Finance Optimization

Our Finance Optimization teams combine deep knowledge in accounting, reporting and internal controls with analytics, cost and profitability improvement, and advanced technologies. We help organizations increase efficiency and operational excellence across finance, FP&A and controllership.

Related topics
Financial accounting advisory services
Data and decision intelligence
Technology

Close is often tough on finance.

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Finance Optimization
Finance Optimization
Finance Optimization
Fragment data

Financial close cycles often surface recurring challenges across finance, from time pressure and manual workarounds to fragmented data and complex control environments. They typically become most visible during the year end, highlighting opportunities to improve how the finance function operates. 

These challenges often show up across four areas of the close and reporting process:

  • Financial close speed and timeliness 
  • Data and reporting 
  • System integration
  • Process consistency and controls

How EY can help optimize the close process

EY teams help address these challenges across financial close and reporting processes, drawing on deep experience across the finance function.

By employing data and technology, we can help the finance and controllership function assess their its current processes, identify opportunities for improvement and develop a roadmap for the future.

This includes enhancing and redesigning close and reporting processes, as well as adjacent areas that impact financial statements.

Additional ways to drive optimization

Our teams continually identify and create new technological advancements, tools and strategies, and apply them to the issues impacting the CFO’s agenda. Using the latest applications and analytical methods, we can help you increase the level of trust in your financial and nonfinancial data, processes and reporting, and help create value through innovation.

These advanced solutions can help improve and automate finance processes, strengthen controls and support more effective decision-making. This enables finance teams to shift focus from processing transactions to delivering more timely insight and analysis.

Process optimization

 

EY teams can assess and identify improvement opportunities in core finance functions — such as procure-to-pay, order-to-cash and record-to-report — with a view to reducing cycle time, improving controls, automating key steps and reducing error rates. We provide documented process flows, roadmaps to achieve process excellence and benchmark comparisons to leading organizations.

Process Optimization

Financial planning and analysis

 

Understanding where you’re making money and where you’re not is a critical element to improving profitability. In the public sector, funding based on the costs of delivering an organization’s mandate improves the links between resources and strategies. Our teams provide cost accounting, performance measurement, profitability analytics and funding model support to organizations as they strive to achieve superior results.

Financial Planning

Reporting technology and analytics

 

Our advisors can apply advanced technologies such as AI, blockchain, process mining or core statistical analytics to improve financial insights and help drive efficiency and operational excellence. For example, we can help shorten process cycle times, reduce process complexity — including the number of alternative process flows — and increase the effectiveness of controls embedded in the financial statement close and related support processes.

 

Our Financial Accounting and Advisory technology solutions can be customized to your business, geography and industry-specific requirements. These technology solutions can be provided on premises or in a cloud environment, either on a one-off or ongoing basis.

Reporting technology

Remediation services

 

Our teams are equipped to provide support in analyzing, evaluating, designing and implementing remediation for accounting processes, controls and IT systems. This can encompass the identification and systematic organization of findings to help facilitate in-depth root cause analysis.

 

Our multidisciplinary teams combine traditional competencies, such as accounting, professional skepticism and teaming, with EY multi-GAAP accounting and reporting experience, technology, data and analytics to help deliver business insights and improve efficiency, effectiveness and operational excellence.

Remediation services

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The team

Chris Madsen

Financial Accounting Advisory Services Leader, Assurance, EY Canada
Driver of innovation and value creation. Passionate about finding new ways to unlock value and navigate the future with confidence.
Toronto, Canada

Matt Harmsworth

Partner, Finance Optimization, EY Canada
Assisting clients in solving their most complex financial challenges.
Calgary, Canada

Close is often tough on finance.

We can help.

Let’s talk how technology can simplify

Frequently asked questions about improving financial close

Financial accounting advisory services

 

We can support you in building an effective and efficient finance function with a range of accounting, reporting and analytics services.

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Finance Optimization

Let’s talk how technology can simplify

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Finance Optimization

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EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.