Misconceptions About Financial Consolidation Solutions

Published on
May 5, 2020

Financial Consolidation Solutions are Complex and Only Useful for Large Organizations

While most financial consolidation solutions have been designed to address the needs and requirements of large highly complex organizations with hundreds or even thousands of legal entities, such applications can deliver great value but are expensive to purchase, implement and maintain.

Fluence has specifically come to market with a goal of disrupting this reality.  We have designed and built our application to be deployed by small & large organizations that have requirements in the areas of foreign exchange translation, intercompany eliminations, legal structures with a variety of legal entities as well as a need for timely and transparent financial and operational reporting. In a world where simple “apps” can address some of our most complex needs and wants as individual consumers – Fluence applies this approach to delivering a simple and cost effective, yet powerful solution, to address the requirements of financial consolidation.

Financial Consolidation Solutions only solve half my reporting requirements – I need timely and accurate financial statements but my operational reporting needs can’t be addressed by these solutions

While this may have been true a decade or two ago, financial consolidation solutions have evolved to the point where they are capable of “consolidating” all kinds of financial and non financial data to support a wide breadth and depth of reporting.

However, the old adage of “be careful what you wish for” definitely applies.

Many of these solutions require you to learn complex applications that you use infrequently and are expensive to implement and maintain. Fluence has turned this paradigm upside down.

We deliver the power of an integrated database offering a single source of the financial truth –  capturing financial and non financial information to support all your performance management reporting needs. We offer workflow and security that are easy to set up, use and understand.  All the end users leverage Excel to execute the consolidation processes – utilizing a tool that finance professionals are very familiar with.

Financial Consolidation Solutions don’t address the dynamic reporting needs of my organization – they are too hierarchical

It is true that consolidation systems do a very good job at aligning reports with organizational structures which are more often than not, hierarchical. It is also recognized that much of the financial and operational reporting that an organization performs (or wants to perform) is multi dimensional in nature.

What is my revenue by product across these geographies, can I get a margin report for this customer or customer segment across the entire organization – or perhaps just for this legal entity?

If you are leaning on stand alone Excel spreadsheets to do your consolidation and feed this type of reporting – we feel your pain. Fluence provides a multi dimensional data store that contains all your financial and non financial performance management reporting information – supporting not just core financial reporting but the non hierarchical view of the world that you require.


   

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John Power
Chief Operating Officer
Fluence Technologies

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