Record to Report is a business process that involves the following business subprocesses
General Accounting
Fixed Assets
Manual Journal Entries
Automated Journal Entries
Accruals/Reversals
Bank Statement Processing
Bank Account Reconciliations
Payroll Posting & Reconciliation
Inter-company Postings
Accounts for Loans/ Investments
Capital Project Setup
Invoice Recording
Expense Adjustments
Capitalization
Fixed Assets Retirals /Disposals
Depreciation
Cost Accounting
Financial Planning & Analysis
ABC Implementation
ABC Model Validation
ABC Model Population & Maintenance
PCA Reporting
PCA Reconciliation
Management Reporting
Budgeting & Forecasting
Taxation
Internal Audit
Treasury
Business Unit Support
Decision Support & Analysis
Closing
Daily Interface Monitoring & Recon
Month-end Sub Ledger Close
Month-end Foreign Exchange Revaluation
Month-end General Ledger Close
Balance Sheet Accounts Reconciliation
Inter-company Reconciliations
Allocations
Consolidation
Population of Reporting Database
Audit Support
In recent years, there has been an increased focus on the close cycle in RtoR. Besides serving as a measuring stick to benchmark the closing process against other organizations, it has also become a lightening rod for criticism as companies are forced to supply more information to internal and external stakeholders in a compressed timeframe. Much has been written about the concept of a virtual close whereby companies close their books and produce financial reports at any time during the month with little more than the push of a button. Motorola and Cisco have popularized the virtual close and the technology sector, industry analysts, and consultants have hyped its benefits. The general concept of a virtual close may be attractive to CFOs; however, achieving and sustaining it carries a significant price tag and can be extremely time consuming to implement with little assurance of a return. Improving the record to report process puts less emphasis on the overall length of the closing cycle. Instead, the focus is on the quality of data, incremental process improvements and the utilization of the existing technical
