Finance

Enhancing Risk Management and Financial Reporting for a Financial Services Firm

Focus Areas

Automation

Digital Transformation

Risk Management

Business Problem

A financial services company generated reports using outdated and manual processes. These existing systems increased operational risks and compliance issues and made it difficult to produce timely and accurate financial reports.

Key challenges:

  • Manual Processes: The company worked with outdated, manual processes to gather, validate, and report financial data, which was laborious and introduced human errors. 

  • Delayed Reporting: The processes created frequent delays in financial reporting, leaving the company vulnerable to increased operational and compliance risks.

  • Managing Risks: The absence of a streamlined approach to risk management limited the firm’s ability to proactively take care of potential issues.

The Approach

Curate’s consultants worked closely with all stakeholders and developed a solution that’d automate the firm’s financial reporting processes and integrate advanced risk management practices. By adopting Agile methods, the team could ensure smooth project delivery with optimized operations.

Key components of the solution:

  1. Phase 1: Assessment and Planning
    • Our consultants carried out a thorough evaluation of the existing processes and identified the problems as well as opportunities for automation:

      • An automated financial reporting platform with integrated data validation and reporting features was required.

      • To minimize interruptions during installation, the solution would have to be integrated with the company’s existing financial systems.

      • Adopting the Agile approach would be best suited to manage the project and ensure the solution and financial reports were delivered on schedule.

  2. Phase 2: Solution design and technology selection
    • Curate’s consultants, along with the internal IT team and external vendors, designed an integrated solution to automate financial data validation and reporting, which featured:

      • Data Validation: To ensure more accuracy and lower the possibility of errors in the reports, the application had built-in validation criteria to automatically highlight inconsistencies in the financial data.

      • Customizable Reporting: The tool enabled the creation of financial report templates that could be modified to satisfy internal and regulatory reporting specifications.

      • Managing Risk: A risk management platform that offered real time insights into operational and compliance risks was integrated with the financial reporting tool. to allow the firm to proactively address possible concerns before they escalated.

    • Agile was used to divide the work into manageable sprints, include frequent feedback loops, and drive cross-functional collaboration among teams. This ensured that any obstacles were quickly dealt with and that the solution remained customized to the company.
  3. Phase 3: Implementation and Team Training
    • The Curate team oversaw the implementation process after the solution design was complete, including:

      • Integrating the new financial reporting tool with the company’s current systems and making sure that data moved smoothly between platforms.

      • Migrating historical financial data into the new system while automatically validating it to fix any legacy problems.

      • Establishing customizable reporting templates for various financial reporting needs, such as compliance-related filings and quarterly earnings reports.

    • Curate’s consultants held thorough training sessions for the company’s risk management and finance departments in addition to the implementation. During these sessions, the teams learned how to manage financial reporting processes using the new financial reporting tools and evaluate real-time risk information using Agile project management practices.
  4. Phase 4: Continuous support and optimization

    • Post the successful implementation, our team offered continued assistance to make sure the system kept up with the demands of the company. As the firm’s financial reporting needs changed, the team helped refine the validation procedures and reporting capabilities.

    • Working with the company’s leadership, our team created key performance indicators and metrics to monitor the solution’s effectiveness, proactively manage operational risks, and monitor and improve the company’s risk management procedures.

Business Outcomes

The transition from Waterfall to Agile, led by Curate Consulting, resulted in transformative improvements for the healthcare provider:

Enhanced Reporting Correctness


The automated data validation features raised the overall accuracy of financial reports and eliminated errors.

Reduced Risk Exposure


The company could more effectively detect and mitigate operational and compliance issues with the integration of real-time risk management insights, lowering its vulnerability to regulatory fines.

Improved Project Delivery Timelines


The finance team's manual burden was reduced, helping them meet tight deadlines, thanks to the Agile project management approach. It also helped produce financial reports more quickly and effectively.

Improved Decision-Making


The firm's stakeholders and leadership had access to reliable data thanks to timely and accurate financial reporting. This improved their ability to make informed decisions and promoted trust.

Sample KPIs

Here’s a quick summary of the kinds of KPI’s and goals teams were working towards**:

Metric Before After Improvement
Financial Reporting Accuracy 85% 98% 13% improvement
Time to Generate Financial Reports 10 days 3 days 70% reduction
Operational Risk Incidents 8/month 2/month 75% reduction
Agile Project Delivery Time 20 weeks 12 weeks 40% reduction
Compliance Penalty Risk High Low Significant reduction
**Disclaimer: The set of KPI’s are for illustration only and do not reference any specific client data or actual results – they have been modified and anonymized to protect confidentiality and avoid disclosing client data.

Customer Value

Curate Consulting’s expertise in Agile methodologies not only improved operational efficiency but also enhanced the healthcare provider’s ability to serve their patients more effectively:

Increased time-to-market


The CI/CD pipeline improved the capacity to promptly provide new financial services to customers by cutting the time needed to implement new features by 40%.

Improved uptime and reliability


Customers received improved service thanks to a 35% reduction in downtime which was brought on by deployment problems and configuration errors.

Conclusion

Curate successfully collaborated with a financial services company to improve their financial reporting and risk management processes. The company was able to improve operational efficiency, lower risk exposure, and raise reporting accuracy by incorporating Agile principles and implementing an automated financial reporting platform. The close collaboration among the Curate team, the company’s internal teams, external vendors, and stakeholders was critical to delivering lasting business value and a stronger financial foundation.

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