The Fast Close Concept – R2R Accelerated Excellence

Last week in London a group of men and women, finance professionals from various countries, extended and updated their skills by attending an exciting new course, provided by leading accounting and finance consultant Tony Davies, which provides an in-depth insight into the fast close of period-end accounts and associated topics.

Fast Close or Record To Report (R2R) are terms that may not be familiar to you. You may think your period-end accounting close procedures are adequate and up-to-date – they probably are not!   Over the past 10 years on a global basis the accounts close period has become a powerful measure of management performance that has encouraged many organisations to launch fast close initiatives.

Fast close benefits include:

• Significant improvements in financial processes and systems
• Faster accounts reconciliation processes
• Accelerated and more accurate financial reporting
• Ongoing improvements linked to the closing process
• Reduced costs and higher returns on investment (ROI)
• A higher benchmark rating of business performance

Fast close requires:

• Analysis and revision of accounting and other business processes
• Standardised charts of accounts
• Centralised accounting functions
• Inventory tracking and cycle count systems
• Automated journal entries and accruals
• Modern enterprise software and accounts consolidation systems

and so on

The amount of financial data we are required to process is increasing day-by-day. It is used to make business decisions and provide accurate and reliable financial reporting: the speed with which we carry out the period-end accounts closing process is now an important Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of management performance. This has led to implementation of fast close, record to report initiatives by increasing numbers of organisations on a global basis.

Fast Closing Month-end & Year-end Accounts, presented by world-class training providers AZTech, includes the essential know-how and is a must for all financial and accounting professionals, and inventory, payroll, general ledger, and accounts receivable and payable accountants, and non-financial professionals.

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