{"id":2819,"date":"2016-12-27T21:38:52","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T21:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/?p=2819"},"modified":"2022-08-26T16:47:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T16:47:41","slug":"increasing-the-scope-of-shared-services-record-to-report-processes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/2016\/12\/increasing-the-scope-of-shared-services-record-to-report-processes\/","title":{"rendered":"Increasing the Scope of Shared Services Record-to-Report Processes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record-to-Report (R2R) can cover a wide range of internally-focused accounting processes connected with the recording of transactions to comply with financial, legal, and tax requirements, with outputs including performance reporting, plus management, legal, tax, and treasury reporting.\u00a0 Unlike other common end-to-end processes including Purchase-to-Pay, Hire-to-Retire, and Order-to-Cash, the associated work processes are insular to the company, without significant points of interface with external parties.\u00a0 As a result, work processes evolve in isolation, without the positive influences that can result from processes requiring clean interfaces with external customers or suppliers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the underlying work processes in Record-to-Report<\/a> are all within the same functional area (Finance and Accounting), individual activities include a mix of decentralized work steps that take place at the business unit level or by country\/geography and work activities that are consolidated either in a centralized Corporate Accounting group or managed as part of a Shared Services delivery model.\u00a0 Processes within scope<\/a> most often include General Ledger, Management Reporting, Financial Reporting, Fixed Assets, and Intercompany Accounting, with other processes like Legal and Tax Reporting, and Financial Planning & Analysis potentially within scope<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 While a centralized or Shared Services approach offers the greatest opportunities for process improvement and efficiency, because of process complexity and a perceived need for local control, reducing local staffing levels and fully transferring work activities can be a challenge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A recent PeercastTM<\/sup> in the General Accounting (R2R) research area<\/a> featured a $13B company with operations largely in the U.S. at over 1,000 locations.\u00a0 \u00a0In an industry undergoing intensive cost pressure, there was a need to redesign the Record-to-Report process to transfer significantly more work activities to Shared Services which would effectively double the number of processes and work activities within scope.\u00a0 Objectives that guided this effort included:<\/span><\/p>\n