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Case Study

Leading as Controller to Optimize the Accounting Function

Team Size
1 Managing Director, 1 Director, 2 Associates
Project Duration
6 months

The Situation

A sponsor-backed management team decided to replace the CFO and Controller of a large, $500 million revenue company, and chose Accordion as their partner to serve in an interim controller capacity during the change. Our team worked with the sponsor and management team to report on the remediation and validation of all current year balance sheet reconciliations, stabilize the order-to-cash, record-to-report and procure-to-pay processes, and enhance the month-end close process. In addition to managing and improving the accounting function, the key deliverable was a plan for the upcoming annual audit and project management to completion prior to the deadline for lender reporting.

Services

Account Reconciliation

Process & Controls Implementation

Financial Statement Preparation & Analysis

The Execution

  • Helped management team set up processes to properly reconcile and close all G/L accounts on a timely basis with support available to provide for the preparation of the audit schedules.
  • Assessed the state of the close process and recommended new closing checklist to track progress and expedite from an over 20-day process to under 8 thorough discussions with individual team members on the workflow and delays in getting data.
  • Evaluated current technical accounting memos and tested for accuracy as well as wrote in depth memos for new accounting issues incurred through since the past audit.
  • Worked with management team and third-party auditors to develop a proper timeline of deliverables to complete the audit in a timely manner, and then implemented within the team with real time updates on status.
  • Interviewed candidates and made recommendations for incoming controller.
  • Managed the day-to-day accounting processes and team to understand the role of each team member and make recommendations for best practices within the team, including in depth training on reconciling G/L accounts.
  • Established detailed technical accounting memos and policies completed to help the incoming controller come up-to-speed more quickly on the accounting needs of the Company.

The Results

Accordion played a key role in implementing the proper processes and validation of accounts to get all year-end accounts reconciled and prepared with documentation for the audit – thus facilitating a successful audit with analysis, review, and approval of all requests and recommendations to improve the cash reporting and reconciliation. Our team identified the unmatched cash and credit card receipts between the banks and G/L accounts and made a recommendation for a cash automation tool to cut down on discrepancies significantly. There was limited disruption within the Company during the audit, as Accordion team members served as the “point person” for all requests. In addition, we eliminated prior year significant deficiencies with no new significant deficiencies opined upon with the current year audit.

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