As companies grow and mature, so do the tools they use for financial reporting. Many times this growth results in a very busy accounting department. It seems they can barely hold things together on a monthly basis, let alone innovate and improve. But unless innovation occurs, trouble awaits.

I’ve seen cases where spreadsheets that were created 15 years ago are still being used for current reporting purposes. In some cases, no substantial updates or changes have been made to these reporting tools. They’ve just been patched and linked together to the point that nobody understands where the numbers come from. If there’s an error, there’s no way to find it. The result is incorrect information being presented to management, excuses made, and lower level employees made to scramble to try and make it right.

Make some time every month to review at least one of your reporting processes. You may have to scrap the whole thing and start again. I remember a cash flow matrix that was prepared at one of my former companies. It took someone four hours per day to prepare it. Nobody knew how to read it, only that it all had to equal zero on the last page. I scrapped it and recreated an entirely new spreadsheet. We ended up tracking our cash flow even more efficiently, and it only took an hour a day.

You can’t be afraid to make wholesale changes like that. It does take time, and it can be frustrating. It will feel like you’re wasting time and should be doing more important things. Don’t let those thoughts crowd out the true purpose; to learn, innovate, grow, and always provide top-notch reports to your end user.