By establishing structured financial closing operations based on BlackLine and driving mindset transformation, we support the realization of organizations where improvement continues autonomously.
Business Process Visualization and Platform Development Services to Eliminate Reliance on Individuals in Financial Closing Operations
Solution
When financial closing operations rely heavily on the experience and judgment of specific individuals, it becomes difficult to maintain stable quality and achieve continuous improvement.
ABeam Consulting leverages the accounting transformation platform BlackLine as an operational foundation to visualize tacit knowledge, including undocumented processes and decision criteria, while supporting the establishment of mechanisms that enable manuals, knowledge, and other information to be continuously updated and utilized.
Furthermore, throughout the project, we incorporate processes that encourage those responsible for the operations to proactively consider the ideal state of financial closing operations and perceive improvement as their own responsibility, thereby promoting autonomous changes in both mindset and behavior.
Background
Establishing Structured Financial Closing Operations as a Response to the Structural Challenge of Person-Dependent Processes
In recent years, the environment surrounding companies has changed significantly due to factors such as strengthened governance, enhanced internal controls, and responses to human capital disclosure requirements.
Against this backdrop, financial closing operations are now required not only to be accurate but also to achieve reproducibility, transparency, and continuous improvement at an organizational level.
In addition, as work styles diversify and labor mobility increases, operations that depend on specific individuals are increasingly becoming a risk from the perspectives of business continuity and organizational capability.
In response to these environmental changes, ABeam Consulting has been utilizing the accounting transformation platform BlackLine as the operational foundation for financial closing operations within our own accounting department.
Through this experience, we have once again recognized challenges in which the structure of operations and the rationale behind decisions become difficult to understand due to person-dependent work and the loss of knowledge associated with employee turnover.
For accounting and finance departments to continue delivering value in a stable and sustainable manner, it is essential to eliminate opacity in operations, share processes and decision criteria as organizational knowledge, and establish mechanisms that allow knowledge and information to be continuously accumulated and updated.
Challenges
Improving a Situation in Which Continuous Operational Improvement Has Not Taken Root Due to Dependence on Tacit Knowledge, Inadequate Updating of Knowledge and Information, and a Lack of Improvement Awareness
Pitfalls
- Operations and decision criteria are not visualized or standardized and therefore rely on tacit knowledge:
Because operational procedures and decision criteria are not organized or documented, interpretations vary by individual, making it easy for inconsistencies in operational quality and confusion during handovers to occur. - Mechanisms (platforms and rules) for continuously updating and accumulating knowledge and information are not in place:
Due to the lack of platforms and operational rules to support updating and accumulation, information is managed in a person-dependent and fragmented manner, making it prone to obsolescence and missed updates. - Familiarity with existing operations and strong person-dependence make it difficult for individuals to internalize the necessity of improvement:
Because it is difficult to perceive major inconveniences in the current state and to grasp “why change is necessary,” improvements tend to be deprioritized, making it difficult for continuous improvement activities to take root.
Approach
In this approach, we begin by visualizing operations and decision criteria, and then build mechanisms that allow the visualized content to be continuously updated through platforms and rules.
In addition, by consistently implementing change management so that those responsible can drive improvements themselves, we prevent person-dependence and realize organizational transformation toward an organization capable of autonomously sustaining improvement activities.
Visualization:
By identifying operations and decision criteria and visualizing tasks and operational procedures, we create a state in which all stakeholders can share a common understanding of the overall picture of operations without relying on specific individuals.
Infrastructure:
We establish system platforms and internal rules for centrally managing manuals, knowledge, and related information, and build mechanisms through which knowledge and information are continuously updated and utilized within daily operations.
Change Management:
Through the project, we examine how operations should be changed from a frontline perspective, drawing out awareness and conviction among those responsible and supporting behavioral transformation that enables proactive engagement in improvement.
Key features
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Visualizing Operations and Decision Criteria and Organizing Coverage and Granularity
By identifying operations and decision criteria and visualizing tasks and operational procedures, we enable all stakeholders to share a common understanding of the overall picture of operations without relying on specific individuals.
Through comparisons with other companies’ case studies and industry-standard operations, we verify the appropriateness of the coverage and granularity of financial closing tasks and support the design of operations that avoid person-dependence and omissions.
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Building a Platform That Embeds Knowledge and Information Updates into Daily Operations
Using BlackLine as the operational foundation, we centrally manage manuals, knowledge, and related information, and build mechanisms that ensure knowledge and information are continuously updated and utilized without relying on individual effort.
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Through Projects, Guiding Organizations Toward the Ability to Autonomously Drive Business Transformation
Through projects, we examine the ideal state of operations from a frontline perspective and draw out awareness and conviction among those responsible, supporting behavioral transformation that enables proactive promotion of improvement.
Visualizing Operations and Decision Criteria to Optimize the Coverage and Granularity of Financial Closing Tasks
In visualizing operations, it is essential to first conduct a comprehensive inventory of activities and organize the overall structure of financial closing operations. Focusing on current operations, tasks are comprehensively identified, including those that depend on individuals, and tasks and operational procedures are visualized. At the same time, by organizing dependencies between tasks (parent-child relationships), it becomes possible to gain a clearer understanding of the overall operational landscape.
Subsequently, the created list of financial closing tasks is cross-checked and validated based on perspectives derived from the knowledge ABeam Consulting has accumulated through its implementation support for clients as well as its own operational experience, and is examined from the viewpoints of "coverage (whether there are omissions)" and "granularity (appropriate level of decomposition)." As a result, it becomes possible to identify not only omissions and inconsistencies in task granularity but also the existence of low value-added operations. In addition, a standard format for operational manuals used to organize operations and decision criteria is also presented.
Developing a Platform "BlackLine" and Operational Rules That Embed Knowledge and Information Updates into Daily Operations
To continuously update knowledge and information, it is important to drive both the development of platforms that support updates and the operational rules that promote them.
At ABeam Consulting, we use the accounting transformation platform BlackLine as the operational foundation to centrally manage manuals, knowledge, evidence, approval histories, and other operational information in association with financial closing operations, creating an environment in which necessary information can be accessed without confusion.
Because BlackLine allows operational information such as manuals and evidence to be managed on the same workflow as operational progress checks and approvals, it enables information updates to be embedded into standard operations rather than treated as additional tasks.
In parallel, we develop internal rules to ensure operational adoption.
From a perspective that anticipates post-implementation operations, ABeam Consulting supports the design and establishment of practical rules aligned with actual business practices.
For example, in our accounting department, we review manuals in principle every three months and manage update dates on BlackLine, visualize operational progress, working hours, and review status through reports, and define analytical perspectives for quantitatively reviewing financial closing operations.
Furthermore, by standardizing the rule that operational information is recorded and consolidated within BlackLine, we prevent information dispersion and missed updates, maintaining a state in which the latest information is always referenced.
By combining platforms and rules in this way, we support the establishment of mechanisms in which knowledge and information updates do not rely on individual effort but continue to circulate naturally within daily operations.
Developing People and Organizations Capable of Continuously Driving Autonomous Improvement Through Projects
To ensure that operational reform does not end as a one-time initiative and that improvements continue proactively after project completion, it is important to incorporate experiences into the project in which those responsible think, become convinced, and take action themselves.
At ABeam Consulting, we position requirement definition and system validation not merely as task processes but as opportunities to review current operations and concretize directions for improvement.
Specifically, during requirement definition, we organize current operations and issues while designing To-Be operations, and during system validation, stakeholders actually experience the envisioned operations.
Based on this, we support them in independently judging suitability for real operations from perspectives such as whether the design feels appropriate and whether it will work in practice.
By organizing which areas should be standardized and which should remain as areas for improvement based on insights gained through validation, we enhance conviction and ownership.
After implementation, we further create a state in which stakeholders can continue to think about issues and improvement points themselves by quantitatively reviewing operations using reports.
Through these processes, we promote changes in mindset and behavior from simply carrying out assigned tasks to proactively driving operational improvement.
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