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What is a Chart of Accounts (COA)?
The chart of accounts (COA) is a listing of the general ledger account names and identification numbers arranged in the order in which they customarily appear in financial statements. It can also include a description of what should be included in each account. The COA is a key accounting tool used…
Where will Finance Focus in 2024?
APQC conducted its annual 2024 Financial Management Priorities survey in late 2023 to better understand the focus areas, initiatives, and challenges that will shape the finance function in 2024. The survey, which included approximately 330 participants representing 22 different industries, asked…
Financial Management Priorities and Trends for 2024
If we have learned anything in the past few years, we learned that we are living through a time where economic headlines change quickly and finance departments must be ready to react to those changes and make informed decisions quickly.As we near the end of 2023, let us look at some of the trends…
Why Finance Talent Should Matter—To Everyone
In 2025, Will Your Business Have the Finance Talent It Needs? If you don’t work in the finance function, you might think that this question isn’t relevant to you—but you’d be wrong. This question should matter to you (and everyone who works in an organization) because what’s happening with…
5 Tips for a Successful Virtual Audit
While the virtual audit (also known as a remote audit) has been around for a few years, the circumstances surrounding the global pandemic in 2020 certainly accelerated the performance of these types audits exponentially. These audits can bring many benefits to an organization (auditee) and the…
5 Biggest Benchmark Problems and How To Fix Them
As you may have heard from us a few times, benchmarking is a top tool used by leadership teams to support decision making. So, to dig into that topic, APQC surveyed over 200 professionals—across functional boundaries—to understand their benchmarking challenges. Benchmarking plays a vital…
Mitigating Risk By Improving Internal Controls
Many companies have ineffective internal controls programs due to an overwhelming amount of controls that don’t adequately consider risk. These organizations are only focused on testing the controls, and not on properly evaluating the effectiveness of controls when conducting a self–assessment or…
Roadmap to Better Internal Control Management
Many organizations take an approach to internal control management that has defined intersections with risk, compliance, and audit processes. These organizations may use well-defined risk control matrices (RCMS) based upon standards of internal control but they’re focused on only executing…
5 Macro Trends Shaping the Finance Function
The finance function has become an early testing ground and organizational bellwether for process and performance improvements. In tracking the massive shifts and accelerated trends coming out of 2020, APQC has seen finance functions lead the way on global trends involving transformation,…
What is Digital Transformation?
What is Digital Transformation? For the sake of this article, I will define the term by the two words that compose “digital transformation”: Digital and Transformation. Digital, or technology, AND transformation, or change, means that a digital transformation in your organization has produced a…