If you don’t have investments then it won’t take much to throw you off course. For instance if you suddenly have a large expense because you have a car crash or your house burns down then you might end up in debt. Likewise it will limit what you can do should you want to. There will be no impromptu holidays for instance that you could otherwise have taken out of your savings or big computers, and it will make your retirement a lot less enjoyable which is a shame when you’ve worked your whole life in order to earn one.

So how can you provide yourself in later life and ensure you are financially secure? Here are some options – all of which are smarter moves than just investing in your average savings account.

Self Managed Super Fund

Using a self managed super fund such as a self managed superannuation means that you and 1-3 other people team together in order to make a fund that you invest in various other things. As trustees of the self managed superannuation it is up to you where you invest the money, and you will get a lot more of the profit from the investments than you would have done from investing in a bank or building society. At the same time, by using a self managed super fund you will get healthy tax rebates – unless it’s a success and you should choose to grow your self managed superannuation into a hedge fund – well you never know!

Swiss Annuity

A Swiss annuity comes from the term annual, and this means that you get regular annual pay outs after investing. To invest in a Swiss annuity you simply pay one big lump sum up front, and then as a result you will receive your annual payments. The good news is that as it isn’t your money until you get the repayments and because it’s off shore, it’s safe from a range of taxes as well as little problems like bankruptcy and divorce. That, and being in Switzerland there is very little chance of the financial crisis affecting your savings.

IRA Accounts

An IRA accounts are a kind of pension scheme that is also a form of asset protection. They are great for avoiding tax and work by using money that is ‘after tax’. You can also get self directed IRAs, much like self directed super funds.

These are a few smarter ways to invest your money and protect it. For more on how to use a self managed superannuation such as a self managed super fund, follow the links.

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Bad plan. This is the time when communication with lenders is most critical. Do not make your situation worse by keeping creditors out of the loop. Initially, creditors will be puzzled and probably assume you can’t pay due to a temporary situation. However, a continued lack of communication will cause creditors to question not only your ability to pay, but your intent to pay. More importantly, creditors will begin to question your integrity. Once this happens, your word is suspect and it will only be more difficult to come to a payment arrangement.

Here’s some tips on how best to manage your business credit in a difficult situation:

1. The first step is to prioritize. Before you do anything else, make two lists of your expenses—fixed and variable. The fixed expenses are those that occur every month such as rent and utilities. The variable expenses are the ones that may or may not occur, and which are not always the same amount every month. Next, on each list, note which expenses must be paid and which expense payments can be delayed.
2. Step two is to plan how you will pay the expenses. Creditors expect you to be honest with them as to the problem that is preventing you from paying them. They also expect that you will be able to give them an estimated payment date, which you cannot do if you don’t have a plan.
3. Third step—talk to the creditors. Don’t just call them once. Make it a point to have regular communication with lenders all the time. You might go so far as to set a specific time each week dedicated to calling creditors to give them an update on your situation. Remember, the more you communicate with the people who lent you money, the more flexible they are likely to be in working with you to solve your debt problem. Do what you promised you would do. Do not make promises you know you cannot keep just to stall the lender.

For more information on using credit in your business, read Credit Helps Small Business Grow.

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An unsecured business loans is arranged on the basis of your credit card ratings. And you have to pay back on the same scale and parameter. A quick funding option is made available to small and mid-size organizations to ease the urgency at hand that would otherwise lead to shutting down of the business or a major halt for the want of money. These small business loans are paid back the same way, basis the future credit card sales.A specific percentage from daily credit card sales is forwarded to these lending companies to cut even with thesestart-up loans, deducting 12% to 20% of the amount from your unsecured business loan.These organizations ask for no collaterals or securities. And that is how these small businesses get a chance to flourish, thrive and propel.

Unsecured business loan will help every small and medium-sized business in their needs for quick and easy funding. It does not matter what type of business you have, or you have a good sales history or not, you could still acquire the much needed loans, courtesy these smart money-lending organizations.Thus most of the small business owners get an ease of mind with the dawn of these small business loans. These money lending set-ups, like Fundfactor for example, are also fairly lenient with the repayment process.  You could get a comfortable time span of aroundtakes 6 to 12 months which can also be postponed if there are no improvements in sales or any other delays. Thus, you are not bound with any difficult, cut-throat legal complications. Apply for business loans for any of your ethical business practices such as formation, revamp, or expansion. Use this amount to purchase new equipment, purchase of a new inventory, office remodelling, emergency subsidy etc.

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Regardless of the size of your corporation, all legitimately registered companies are bound by the corporation law to maintain accounts of their transaction to submit an accurate corporation tax return. Corporation tax return norms are standard for all the UK Ltd. Companies. However, norms are too technical and calculating accurate tax return can be sheer pain. This forced a lot of entrepreneurs to consider tax evasion. Tax evasion is an illegal practice and should be avoid at any cost. To minimize the burden of formalities associated with corporation tax returns entrepreneurs can hire professional assistance.

Even in past, professional tax return counseling and service were available; however, they were priced high. Nowadays, with advent of computers and number of professionals specializing in field of accountancy, affordable corporation tax return services are available. Entrepreneurs can completely outsource their work associated with tax and accounts. Meanwhile, it appears to be an apt solution to reduce burden, certain cautions are must to avoid sharing your corporations confidential and pivotal information to crook brains. Hence, it’s recommended to approach reputable service providers only, with sufficient experience and qualified personnel who are well versed with government’s tax policies and corporation tax return norms to protect your company’s best interest.

In contrary to the past, where personal meetings with accountants were necessary to exchange details about corporation tax return, nowadays entrepreneurs can approach and provide details directly online. This is more streamline and time-saving method of dealing with tax and accounts related matters. Outsourcing also appears to be more feasible option for small size corporations that have small capital. Employing permanent professionals with apt qualification can cost double or more than what online professionals charge for their services. You can check with their services charges and service details by logging into the website.

Accountancy services of small business accountant involves final account preparation, abbreviated account, annual return, corporation tax return, tax consultation, VAT registration, VAT return, Ltd and LLP Company formation, Company dissolution, etc. Letting professional small business accountant is best way to avoid due dates, fill accurate tax as per regulation, and maintaining essential records of account. With assistance of these professionals, your business can save considerable amount of tax. Outsourcing also embodies higher accuracy, lower service cost, and greater confidentiality as every client works with one particular accountant only. They also have 24/7 assistance for clients. The virtual accountant offers perfect blend of professionalism and practical management system that helps companies to grow faster and professionally.

Clients can also buy complete business starts packages from virtual accountants which consist of all registration and other kinds of regulations at much discounted prices than average market prices. Though the company is operated in UK, clients from world over approach with their requirements and is assured of getting desired outcome with small business accountant. You can also approach virtual accountants for free advice in context of company accounts for TAX return, UK TAX, General TAX advice, TAX preparation, UK Company, corporation tax return, Business TAX, and Self Assessment.

Resources:
Lana Nickson is the author of this article on Corporation Tax Return.
Find more information, about Corporation Tax Return here

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Did you know Arizona has the highest rate of identity theft in the nation? Now think about your personal information. Do you feel your personal information is adequately protected? Since Arizona has the highest rate of identity theft in the country, Desert Schools Federal Credit Union wants you to have the knowledge and tools you need to help protect yourself and your personal assets as effectively as possible.

Desert Schools is committed to educating our members on fraud and identity theft protection. To help you prevent fraud, we have compiled a list of resources and information on identity theft, phishing and scams. These helpful tips twill keep you up-to-date and safe. Here are a few tips to assist you in the prevention of fraud.

General Tips

Guard your Social Security number
Make photocopies of vital information
Beware of mail or telephone solicitations that offer prizes or awards
Always shred papers with financial information, including credit card offers before discarding. Monitor your accounts regularly to ensure no suspicious activity is taking place
Check your credit once or twice a year
The Federal Trade Commission offers a free annual credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com
Stay current about the latest identity theft scams

Credit Cards

Examine the charges on your bills before paying them
Sign new credit cards immediately
Cancel unused credit card accounts
Report lost or stolen cards immediately

Email and Online Security

Do not open or respond to e-mail that is suspicious
Don’t follow a link in an e-mail, always type the Website URL address yourself
Make sure to install firewalls or anti-spyware programs on your computer
Don’t use an obvious password like your birth date, your mother’s maiden name, or the last four digits of your Social Security number

Phone/Mail

Treat all unsolicited phone calls with skepticism and do not disclose any personal information
Promptly retrieve incoming mail and do not place outgoing mail in your mailbox
Know your billing and statement cycles
Safeguard yourself and your family with identity theft security products, review the process for reporting fraud and read about ways you can protect your personal information.

Identity thieves are becoming bolder and more innovative in their techniques. As a result, relying solely on a few traditional safeguards simply is not enough to combat the newer, more damaging identity theft crimes. Today’s, identity theft protection requires an advanced, multi-pronged approach that addresses all the methods thieves are using to steal your personal information.

Practicing the tips listed can help you protect your identity from thieves. Desert Schools also offers an identity theft protection solution called IdentitySecure. For more information on IdentitySecure, visit www.desertschools.org

Article Source: desertschoolsblog.com

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Even your age impacts the strategy it’s best to use for trading stocks. Let us take a look at some of the most common stock trading strategies in use immediately.

Day Trading

The day dealer is somebody who buys and sells intraday (in the course of the day) and so they tend to trade with frequency all through the day. The benefits to this inventory trading method are that you haven’t any in a single day hold exposures; you possibly can take advantages of each longs and shorts throughout the quick swings in both path which will happen during the day. You can concentrate on the next percentage of winning trades by taking quicker income (though smaller) and decreasing your risk.

Like all issues in life this stock trading methodology just isn’t without its downsides too. This inventory trading strategy requires a number of work, effort and time on your part. You will need to pay consistent if not constant consideration to the market throughout trading hours. Your transaction prices can run excessive with this buying and selling strategy since you’re buying and selling stocks frequently.

Swing Trading

The swing dealer is someone who’s in search of bigger strikes available in the market and their trades could final a day, a few days or a couple of weeks. With the slower cycle of trades, there are fewer commissions, much less likelihood of error and the flexibility to capture the extra vital multi-day earnings of swing trading.

Technical analysis is usually used to assist identify swing trading opportunities and they goal a better proportion of return than in day trading. Together with the upper profit targets additionally comes a better threat per trade.

In case you are trying to commerce over an extended timeframe, it’s a must to anticipate the next common risk per trade simply to account for the retreats widespread in all inventory and futures market trading. You even have in a single day dangers and you might be uncovered to any main developments or events.

Long-term Swing Trading

This investor is very like the Swing Trader above, but this investor usually focuses on holding their stocks for a number of weeks to a few months and beyond.

One of these buying and selling technique focuses on buying and selling the indexes, timing of mutual funds or specializing in the technical and basic evaluation of those shares purchased. By focusing on the longer-term, you can filter out a few of the ‘noise’ frequent in just about all trading markets. Since you are looking at a longer have a tendency, a small move against the trend is not as much of a concern (though consistent moves in opposition to the pattern shouldn’t be ignored).

The revenue goal of this inventory buying and selling method might be fairly massive with 20, 30 and even 50 p.c or better not being out of the norm. Again with the bigger timeframe you’ve got a larger danger, especially with shares that tend to be more volatile. With this trading technique you also miss out on the shorter-term swings the market might make.

Purchase and Hold Buying and selling

The sort of investor might also be known as the buy and neglect investor, typically buying a stock and holding onto it for years. Should you pick right using loads of fundamental evaluation and market sentiment evaluation, the positive factors can be quite giant with only a few buying and selling prices for this stock trading strategy.

Sadly, most traders using this stock buying and selling methodology don’t truly have a long-term trading objective in mind apart from to amass stocks and simply maintain on to them.

Because of this it is better for the buy and hold investor to start out pondering extra like the long-term swing trader. You go from no true technique to a specific strategy where you all the time know when you enter into a trade what your targets are and how you may exit ought to the market go against you.

If you need more information about buy stocks online, swing by the Writer’s Site without hesitation.

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The Trading Methodology Viewpoint

Trading psychology has turn into so extensively discussed and promoted through books and consultants that it has change into a really handy rationalization and excuse for losing. Why take the accountability for an absence of labor ethic and buying and selling without any concept of plan, an honest assessment which would be a ‘hit’ on the trader’s self-esteem – when you’ll be able to just blame it on buying and selling psychology as an alternative?

Trading psychology is ‘something’ that a trader creates from existing personality traits that aren’t initially related to trading, however floor from trading with out methodology understanding. The result after all is worry, however wouldn’t this be the case when doing anything that was perceived as ‘dangerous’, and which was being carried out without the necessary understanding and expertise? Trading, with its inherent attribute of accepting financial threat whereas taking part in unknown outcomes, is actually ‘dangerous’, and thus the more preparation and understanding that’s needed.

Buying and selling Situation

Think about the a buying and selling plan which has the next three setup sorts: (1) initial which your meant commerce entry (2) first continuation which is used to enter a trade in case you may have both missed your initial entry, or you decided that you simply wanted more confirmation as a result of it was a counter course trade (3) second continuation which is intended as a trade addon setup, but can be one ‘last’ likelihood to enter a trade.

You get an preliminary promote setup that triggers, but you don’t take the commerce = trade1. The trade breaks cleanly and goes to what would have resulted in a partial revenue, after which earlier than worth goes down further, it retraces again to the world the place the sell was done. This worth holds so the swing remains brief, and from this hold of what is now resistance, you get the set off of your first continuation setup BUT you don’t take this commerce either = trade2. Why wasn’t the trade taken? You resolve that after lacking the initial entry that you’ve missed the commerce; your emotions and biases tell you that the ‘move’ has gone too far. Again, this commerce breaks cleanly, not only adding to the positive aspects of trade1, but in addition giving a partial profit on trade2.

Value now consolidates between the lows and the price resistance that you’d usually be using to stay quick in case you had taken both the preliminary commerce, or the primary continuation trade. As an alternative of the swing reversing after consolidating, it continues down again, and with this continuation your second continuation setup triggers = trade3. AND AGAIN – you don’t take the trade. In any case, if you didn’t take either of the first two trades, how will you presumably take this commerce; maybe you have been incorrect while you thought that the transfer had gone too far to take trade2, however certainly that’s the case for trader3.

Like trade1 and trade2, trade3 is a worthwhile trade. This swing has actually changed into an excellent directional transfer, with every break holding on weak retests – a textbook instance of the strengths of your trading methodology, but YOU have never entered a trade. You’re going nuts! You’re entering into this damn swing – you simply can’t take it any more. One other retrace holds as a decrease high. You don’t have an entry setup, however that doesn’t matter, the other three trades had been profitable after a decrease high. Isn’t it interesting, the same emotions which wouldn’t let you enter your plan trades, at the moment are ‘forcing’ you to take a non-plan trade.

As a substitute of YOUR trade going to a lower low and to a profit, it as a substitute goes to a better low and then reverses into an initial buy. Unhealthy just received worse, you also don’t exit when the swing goes into buy. After what you went via to lastly get into the trade, you have to try and make it work, and after all the development is down – proper? TraderA makes use of this initial purchase to exit their worthwhile promote and sell addon; they decide that they need more affirmation of swing reverse earlier than trading the counter direction. A primary continuation setup triggers and so they go long, the swing has reversed, and this commerce reaches its first profit target.

TraderB finally ‘gives up’ and exits THEIR quick, although with a two level loss instead of the intended one level, and without any consideration of taking their next plan trade, the primary continuation buy. This dealer is completed for the day, however at least they had been ‘right’ all along; the swing had gone too far to enter, and their fears had been warranted – this was a dropping trade that they should not enter.

Is this a trading technique or buying and selling psychology problem? What ‘message’ is TraderB going to take from what has just happened. Will they take the angle that they shouldn’t be blamed, they just can’t commerce due to buying and selling psychology? Or, will they acknowledge that the method did win, that the resulting loss was not a way commerce, and even when it was, the loss would have been offset by the prior winners. Will they acknowledge that THEY made their worst fears come true and not only turned this into a losing trade, in addition they increased he size of that loss, after which avoiding another method winning trade.

Granted, psychology was involved with what has happened in the described trading scenario, however that may be a function of the individual’s ‘core’ character, and would most probably be an issue regardless of what was being executed; if there is ‘risk’ concerned, there will likely be an ‘emotional’ response. Thus, it is first essential to separate private psychology from trading psychology, and the usage of this concept as an excuse for buying and selling actions. Then, if trading psychology is going to be controlled, this will be done via the development and implementation of an examined plan that the trader is keen to follow. Don’t commerce with ‘constructed-in’ excuses for failing, you will have lost earlier than you start, and can continue to take action with a continued ‘snowballing’ of emotion to the extent the place buying and selling will not be possible.

If you would like supplementary data in regard to buy stocks online, drop by the Author’s Site without hesitation.

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Ensuring the Integrity of Your Plans and Forecasts by Extending the Compliance Process

In the last few years, statutory reporting and planning have been fiercely competing for the attention of the Finance department. So far, statutory reporting seems to be winning.

The legal and reputation implications of not complying with the ever-growing regulation requirements have left management with no other choice than to assign top priority status to their external accounts.

Providing the required level of control to the reporting of past events has turned to be an exceptionally taxing task, absorbing an incredible amount of time and money. Even taking into consideration the savings that many organisations have realised from a more effective and automated transactional processing, the pressure on Finance and IT resources has been crippling.

Key management reporting activities, such as profitability analysis, planning and decision support have been de-prioritised until external compliance is dealt with; as a result, many organisations are left to cope with a manually intensive, disconnected and often irrelevant budgeting and forecasting process.

Conflicting Objectives and Separate Accountability

Then again, competing for resources is not the only problem. Diverging priorities have also exacerbated the disconnection of the two reporting processes. On the statutory side, the priority has been to provide evidence of fair play and of a tight grip on the internal financial processes. On the planning side, reporting has tried to step up to a more forward looking analysis, trying to unravel any sign hidden behind the data and to provide the business with a flexible tool to model the future behaviour of its profit drivers. The different goals seem to have pulled the Finance team in two competing directions, so far that many organisations have set up separate teams, typically one responsible for actual data and the other for planning and performance data.

While this organisational model seems to tackle the problem of providing sufficient focus, it doesn’t resolve the fact that the user of the two streams of information is the same. With accuracy driving the actual reporting and flexibility driving planning, organisations are struggling to keep it simple and consistent for the confused end-user. Reports are duplicated, analyses overlap and, not surprisingly, generate differing answers. Typically, the Finance actual and planning teams are working in parallel isolation, competing for resources, while heavily depending on each other.

Streamlining reports, eliminating duplications, finding the for-ever-eluding “one version of the truth” has therefore become the mission impossible of the Finance function.

The task is certainly not straightforward. With the increased pressure of reducing the costs of compliance and implicitly that of IT, how can organizations cope with the need of reducing shareholder and market surprises? How can they keep creating documentation on what happened, when and why, while at the same time being able to generate timely and relevant information for everyday business decisions?

Is EPM the answer?

Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) has appeared to be the answer. An integrated business and system framework that pulls all analytical and reporting needs in one single process and one single technical platform in order to reduce its cost and to increase its quality. So far, so good.

However, EPM solutions are often forced to work in a tangled, dysfunctional environment where they simply automate the existing practices; the opportunities offered by a fully integrated EPM solution are, therefore, not seized. Many of the existing performance management practices simply aim at reconciling the statutory P&L to the cross-functional nature of decision-making and of organisational accountability.

Once again, technology seems to be ahead of our business practices, offering an advanced, integrated tool to support old fashioned, dysfunctional reporting processes.

The situation is remindful of the large ERP investments in the 90ies, when the new systems were expected to deliver high returns simply by installing and configuring them to the current requirements. A few costly implementations after, we have learnt the benefits of house keeping before refurbishment.

So are compliance and planning the two faces of the same coin? Should they be aligned from the start to reduce reconciliation afterwards? Or is segregation of duties between external compliance and planning an healthy practice which ensures independence of purpose? Are separate internal and external reporting processes an effective way of preventing the temptation to manipulate one in favour of the other?

It is indisputable that the link between past and future in the current financial reporting world is one of reciprocal connivance rather than open honesty. Let’s take, for example, the process of reporting on monthly management results while forecasting year end.

Once the actuals are reported, the year-end forecast often becomes a time-reallocation exercise over the remaining months. Forecasting of debtors, creditors and provisions becomes a tool to make the numbers add up to the intended year end forecast rather than a way to increase visibility in the future financial results. Short terms measures, such as period end sales maximisation, last minute budget cuts and provision releases, are often adopted with the intent of adjusting reality to forecast. 

While actual reporting and forecasting often provide an example of unhealthy dependency, target setting can provide an example of conflict of interest during the planning process. Managers are asked to find innovative ways of enhancing company profitability and to stretch the targets; and they’re asked to link their financial reward and career progression to these stretched targets. Caution and self-preservation can strongly drive the business manager behaviour. Consequently, the negotiation process with the headquarters can become tiring, lengthy and, worse of all, tainted. The road to an open and transparent way of devising growth strategy and predicting results is jammed.

The lack of a visible and integer way of predicting future business behaviour has not come unnoticed to analysts and investors. Organisations have found themselves paying a high price for getting their forecast badly wrong or for failing to provide satisfactory and convincing evidence of the soundness of their projections to the external stakeholders. It has been suggested that missing a revenue forecast or making a re-statement typically costs 10%-20% of market capitalisation (Source: Parson Consulting Group 2004).

The EPM framework has offered a ready tool to bridge the gap between the two sides of  analysis and reporting. However, until recently, the difference in purpose and accountability has prompted organisations to look at the two processes of backward and forward reporting separately. Therefore, when it comes to the financial consolidation and planning processes, organizations have considered their business and technology requirements separately.

For financial consolidation and reporting, in order to streamline reporting cycles and reduce the global costs of compliance, organizations are looking to fulfil requirements such as:

• consolidation flexibility, such as support for multiple reporting standards, US GAAP, UK GAAP, IFRS, IAS and so on
• inter-company eliminations
• minority ownership
• corporate governance
• segment reporting
• multiple currency translation
• audit trails
• standard statutory reporting production (legal, statutory and tax)

From a planning perspective, in order to satisfy both the business (bottom-up planning) and the corporate centre (top-down planning), organizations are looking for:

• multi-level operational planning  to simultaneously enable, for example, corporate budget planning, workforce planning, capital expense planning, revenue planning, marketing campaign planning
• modelling and simulation flexibility, including cost allocation, time series intelligence, spreads and adjustments
• collaborative, event-based planning  triggering ongoing re-forecasting
• driver-based planning and forecasting
• matrix workflow for testing and validating plans across business units
• online and off line analytical capabilities
• multiple data entry facilities such as flat file, ETL, excel, web-based and off-line entry forms
• seamless integration with other analytical and reporting applications, such as balances scorecard, portfolio management, business modelling, Microsoft Office
• flexible reporting production.

EPM Needs an Integrated Business Design

It is undeniable that an EPM framework can help converging these requirements while preserving the integrity of the whole process. However, this is only possible once the initial step of listing and prioritising different needs is completed.

Regardless of the pressure for a short implementation time, organisations should address all the key organisational reporting needs. Only an integrated design can resolve the misalignment of intents at source.

Addressing all reporting needs at once allows the business to optimally work with the IT department to tie all the requirements together while still satisfying all the individual needs of the assorted business users community. IT can then become the place in the organisation where data integrity materialises. From an economical side, the unifying process can bring benefits such as lower cost of ownership, lower cost of deployment and integration, improved user productivity, greater deployment flexibility and flexible licensing. That is why many organizations are now looking at financial consolidation and planning solutions in conjunction with each other and as part of a larger business performance management process and solution.

IT can help the organisation combine the diverse requirements in one common data structure which will significantly reduce duplications, reconciliations, mapping and board discussions around the more correct set of figures. The standardisation tools that the IT department can use to drive conflicting users requirements together are:

Common Metadata

• Integration and synchronization mechanism with metadata sources
• Unique definition of performance indicators used by different functions and processes
• Common language for performance measures

Common Data Integration

• Synchronization with operational sources
• Synchronization across EPM processes

Common System Integration

• Application administration and management
• Security and user provisioning
• Calculation features, e.g. aggregation and inter-company eliminations
• Reporting and analysis tools
• User Interface
• Microsoft Excel interface

Standardising your EPM platform can be a project in itself and does take the time and resources but the return on investment can be proportionally great. As part of the standardization process, Finance and IT will have to build a common system and process platform able to combine the different times, different frequencies and different drivers of both actuals and planning.

So what are the signs that it time to address the misalignment in your statutory and planning reporting? When is a company not making the most out of its EPM investment? When the misalignment between consolidation and planning is more costing the organisation more than the process of fixing it?

Here are some simple qualification criteria for when an organisation needs to urgently address the integration management and statutory.

Is your management structure different from your legal structure?

Laws in certain countries prohibit combining banking and insurance activities within one legal entity because of contagion risk. However, banks and insurers, as well as securities institutions, are allowed to be part of one company, for instance for commercial reasons, provided that certain risk management procedures are in place.

Whatever the reason, the connection between your legal and management structure should be clear and data should roll up seamless from a common source base to the various hierarchies without any need of manual reconciliation or re-keying of data.

Do you need to be able to budget at a different level than your statutory reporting?

The management and budgeting processes are usually driven by a higher level of accountability than external reporting, thus generating the need for a lower level of granularity. From a data structure point of view, this means that more data dimensions are required. Where a financial consolidation system seldom exceeds 12 dimensions (e.g. legal entity, product, geography), a planning solution can need as much as 20 dimensions; in addition to the consolidation dimensions, it will need, for example,  data by employee, project, business unit, function, customer, scenario, version and so on. Many organisations fulfil this requirement through intensive mapping exercises, complex allocations and spreadsheet based calculation and analysis. Data are often requested again to the operational functions, leading to general business dissatisfaction, waste of time and distrust in the ability of the Finance department  to control the flow of data and the generation of information.

A common data structure is the basis to provide all business with a meaningful data view and reliable data values. This can only be achieved if Finance and IT work together in mapping the requirement of the whole organisation, rather than building reports for a single user group at a time.

Does your organization need to provide more forward looking statements?

Your organization might be expanding its operations into new territories, opening new markets or has a general strategy of increasing market share within a 3-5 year time frame. In that case, statements made to shareholders or press releases will have to contain forward looking statements which needs to be supported by bottom up evidence and monitoring process.

Reliable projections can be generated through a proven business model which uses empirical evidence to recognise which variable are controllable and which are not. Organisations also need to demonstrate that decisions are taken by the internal management to influence the controllable profit drivers, that results are monitored, and that actions are adjusted accordingly and that adequate provision has been taken to protect the business against the less controllable events. A strict compliance process need to be applied to any business modelling and forward looking metrics which the company plans to use to drive investors’ profitability. A strong management reporting discipline will prove that the company is committed to compliance and transparency whether reporting internally or externally.

Do you have recurring non-standard end-user requirements, such as offline capability, user-defined business rules, continuous re-forecasting, simulation flexibility, decision justification, which need to be controlled by the end-user without IT involvement?

Only when the business users can see and understand the flow of information from GL to strategic board reporting, it will have sufficient confidence and appropriate tools to control reporting and generate additional information from the raw data. The pre-requisite of advanced planning functionality driven by the user is a robust data structure and a transparent data engine, which guarantees the integrity of the outcome, regardless of the complexity of the calculation or the level of technical knowledge of the end-user.  

Conclusions

In the nest few years, the impact of financial compliance will extend to all performance reporting processes such as profitability analysis, budgeting, business modelling and strategic planning. The new UK legal requirement for the “Business Review”, for example, demands forward looking statements and non-financial key performance measures.

Most organisations have already embedded the rigour of producing controlled and auditable financial statements in their reporting processes, systems and organisational responsibilities. It is now time to extend the reach of such discipline to the non-statutory side of reporting in order to fully harvest the possibilities offered by the EPM technology and to gain “compliance” champion status in the reporting of future performance.

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