Simplify and Standardize the Financial Consolidation Process with CadencyDirect and ServiceNow

Achieve Cross-Team Visibility and Workflows With the Only Built on Now^TM Application for the Office of Finance

Closing the books — whether it’s a monthly, quarterly or annual close — is a complex process, no doubt about it. And as organizations mature and grow, that process becomes more and more difficult to perform not only in a timely fashion but also in a secure manner.

Financial consolidation, especially when you’re working at the global level, is extremely error-prone and often relies on outdated manual processes. It requires highly agile visibility, cross-team harmony and reliable, real-time process updates. Not only are these requirements hallmarks in ensuring a smooth, risk-resistant financial close, but they can also enable organizations to move from simply reporting on past financial results into more accurate predictive accounting.

For teams buried in spreadsheets, meetings and labor-intensive manual processes, these requirements may seem far out of reach. But with the right tools in place, global enterprise organizations can orchestrate a successful, efficient financial close and consolidation.

That’s where CadencyDirect comes in.

CadencyDirect helps organizations focusing on enterprise-wide digital transformation bring the Office of Finance into that effort by offering a proven solution for standardizing and automating the Record to Report (R2R) process, including vital portions of financial consolidation efforts like account certification and journal entry adjustments. Furthermore, with standard and powerful reporting, dashboards and exception workflows, finance leaders can easily determine how these processes are progressing throughout the period and quickly identify risk and exceptions, especially those that impact overall consolidation efforts.

CadencyDirect is a native Built on Now^TM application for the ServiceNow Platform, meaning finance professionals can not only monitor their R2R processes as independent workstreams but also view and apply relevant data to the larger context of the entire business. With CadencyDirect, the R2R process – and its vital consolidation elements – are transformed with digital workflows that connect the organization like never before and remove previously manual efforts.

Now, when crucial steps toward consolidation are taken throughout the financial close, not only are they tracked and managed effectively with CadencyDirect, but any subsequent actions or consequences related to financial consolidation which may impact people outside of the R2R process can be tracked and managed through workflows on the Now platform. The real-time visibility enabled by CadencyDirect ensures that as the general ledger is updated and the financial close progresses, the consolidation team knows where the financial reporting stands at any given point.

Additionally, the benefits of CadencyDirect extend beyond visibility. As the only native Built on Now^TM application for the financial close, users can configure custom workflows to kick off in ServiceNow based on updates from CadencyDirect. If, for instance, a certain high-impact account is certified that has a resultant impact on the Financial Consolidation team, they can be notified of the changes automatically, without needing to rely on communication between various teams through human efforts.

Conversely, if that same or another high-impact account is later decertified, workflows can also be configured to ensure the Financial Consolidation team is notified of the change and able to adjust their work to accommodate the change to the general ledger.

Key milestones in the financial close process are also ideal triggers for similar workflows. If your reporting team needs to know when the period is closed and the general ledger is finalized, they can be automatically notified of this event so they can begin the final reporting efforts.

The financial consolidation effort is difficult, but it can be simplified, standardized and, in some instances, even automated by leveraging CadencyDirect on the Now platform.

To learn more about CadencyDirect and how you can move toward a fast, more accurate financial consolidation process by uniting the various teams which build the output with ServiceNow, visit the CadencyDirect webpage.

Written by:

Sam King
Senior Product Owner