Avoiding Ugly Post-Close Reconciliations

Interstate Hotel and Resorts has some huge customers, including Marriott, Hilton and the Hyatt hotels. The company has an established shared services organization processing invoices from 59,000 vendors a year, and managing over 1,000 bank accounts globally.

Until recently, their big issue was reconciling their ledgers. Their processes were holding back the shared services, were highly manual, and offered minimal visibility. Their R2R organization was dogged by:

• Inconsistent reconciliation methodology.
• Slow and manual workflows - supporting documents were mailed – resulting in excessive postage costs, wasted time, and lost productivity.
• Inaccuracies - documents received would often be unclear, incorrect and incomplete. 
• Dusty archiving - documents were filed in massive storage cabinets (or associates’ offices). Periodically documents were sent offsite (large annual expense)…all subject to loss and physical damage. 
• Physical auditor visits - auditors had to visit the SSC to review documentation on-site (resulting in space limitations, travel costs and an overwhelming auditor presence).
• “After-close reconciliations” - reconciliations were generally rolled back and performed AFTER the close, including bank recs.
• “After the fact” changes in GL balances – these were rarely updated on reconciliations.

Tasks were also a problematic area:

• Close calendars were created monthly in excel – only one person at a time could update these.
• Individual tasks were missed when the responsible person left the company or was away.
• Difficulty shifting roles and responsibilities.
• Task procedures were either undocumented or housed on individual’s desktops.
• Documents were filed in storage cabinets (or associates’ desks).
• Supporting documents were not attached/associated with relevant task.
• Workflow was non-existent.
• Auditor Prepared by Client (PBC) requirements were difficult to manage.

The Interstate Hotel and Resorts R2R team made a firm decision that this was unacceptable.

Join our webinar on July 25th to find out how the team completely turned their recs and task organization around, and transformed their R2R process, following best practice principles.