Features
GL Reconciliation and Certification
AssureNET GL Features
AssureNET GL is a control automation software solution for general ledger account reconciliations. It incorporates four principal functions – tracking, preparation, review, and assessment – for all types of account reconciliations, including balance sheet reconciliations, P&L reconciliations, consolidation system reconciliations, and operational reconciliations.
Tracking
As a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and similar international compliance legislations, companies are required to prove the effectiveness of their internal control structure. For account reconciliations, organizations must track completion and review of reconciliations in order to ensure performance according to company policy. Many companies may have implemented a balance sheet account reconciliation tracking process in order to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley; however, the process is generally manual and quite inefficient.
AssureNET GL completely automates the tracking of account reconciliations, including the generation of reminder emails and late notices. Robust status reporting clearly identifies compliance breaches.
Preparation
Excel has traditionally been the accounting professionals’ tool of choice for preparing account reconciliations. While Excel provides a great deal of flexibility, the tool does not offer a satisfactory level of standardization and control.
AssureNET GL introduces a completely new methodology for preparing account reconciliations called "Template-based Reconciliation", while supporting both importing from and exporting to Excel. With template-based reconciliations, you determine what constitutes an appropriate style of reconciliation for each class of account. By precisely configuring templates to your requirements, it is possible to shift away from over reliance on the review process, and instead utilize technological preventive controls over format and content of reconciliations. This ensures that reconciliations meet minimum formatting standards and content before they are eligible to be released for review.
All templates within AssureNET GL allow you to set thresholds, enabling accounts to auto-certify during bulk reconciliations and users to manually certify reconciled accounts. Thresholds are set for each template, and apply to reconciliations for all accounts using the template.
AssureNET GL also enables you to perform automatic bulk reconciliations, reviews, and approvals through a sequence of choices, saving time and effort on those reconciliations that do not require manual review. Bulk reconciliations are supported for a variety of account types.
For multi-national companies, AssureNET GL is truly a multi-currency reconciliation solution. Each account can be reconciled into multiple currency "buckets," and unlimited currencies per bucket. This capability is one of the leading reasons why AssureNET GL is the tool of choice for large multinationals that require reconciliations of many non USD accounts.
For high volume, transaction-intensive accounts, AssureNET GL integrates with ReconNET to provide an end-to-end account reconciliation solution.
Review
AssureNET GL provides paperless review capabilities, enabling reviewers to access the complete reconciliation package from the application itself for purposes of conducting the review. Review is evidenced with an electronic signature and sub-certification capabilities in support of Sarbanes-Oxley, Section 302.
Assessment
Post-review quality assurance assessment is the hallmark of a highly effective account reconciliation program. AssureNET GL provides an entire module dedicated to the provision of quality assurance reviews. Restricted access can also be granted to auditors to facilitate the performance of audit testing.
AssureNET GL provides an entire module dedicated to the support of Audit and Quality Assurance Testing functions.
Additional high value, integrated (not separate modules) functionality includes:
Trending / Variance / Balance Flux Analysis
There is significant value in performing trending / variance / balance flux analysis in conjunction with your account reconciliation process (rather than waiting until year-end). AssureNET GL facilitates this process by providing features that help detect underlying factors of period-to-period variances, along with tools for capturing variance explanations.
Robust variance analysis functionality supports preparation of variance / fluctuation analysis at both an individual account level and summary balance sheet roll-up level. Variance explanations prepared for an individual account are visible to the individual preparing summary level analysis and can be included in the assessment. Analysis can be prepared across several flux buckets.
Reconciliation and variance analysis templates can be configured to include robust business rules that determine when analysis is mandatory, based on the amount of variance or by the percentage of fluctuation.
Closing Process Tasks and Activities
Beyond account reconciliations, there are a host of tasks and activities that must be performed to ensure a successful closing process. AssureNET GL tracks all of these activities, ensuring timely completion, review and quality assurance, along with capturing of all key supporting documentation and evidence. Status reporting provides management with the visibility they need to ensure adherence to policies.
Management Oversight of Reconciliations in Close Process
AssureNET GL integrates with the Unity Platform via the Financial Close application to provide a management view via dashboards of account reconciliation status across organizations. This integration enables a complete status view of all financial close activities including close tasks, reconciliations, and compliance tasks / tests / controls such as Sarbanes-Oxley and risk mitigation controls.