financial reporting software
Financial reporting is the accounting process for communicating financial information. All companies do some form of external or internal financial reporting—or both. External financial reports must conform to accounting and reporting standards, and internal reports should do so, too, though the two types of reports can look different because they serve different purposes:
- External reporting is used by company
outsiders, like regulatory agencies, tax authorities, investors, lenders,
and trade partners, so it has more rigid requirements.
- Internal reporting is used by a company’s
senior management team to inform decision-making, so it can be more
tailored to their specific informational needs and the company’s business
objectives.
Whether external or
internal, the challenge for most companies is creating accurate, timely
financial reporting in an efficient way. Here's what’s involved and how to make
it better.
Financial
reporting—the communication of financial information to external and internal
stakeholders—is most often achieved by the “core” financial statements:
balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows. But it can also
come in many other forms, depending on the information needs of the reader.
For example, public
companies file quarterly 10-Q and annual 10-K statements with the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) containing extensive notes to the financial
statements, supplementary schedules, and the management’s discussion and
analysis (MD&A). For internal stakeholders, financial reporting can
comprise any financial reports that management wishes to generate, such as
detailed sales reports, trends, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
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