
What are our profits for the rest of the
year?
What do we expect our daily cash flow
to be over the next 13 weeks?
What are our Big Hairy Audacious
Goals?
How do we get our business to perform
better tomorrow? Next week?
I’ll do it when I get into the office
I need to be able to do my job from
anywhere

6. How do we shift the balance in response…
6
Deciding between these attributes requires tradeoffs, but with the right approach and technology they don’t need to
be as dramatic as they once were.
Fast
Cost-
effective
Insightful
Controlled
Specialized
Accurate

7. …and still maintain adequate control over finance?
7
“Entrepreneurial” Highly Controlled
Nimble
Slow
transformation
Old perception
New reality

8. 8
We are entering a
new era of finance excellence that
COVID accelerated, but did not create

9. Using business results
and forecasts to
provide outstanding
decision support
Achieving high
velocity, efficiency,
and reliability across
core processes
Putting the right
people in the right
places within the right
culture
Using technology-
forward thinking to
drive efficiency and
innovation
We look at excellence across four dimensions
9
Strategy
Process
Talent
Tech

10. Finance is the natural center of gravity for the organization’s data and information, and it should use this information
to inform key business decisions by accurately evaluating what is happening and is likely to happen in the future.
How should finance drive strategy?
- Leadership can’t use raw
information to make decisions
- Leaders can’t choose a direction
without a compass
- Finance has the analytical skill sets
to turn data into insight
Why?
10
Finance creates insight with Decision Support
Strategy
Process
Talent
Tech

11. Process excellence results from building a single set of outstanding, efficient processes with minimal variations
throughout the enterprise.
What is required of finance processes?
- Require less effort to execute
- Reduce errors and make root cause
analysis easier and faster
- Scale better as the company grows
- Easier and more efficient to control
Why?
11
Finance processes need to be Standardized & Efficient
Strategy
Process
Talent
Tech

12. High performing organizations incentivize people to develop specialties which leads to continuous improvement, the
ability to adopt and develop leading practices, and scalable teams.
What is required of the organization?
- Leads to continuous improvement
and faster, better processes
- Enables better decision making and
more nimbleness
- Allows you to build high-performing
finance teams that scale
Why?
12
Finance organizations should be Centralized & Specialized
Strategy
Process
Talent
Tech

13. Outstanding technology ecosystems are comprised of integrated specialty applications that enable efficient, controlled
process execution and continuously capture data important for making key management decisions.
What is required of finance tech?
- Enable process efficiency and
velocity
- Get better data, faster and create
more time for analysis
- Use the best tools to get the best
information
Why?
13
Technology needs to be Integrated & Automated
Strategy
Process
Talent
Tech

14. How do priorities shift to
adjust to a Post-COVID
world?

15. Strategy: Build Decision Support
Enablers
The data needs to be great –
decision ready data requires
accounting that is accurate
the first time
ERP and other core systems
need to be efficient and
reliable
Sophisticated tasks required
the right tech – move from
offline to integrated, digital
tools
Insight takes time – free up
people to focus on data by
automating/outsourcing
transactional work
• Management will need a broader set of metrics than just core
financial KPIs
• Staffing and bandwidth rarely expand to accommodate this
and investment in specialists, training, and toolsets lag
• KPIs expand and contract and then expand again
• It is a highly manual process to generate metrics which
involve data sets from multiple systems, Excel, and secondary
tools
To manage the business in real-time, leadership will start requesting more metrics that are focused and broader in scope.
15

16. What is Decision Support?
The combination of strategic KPIs/analytics/reporting, internal data, tools to digest the internal data, and sometimes
external data sources.
Decision Support
Level 1: What has happened
and why
Level 2: What is happening
and why
Level 3: What may happen
and how to influence it
Enable rich, deep reporting by getting good business data into systems quickly with a
high level of integrity every time, and offering tools and processes to analyze and
forecast business activities
16

17. Talent: Develop specialties and accountability
The new paradigm requires people to specialize and develop depth in their content areas.
• Because people are responsible for so many activities,
there isn’t the time or training available to specialize
• More process executions mean more time is spent
fixing problems than diving deep on improvements
• Innovation is difficult because everyone needs to
spend their time keeping their operations running
Executives
Management
Staff
Highly generalized
Highly specialized
Generalized
17
Enablers
Process standardization
Clear roles, the right spread
of expertise to specialty
needs
Tolerance for change and
experimentation
Staff Bandwidth

18. Process: Maturity
Companies now need to evolve from a “stabilize” mentality to a “scale” mentality.
• Pre-COVID, finance was often seen as a supporting
function which meant that just “operating” was good
enough
• In an environment with faster planning cycles and day-
to-day scrutiny on expenses, processes need to enable
more speed and more efficiency to spend time on
planning functions
18
Enablers
Process design and
documentation
Centralized governance and
standardization
Procedures and documented
controls
Automation

19. Technology: Nimble and integrated
Companies need to invest in their finance systems in order to create efficiency and insight.
• Although it all starts with ERP, it isn’t just about ERP
• Data quality is critical – systems need to be integrated
and structured to generate high-integrity data
• Use the right tool for the job – bring multiple finance
tools to the table to get the best insight
• The tech ecosystems need to be carefully curated
19
Enablers
Cloud, cloud, cloud Modern, nimble ERP
Integrated, attentive
governance
Management accountability

20. Technology: Best in breed finance ecosystems
20
Process Efficiency Decision Support
Transactional
Automation
Robotic
Process
Automation
Close
Management
Consolidated
Reporting
FP&A
Analytics
ERP

21. Technology: Best in breed finance ecosystems
21
Process Efficiency Decision Support
Transactional
Automation
Robotic Process
Automation
Close
Management
Consolidated
Reporting
FP&A
Analytics
ERP

22. Getting from here to there

23. How do you start?
23
Perform a robust assessment
• Culture
• Controls
• Processes
• Technology
• Leading practice gap assessment
Ask some preliminary questions
• How long is your month-end close?
• How frequently can you see accurate financial data?
• Is your daily/weekly cash flow forecasting accurate?
• Can you generate regular, accurate flash reports?
• How much does your finance function cost?
And have:
- A list of improvement opportunities
- A list of projects
- A recommended roadmap
- Resource and budget requirements
- Momentum!
After an assessment, you should know:
- Process maturity
- Organizational gaps
- Technology gaps
- Control deficiencies
- How your finance org compares to benchmarks and leading practices
- Approaches to address each of these

24. How do you implement?
Leadership
alignment
Assess and Align
Build a blueprint of the current-
state environment and align the
leadership team on their goals and
how finance needs to support
them. Develop a roadmap to
implement the changes.
Functional owner
alignment
Design
Design the future-state org
structure, business processes, and
systems in line with the roadmap
from the previous phase.
Staff alignment
Test and Implement
Break projects into small, cross-
functional pieces. Build, test, and
implement each phase in a
sequence that amplifies the
benefits of earlier projects.
Ongoing alignment and
improvement management
Support and Improve
Not everything will work
immediately. Continuously assess
the results, develop
improvements, and iterate until the
desired benefits are achieved.
24

25. The roadmap should focus on small, achievable projects
that are deliberately sequenced
25
Phase of Work
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
Strategy
Process
Governance
Tech
Design decision support
framework
Build and iterate on decision support framework
Benchmark finance
process maturity
Define strategic drivers
and priorities
Build
process
taxonomy
Build processes and SOPs
Evaluate Finance Technology Vendors
Select technology
solution(s)
Planning & Scoping
Design and document operating model Build & Test Operationalize
Identify Policies &
Procedures
Update Policies & Procedures
Prepare operating model requirementsPrepare Org. Design
Review & Finalize
Prepare shadowing processTraining
New Model Operating Resources

26. What are the results you can achieve?
26
Faced with COVID, an events company did not understand how dramatically its cash position
would change or specifically how they had to manage their expenses. A 13-week cash flow
process and accelerated month-end close means they can make weekly expense decisions and
understand what their cash balances are likely to be.
Ongoing Cash
Forecasting
Manual reconciliations, unclear and undocumented processes, unintegrated systems, and the
lack of a true close process meant a family-run manufacturer would close in 30-45 days and
have numerous correcting transactions in subsequent periods. A project to define the
processes/policies/procedures, build a month-end close checklist, and build two simple
integrations led to a reliable 5-day close process with no correcting entries.
Month-end Close and
Financial Reporting
Improvement Project
Identified numerous duplicative activities across 15 + nearly identical plants. Built a model to
centralize transactional and general accounting, adding resources and technology to
consolidated reporting and planning, and streamlining their close process by ~5 days, reducing
their number of controls, and reducing cost of finance.
Centralized Finance
Shared Services

27. v
HELPING YOU
FOCUS ON WHAT
COUNTS
ADDRESS
529 5th Ave.
New York, NY 10017
CONTACT
TEL: (203) 847-4068
E : sronan@citrincooperman.com
CITRINCOOPERMAN.COM
Steve Ronan
sronan@citrincooperman.com
(203) 847-4068