Do you get those jokes about being in the bookkeeping department? Is it a Herculean effort for you to produce the monthly accounts (only to feel foolish that you have to field questions that you could have answered proactively with more time to interpret the numbers)? Why is it only the finance department that seems to want an integrated system? Why is your most exercised skill the art of spreadsheet pivot tables?
I was a Controller and it was miserable. With the benefit of hindsight, a stint as an IT Director (and yes folks, it’s not as easy as it looks), a role now where I see many different finance organizations (or all shapes and sizes) and plenty of red wine. I think I know why.
The integrated ERP has lost its coolness. I say we make ERP cool again, and I think there’s nothing more hip than JD Edwards.
#1 by Phil Walton on December 23, 2009 - 12:40 pm
As we are all about to leave for the holidays: Do you have a sense of dread that on your return it won’t be long until the auditors arrive? Why is that? What can we do to minimize this pain? Organizations can’t afford to have their finance team on lock-down for a month; this issue is so much more than 80-hour weeks. How about asking auditor managers to show how they’ve educated their latest batch of college grads on your systems and business? Do you have copies of their draft lead schedules? Or do you have a “What’s New” in this year’s audit? How will you satsify their information requests?
#2 by Phil Walton on January 27, 2010 - 3:11 pm
Got to love this quote: “Additionally, many companies are hindered by the complexity of disparate systems, a proliferation of spreadsheets, and a variety of management – level operational processes and controls.” See link for full article on finance effectiveness benchmarking: http://download.pwc.com/ie/pubs/finance_effectiveness_benchmarking.pdf