Benchmarking Finance & Accounting: Scale Your Operations

Practice benchmarking involves gathering and comparing qualitative information about how an activity is conducted through people, processes, and technology. Bench helps small business owners like you save time and money doing your bookkeeping and income taxes by providing dedicated experts and easy-to-use financial software—so you can focus on growing your business. We recently worked with a $2B multi-national manufacturing company that had decentralized F&A operations, with 8 locations around the world. The company had F&A teams located at all of its manufacturing plants, focusing on localized financial operations, with specific (and unique) regulatory requirements for each country. Other Effectiveness metrics focus on the quality of the performance of activities.

He joined Auxis in 2002 and serves as Senior Managing Director, overseeing all Finance Transformation, Process Automation and Business Process Outsourcing services at Auxis. His areas of expertise include financial operations performance, shared services strategy, organizational and operating model design, process automation (e.g. RPA), and systems integration. The levels of investment in systems and process automation tools in order to get you to the “Top” may not deliver enough benefits to warrant that investment.

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Company Q will study Corporation J’s performance and procedures in depth and will identify the differences between the organizations. Company Q will likely modify its procedures in order to bring its performance of the activity up to the level attained by Corporation J. Benchmarking is a process for improving some activity within an organization. Prior to his work with IFAC, Mr. Thompson worked for Touche Ross & Co., London before going on to lecture on corporate reporting and analysis at universities in the UK, Singapore, and Malaysia.

They provide an indication of current and emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities in the project accounting environment, as well as a baseline for comparing and improving your performance. There are various sources and methods to identify industry standards and best practices, such as industry associations and publications, industry benchmarks and surveys, or industry peers and experts. For example, you can join the Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) for insights into the construction industry or consult with peers who have experience in project accounting. Additionally, you can analyze the Project Management Institute (PMI) Pulse of the Profession report or the Deloitte Global Benchmarking Center to compare your performance with industry averages and leaders. Project accounting is a specialized branch of accounting that tracks and reports the financial performance of individual projects.

Technical/product benchmarking

It is assumed that higher revenue companies will have a larger number of transactions, necessitating more people to manage them. Additionally, certain industries typically have more complex transaction types, again necessitating more people to perform these tasks. payroll definition For example, a manufacturing and distribution company selling to “big box” customers will have more operational complexity than a professional services firm selling to the same customers. “Apples to apples” comparisons are important when it comes to benchmarking.

It helps project managers, stakeholders, and clients to monitor the costs, revenues, and profitability of each project, and to make informed decisions based on accurate data. But how do you know if your project accounting practices are up to par with industry standards and best practices? How do you measure and improve your project accounting performance and efficiency? In this article, we will explore some ways to benchmark your project accounting performance against industry standards and best practices, and to identify and address any gaps or areas of improvement. The final step to benchmark your project accounting performance is to implement improvement actions and monitor progress. Based on your project accounting performance comparison results, you should identify and prioritize the improvement actions that will help you close the gaps and achieve the best practices in your project accounting performance.

What Does Benchmarking Mean?

Typically, we have seen process automation (e.g. RPA) deliver strong ROI’s, with a payback period of 12 months of less. Most organizations would make that investment to achieve that result. But if your organization is not large enough to provide a comparable ROI, consider whether cost and effort are worth it. You will certainly gain more scalability, but the short-term financial benefits may not be there.

With each project customized to your specific needs, your end-of-month financial packages will give you full visibility and peace of mind. Usually these “best practice” firms are from within the same industry. In 2008, a comprehensive survey[5] on benchmarking was commissioned by The Global Benchmarking Network, a network of benchmarking centres representing 22 countries. Mr. Thompson graduated from the University of Warwick with a bachelor of science in accounting and financial analysis and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Paul Thompson is EFAA Director and a consultant dedicated to thought leadership and development of the global accountancy profession.

Benchmarking Finance & Accounting: Scale Your Operations

The management team of a business may choose to engage in benchmarking when it has no basis of comparison for determining where there are potential improvements within the entity. Competitive benchmarking is used when a company wants to evaluate its position within its industry. In addition, competitive benchmarking is used when a company needs to identify industry leadership performance targets. Internal benchmarking is used when a company already has established and proven best practices and they simply need to share them.

Going outside one’s own industry is often challenging for a company. Keep in mind, however, that customer satisfaction is driven by critical-to-quality measures that are similar regardless of the industry. Benchmarking is most often an on-going process in which companies continuously seek to improve their practices.

We know that sometimes it’s difficult to find accounting software that works the way you want it to. And it can be even harder to find a supplier that listens to your problems, gives you exactly what you need and then charges you a fair price. That’s why we have produced two accounting packages, Core and Advanced; together with a range of add-ons, so no matter how big or small your business,  we have a package that will suit you perfectly. My Accounting Course  is a world-class educational resource developed by experts to simplify accounting, finance, & investment analysis topics, so students and professionals can learn and propel their careers.