Our clients often have highly specialized needs and complex requests. This was the case with a U.S.-based global manufacturer that needed someone with deep accounting expertise to help them determine and establish the proper accounting procedures for their Chinese subsidiary.
We provided a highly experienced consultant who interacted with a Chinese colleague to determine the proper accounting. Our consultant first met with stakeholders to map out the current processes affecting accounting, perform a gap analysis, and introduce improvements to establish an effective and efficient accounting reporting process. The consultant was later engaged again to work in an interim role to supervise the cash application and reconciliation processes for six foreign subsidiaries.
We laid the foundation for an effective accounting process for the new subsidiary, adding value in numerous ways. For instance, through review of the subsidiary’s operating agreements, our consultant learned that it was solely a research facility and had a cost-plus agreement with the U.S subsidiary. This completely changed the accounting approach for that entity upon consolidation with the rest of the organization.
In addition, we performed account mapping between the subsidiary’s general ledger and the client’s SAP system. This required us to determine the most efficient process for accounting between the separately maintained subsidiary’s general ledger and the consolidation that needs to occur in SAP. We were able to document the processes and key players in a way that enabled the client to take over the accounting for the subsidiary and build on the processes we created.
Our consultant later worked in an interim capacity to document all processes related to cash application and reconciliation of the six subsidiaries. We cleaned up past reconciliation items to provide a clean slate to carry forward. In addition, we created documentation to serve as a user guide for future employees so they would understand what to do as they encountered different types of transactions.
