Faster Financial Close Cycles

Ensure the numbers in your financial statements are irrefutable. Blockchain's cryptographic hashing prevents unauthorized alterations to historical data. Any attempt to change a past entry breaks the chain, making fraud and manipulation immediately detectable.

• ROI Impact: Dramatically reduces the risk of financial restatements and strengthens investor confidence. Provides the CFO with a higher degree of certainty in reported figures.

Lay the foundation for a 'virtual close' capability. With transactions validated and reconciled in real-time on a blockchain, the month-end or quarter-end close becomes a simple matter of running automated reports from a continuously updated ledger.

• Future-State Benefit: Finance teams shift from historical reporting to forward-looking analysis and business partnering.
• Strategic ROI: Enables faster strategic decision-making based on near-real-time financial data, a key competitive advantage.

Legacy close cycles are plagued by manual data entry, spreadsheet reconciliation, and inter-departmental email chains. This creates a black box of latency where:

• Finance teams spend 70-80% of their time on data collection and validation, not analysis.
• Discrepancies between internal ledgers and bank statements take days to resolve.
• The process is vulnerable to human error, requiring extensive rework before audit.

Example: A multinational manually reconciling thousands of intercompany transactions across 30+ ERP instances.

Quantifiable returns shift finance from a back-office cost to a strategic partner.

Direct Cost Savings:

• Reduce manual effort by 50-70% in the close process.
• Cut audit fees by up to 30% through pre-verified, immutable records.
• Release trapped working capital by accelerating dispute resolution and settlement.

Strategic Value:

• Enable real-time financial dashboards for leadership.
• Free up finance talent for predictive analytics and business partnering.
• Enhance regulatory compliance with a transparent, tamper-proof record.

Deploy blockchain not as a 'big bang' replacement, but as a strategic overlay to existing systems (ERP, GL).

Phase 1: Pilot a High-Friction Process

• Target intercompany transactions or procure-to-pay for a single division.
• Integrate via APIs to read from source systems and write consensus-verified entries to the chain.

Phase 2: Scale to Full Consolidation

• Expand to all subsidiaries and major transaction streams.
• Automate journal entry posting and variance reporting.

Phase 3: Enable New Capabilities

• Launch real-time subsidiary dashboards.
• Implement smart contracts for automated compliance checks and revenue recognition.

A global manufacturing firm implemented a blockchain-based ledger for its intercompany accounting across 40+ subsidiaries.

The Challenge: A 12-day close cycle, with 4 days spent solely on reconciling internal transfers and currency translations.

The Solution: A private blockchain node at each subsidiary automatically recorded all intercompany invoices and settlements in a shared ledger.

The Result:

• Close cycle reduced from 12 to 6 days.
• Reconciliation efforts eliminated for intercompany transactions.
• Audit confirmation time for internal transfers cut from weeks to minutes.
• Estimated annual soft-cost savings: $2.5M in finance productivity and reduced external audit scope.

Acknowledge and plan for hurdles to ensure realistic ROI.

Technical Integration: Legacy ERP systems require robust middleware. Prioritize API-first platforms. Governance & Standards: Define clear data formats and validation rules (smart contracts) for all participants. Change Management: Finance teams must shift from controllers of data to analysts of verified information. Upskilling is critical. Regulatory Clarity: Work with auditors early to gain acceptance of the blockchain ledger as a System of Record. The immutable audit trail is a compelling advantage.

Eliminate the most time-consuming step in the close. A shared ledger creates a single source of truth for all entities, automatically matching transactions and resolving discrepancies.

• Key Benefit: Reduces reconciliation time from weeks to hours.
• Real Example: A global manufacturer cut its intercompany settlement time by 90%, freeing up hundreds of finance FTE hours monthly.
• ROI Driver: Direct labor cost savings and accelerated reporting.

Every journal entry and adjustment is immutably recorded with a timestamp and digital signature, creating a verifiable, end-to-end audit trail.

• Key Benefit: Drastically simplifies internal and external audits.
• Real Example: Financial services firms use this for SOX compliance, providing regulators with instant, tamper-proof access to transaction histories.
• ROI Driver: Cuts audit preparation costs by up to 40% and reduces compliance risk.

Extend the trusted ledger to suppliers, distributors, and logistics partners. Smart contracts automate invoice validation and payment upon fulfillment of pre-set conditions.

• Key Benefit: Eliminates disputes and manual payment processes.
• Real Example: A retail consortium uses a blockchain network to settle goods receipts and invoices with thousands of suppliers, improving working capital efficiency.
• ROI Driver: Faster cash conversion cycles and reduced operational overhead.

Subsidiary financials are posted to a permissioned ledger in real-time, allowing the corporate HQ to generate consolidated trial balances on-demand, not just at month-end.

• Key Benefit: Enables continuous close and dynamic forecasting.
• Real Example: A multinational with 50+ entities moved from a 15-day close to a "virtual close" capability, providing leadership with real-time financial health.
• ROI Driver: Improves strategic decision-making and agility.