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Assurance by design through finance transformation
Establishing controls readiness before and after implementation
Internal controls and governance can be difficult during finance transformation, but the implementation life cycle also creates an opportunity to modernize risk and controls and streamline the control environment. With the proper methodologies, organizations can leverage risk and control considerations and achieve assurance through implementation and beyond. Here is a guide to risk and controls readiness and assurance by design in finance transformation.
August 22, 2023
A blog post by Beth Kaplan and Katie Glynn
Despite significant planning behind finance transformations, many organizations struggle with internal controls and financial governance during these projects. This can create considerable new control gaps and deficiencies while also neglecting strategic, operational, and business impacts. In addition, new or emerging risks (e.g., advanced technologies, third-party handoffs, workforce retention) may also be an unintended byproduct of the transformation, and new controls may be enabled or required because of these risks. These new controls are a part of the value delivery for transformation but can be expensive as a retrofit after the implementation. Instead, organizations can utilize established and new controls throughout the implementation journey to benefit both the project and internal controls.
Transformations create an opportunity to modernize risk and controls and streamline the control environment. With the proper methodologies, organizations can leverage risk and control considerations and achieve assurance through implementation and beyond. Let’s take a high-level view of internal controls through finance transformation and some considerations for building risk and controls assurance into the implementation process.
How to build risk and controls assurance into the finance transformation process
The implementation process for any finance transformations starts with a strategy and plan, followed by the implementation, and then the testing and go-live phase. To facilitate assurance from the ground up, there are considerations for controls-focused initiatives at each phase of implementation. Here are some of those crucial initiatives to help guide this approach and achieve true “controls readiness.”
The risks to the success of finance transformation and risks to the control environment are equally critical, and often these risks are viewed in silos or not considered at all. Leveraging this guide to help establish assurance into every phase of the transformation life cycle can be viewed as the jumping-off point for risk management teams to evolve from simply auditors of the solution to strategic business partners aiding transition risk, empowering transformations, and creating more return on investment.
To explore more considerations for controls and risk management through implementation, listen to our Dbriefs webcast: Assurance by Design: Finance transformation controls readiness.
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