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Optimize, standardize and scale: transforming intercompany into a strategic advantage

Are financial, tax and operational risks from intercompany processes causing operational bottlenecks, burdening your organization and undermining your strategic decision-making?

Break free from intercompany bottlenecks and take control of your financial processes

Many organizations experience policy and data governance challenges, fragmented and inefficient global operations and outdated technology that no longer meets its strategic objective. Intercompany challenges can be solved with the EY Intercompany Transformation solution – a five-prong global approach – to meet the strategic objectives of organizations, minimize financial, tax and operational risks and elevate strategic decision-making.

What are the key benefits of EY Intercompany Transformation?

Improved control, compliance and risk management:
- Provide auditable intercompany transactions that tell the whole story
- Ensure complete documentation and better governance that reduces tax, regulatory and audit risks
- Support for global compliance such as transfer pricing and local statutory reporting
Cost containment and reduction:
- Optimize end-to-end intercompany process from intercompany agreement to intercompany settlement through automation and operating model rationalization
- Eliminate manual effort, processing times and errors
- Review impact to finance and global business services activities strategy as teams become available for higher value activities
Enhanced visibility and strategic value:
- Real-time visibility into intercompany activity and performance
- Drive data and decision making through transparency and integrity of information
- Align intercompany strategy with the broader finance strategy – ERP, digital finance and global business

What is EY Intercompany Transformation?

EY Intercompany Transformation is a five-prong global approach to identify and address areas of the intercompany end-to-end process that can cause bottlenecks and lead to financial, tax and operational risk. We focus on five key intercompany process areas within organizations:

Intercompany policy: An intercompany policy should be the intersection of the various stakeholders invested in intercompany processes (Finance, Treasury, Tax, Operations, etc) creating the structure by which technology can be configured and people deployed to maximize efficiency while managing risk.
Master data governance strategy: Intercompany master data is complex. It is typically captured in disparate systems owned by diverse stakeholders and managed inconsistently, with only a few critical employees understanding the full picture. EY evaluates and aligns the tools and processes managing the master data to develop integrated solutions that improve accuracy, eliminate redundancy and waste in data management.
Redesign operational processes: Implement leading practices and technology to standardize and automate the initiation, reconciliation and exception handling of intercompany transactions to drive scalability and comply with the intercompany policy. Streamline intercompany settlement and clearing processes to centralize control of global cash flows and manage working capital more effectively.
Reporting: Define and develop KPIs and reporting that provides actionable information to support decision-making on organizational risk, meet tax requirements, evaluate process health and resource performance.
Operating model: Structure the organization to realize the benefit of enhanced automation and process efficiency of the investment in leading practices and technology. Remove intercompany as an obstacle to streamlining the financial close by shifting processes out of the month end window.

Transform your intercompany process into a strategic advantage

EY Intercompany Transformation, enabled by finance technology such as BlackLine, helps organizations move beyond the complexities of current ways of operating to unlock strategic value and enable faster and smarter business decisions.

An estimated

of global business now flows through large multinational corporations

With an estimated 70% of global business now flowing through large multinational corporations, driving hundreds of thousands of transactions every day and increasing organizational exposure to risk, the scale of the challenge to streamline intercompany trade is enormous. Source

EY Intercompany Transformation combines the strengths of the EY organization’s finance transformation experience, global intercompany design strategies and digital finance capabilities with the BlackLine Intercompany Finance Management technology to deliver a scalable solution.

Together, the EY-BlackLine Alliance helps organizations regain control of intercompany operations with a centralized solution that helps reduce risk, increase visibility, and unlock efficiency at scale.

Frequently asked questions about financial process and automation:

Intercompany transactions can be several multiples of external transactions – for each external sale, there could be three+ internal purchase orders, invoices, receipts, tax records and payments occurring. Automating these transactions provides end-to-end visibility and control of the intercompany process, reduces finance and operational costs, enhances audit readiness, minimizes manual effort and supports a faster financial close.
The solution challenges organizations using a five-prong approach to evaluate their current processes with a goal of designing a global and scalable solution to meet their overall strategic objectives which includes meeting global regulatory requirements like transfer pricing, e-invoicing, OECD BEPS and local reporting standards.

Intercompany does not have to burden your organization – it can be a catalyst for global transformation driving strategic insights across finance, tax and operations.

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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.