A second edition of the specialized financial consolidation seminar organized by Balkan Services was held on June 6 in Sofia. An effective way to automate the consolidation process through the LucaNet software solution was presented within the event. The German FPM (financial performance management) software allows rapid and accurate preparation of consolidation reports and financial situation planning in the companies.
The seminar was opened by Radoslav Vangelov, Business Development Manager at Balkan Services with a brief introduction to FPM (also known as EPM or CPM) systems, their emergence, history and development. He emphasized the three main benefits of the digital transformation of financial consolidation, namely - improving the speed, accuracy and flexibility of the consolidation and planning process.
The practical part of the seminar began with a general presentation of the system and ways of collecting and validating data. Galina Nankinska, a financial consultant at Balkan Services, emphasized the importance of unifying the data to generate accurate reports as a basis for subsequent analyzes of companies' financial situation and more accurate forecasting of the development. Data import was demonstrated in the application in a number of ways - direct import from ERP, data import from MS Excel and one from a specialized module to the data collection application in which rules for validating data consistency are easily configured.
The event continued with a demonstration of an automated consolidation process with the specialized German LucaNet solution. Miroslava Belcheva, a financial consultant at Balkan Services, presented the capabilities of the system, conducting real-time consolidation on a previously developed scenario. Examples included the acquisition of subsidiaries, one of which presents its financial reports in foreign currency; purchase and sale of goods between the companies in the holding with available balances of goods at the end of the reporting period; repayment of liabilities; credit within the group. The accurate presentation of the foreign currency reports converted to the holding's presentation currency using LucaNet, which maintains the historical, closing and average exchange rate, as well as the accurate calculation of the reputation and its subsequent presentation, according to the requirements of the applicable accounting standards were demonstrated. With the use of the consolidation and planning software, the calculation of the unrealized gains on inventory balances and tracking the change in subsequent periods becomes fully automatic. Guests at the event shared that the consolidation process in their companies usually takes up to 20 working days, and with the help of LucaNet they made sure that it could actually take place within minutes.
The final presentation was presented by Desislava Balgaranova - Financial Systems and Solutions Manager and Partner at Balkan Services. She presented up-to-date examples of the impact of changes in international financial reporting standards. An example was considered, in line with the new requirements of IFRS 16, for the presentation of lease contracts as a finance lease with the creation of assets with right of use, calculation of their depreciation, discount rate and liabilities. All calculations were made automatically at a transaction level in the system using the contract parameters.
Integration between planning and consolidation was presented as one of the main pillars for effective management of the financial performance of organizations, as well as opportunities to optimize these processes.
The seminar theme caused great interest among the guests who had the opportunity to ask the lecturers questions, discuss professional cases and share the challenges they face when implementing consolidation processes.
Earlier this year, LucaNet was recognized as the market leader in Germany, Austria and Switzerland among FPM (financial performance management) systems. The annual BARC Score survey examines and evaluates the best intuitive solutions to manage the financial performance of organizations.
