The Controllership Series - The Financial Close Process
Online
1.50 Credits
Member Price $59.00
Non-Member Price $79.00
Overview
A common challenge for the controller role is in closing the month-end and period-end books in preparation to issue financial statements. This duty requires precision, timing and efficiency.
In today’s digital world, many organizations have access to financial accounting software that will assist with the steps in the financial close. However, even with this aid it is critical the accountant understand the various steps for the close process and how they inter-relate to other accounting processes. This course gives you an insight into the inter-relationships between many processes that impact the financial close.
The closing process has traditionally been a slow one with many companies taking two weeks to close its subsidiary’s books and another two to three weeks to roll up and consolidated the results. With the introduction of technology much has been done to help accelerate that process with integrated enterprise resource planning systems and general ledger and consolidate software.
Within this segment we will discuss the elements of the financial close and also important concepts to assist the controller in accelerating their close timeline. This includes addressing all functional areas of the close including payroll, invoicing, payables, inventory, cash, and the general ledger. We will also discuss important concepts of ensuring your financial close is accurate by discussing bank reconciliations, overhead allocations, bad debt reserves, unpaid wages and accruals for vacation time, account reconciliations, deprecation and overall financial statement review.
Note: This course does not address utilizing technology in the financial close. Its focus is to understand the varied procedures involved in the financial close whether or not technology is utilized.
Objectives
- Analysis of business transactions
- Creating journal entries
- Post to Ledger Accounts
- Prepare trial balance
- Make adjusting entrie
- Prepare adjusted trial balance
- Prepare financial statements
- Close accounts
- Prepare post-closing trial balance
Highlights
- Accounting
- Finance
- Financial Statements
Designed For
Controllers, Accountants, Finance Professionals, Auditors
Prerequisites
None
Preparation
None
Notice
Your webinar can be accessed via https://ctcpas.acpen.com/Account/loginhttps://ctcpas.acpen.com/. If you do not have an ACPEN account, please sign up for an account using the email address you have on file with CTCPA.
Leader(s):
Leader Bios
Lynn Fountain, AICPA
Lynn Fountain, CGMA, CRMA, MBA 1/1/2017 Lynn Fountain has over 35 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 20 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. She has held two Chief Audit Executive (CAE) positions for international companies. In one of her roles as CAE, she assisted in the investigation of a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme perpetrated by a vendor that spanned 7 years and implicated 20 employees. The fraud was formally investigation by the FBI and resulted in 5 indictments estimating a $13M fraud loss. Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own consulting and training practice. She has assisted numerous companies with enterprise risk management frameworks, internal audit processes and financial accounting. She is a highly sought after speaker and has trained internationally. In addition to her personal training, she also serves as a discussion leader for the AICPA for numerous classes. Topics include fraud and forensic courses for both profit and not-for profit, internal controls for large and small entities, COSO 2013, ethics, and risk management and various leadership courses. Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books released in 2015, The first entitled “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation and released in April 2015. Her second book “Leading The Internal Audit Function” was released in October 2015 by Taylor & Francis Publications. This book serves as the initial launch for a series of leading practice internal audit and information technology publications. In addition, her third book “Ethics and the Internal Auditor’s Dilemma” was released in December 2016. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate. www.lynnfountain.net fountainlynn1@gmail.com
Non-Member Price $79.00
Member Price $59.00