The document summarizes findings from a study on accounting and reporting (A&R) functions conducted by CEB Finance Leadership Council. The study found that high-performing A&R teams spend less on average as a percentage of revenue than average or low-performing teams, while providing higher levels of service in accuracy, frequency, and detail of reporting. Specifically: - High-performing A&R teams spend an average of 0.37% of revenue on the function compared to 0.50% for average teams and 1.00% for low performers. - They provide reporting with greater detail, frequency, accuracy, and customization than average teams, though not necessarily faster speed. -

1. CEB Finance Leadership Council
How much does a great Accounting
function cost?
Finance teams are being asked to do more today than ever before. As your
organization seeks to become more efficient, improve analytic capabilities,
and create more value for business partners, our Finance Performance
Benchmarks will help your team operate more efficiently while delivering
more value.
Finance Performance Benchmarks are
designed to help finance functions
determine where and how to spend,
allocate resources, improve processes,
and set new performance targets.
Participation in the assessment
provides benchmarking against
peers on cost structure, head
count, organizational design
(e.g., organizational structure and IT
systems), and the scope and quality of
your finance services (e.g., measures
of accuracy, timeliness, detail,
customization across core activities
such as forecasting, management
reporting, and budgeting).
Is It Possible to “Do Better with Less” in Accounting & Reporting?
High-performing accounting & reporting teams don’t necessarily spend more than their
peers to deliver greater value to the business. In fact, the best accounting & reporting teams
spend less, on average, and tend to have higher levels of service (e.g., accuracy, frequency,
and level of detail.)
Overview of Cost, Service Level, and Performance of Accounting
& Reporting Functions
Overall A&R Budget per Revenue
What are Finance Performance
Benchmarks?
1.00%
High-Performing
A&R Teamsa
Average-Performing
A&R Teams
Low-Performing
A&R Teams
0.50%
0.00%
50
30
100
A&R Service Level (Output)
Volume of Activities (e.g., Budgets, Forecasts, Plans) and
Service Levels (e.g., Accuracy, Customization, Timeliness)
n = 53.
Source: CEB analysis.
a
High-performing teams provide information that has the greatest impact on the business and are highly effective
at minimizing the number of accounting-related compliance errors.
How Our Assessment Differs
We use TruePeer™ benchmarks.
We establish superior peer groups based on factors of complexity such as number of
countries of operation, number of legal entities, languages spoken across the business, and
annual revenue. Our proprietary methodology explains a greater percentage of finance cost
differences than using industry alone to determine peers.
Finance performance benchmarks
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2. The Best Accounting & Reporting
Teams Have Relatively Fewer FTEs
Benchmark Your Whole
Department
Finance Performance Benchmarks
provide specific analysis for these
sub-functions:
■■
FP&A
■■
Tax
■■
Treasury
Accounting & Reporting FTEs
Budget per Revenue for All
Accounting & Reporting Teams
Compared to High-Performing Teams
FTEs per Billion in Revenue for All
Accounting & Reporting Teams
Compared to High-Performing Teams
1.00%
40
Accounting and Reporting
■■
Accounting & Reporting Spend
■■
20
30.75
0.37%
Transaction Processing
■■
0.50%
Investor Relations
0.11%
0.00%
Overall A&R Spend
HighPerforming
Teams
Overall A&R FTE
0.21%
Median
7.42
0
0.20%
10.79
16.02
Source: CEB analysis.
Source: CEB analysis.
Accounting & Reporting Spend by Activity
All Accounting & Reporting Teams Compared to High-Performing Teams
External Reporting/Financial Accounting
Internal Reporting/Cost Accounting
High-Performing
A&R Teams
54%
46%
All A&R Teams
53%
47%
0%
50%
100%
n = 77.
Member Reaction
“Traditionally, we have used
benchmarks to justify cost-cutting
initiatives. The analysis provided
by CEB allows us to not only target
spending, but to focus on maximizing
the impact of our highest value
activities by having a better picture
for how and where to allocate staff
at various levels.”
Source: CEB analysis.
Budgets and Head Count Insights for Accounting & Reporting
■■
■■
The overall budget for high-performing teams is a similar portion of revenue compared
their peers; however, the overall FTE count for high performing teams is a lower
portion of revenue compared to their peers.
Our analysis indicates that high-performing teams are more centralized, engage in
greater amounts of offshoring, and are allocated a greater portion of high-potential
employees than their peers.
VP of Finance
Financial Services Company
Finance performance benchmarks
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3. High-Performing Accounting & Reporting
Teams Offer Substantially Higher Levels
of Service
C
ase in Point: ANZ Tiered
Services to Align Itself
With Business Units That
Drive Growth
■■
■■
Accounting Reporting Service Level
All Accounting Reporting Teams Compared to High-Performing
Accounting Reporting Teams
All AR Teams
The Australia and New Zealand
Banking Group (ANZ) transformed
its finance function to overcome
the challenge of operating in a slow
growth environment. Finance realized
that of the current set of services
it provides to the business, not all
of them added value, yet each one
carried a cost.
As a result, Finance segmented
business units into five categories
based on growth potential and
reduced support to low-value
business units. This allowed the
finance team to align services with
businesses that significantly drive
overall growth for the organization.
High-Performing AR Teams
Level of Detail
1 = Minimum level of service detail
7 = Include any and all information available
Speed
Frequency
1 = Service often not timely
7 = Service exceeds
timeliness expectations
Level of Customization
1 = Standardized support only
7 = Customization provided to all
customers
1 = ervice provided only
S
as needed
7 = eal-time services
R
provided
Accuracy
1 = nly directionally correct
O
7 = 100% accurate
n = 77.
Source: CEB analysis.
How to Use This Chart
This chart highlights the service strategy taken by high-performing accounting reporting
teams. In the spider diagram, the farther the line stretches toward the exterior of the
diagram, the greater the service level against that particular attribute.
Service Level Insights for Accounting Reporting
■■
■■
■■
High performing teams provide services with greater level of detail, frequency,
accuracy, and customization than their peers.
High-performing teams do not provide services to the business with greater speed.
Accounting Reporting teams that seek to create more value for business partners
and minimize the number of accounting related compliance errors should increase the
level of detail, frequency, accuracy, and level of customization than they currently do,
but this should only be done to support the most critical activities.
Finance performance benchmarks
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4. The Best Accounting Reporting Teams
Provide Greater Detail
How to Use This Page
This page provides a closer look at
three service strategy attributes:
frequency, time horizon, and level of
advisory support. Attributes highlighted
in the tables represent metrics that
differed between all accounting
reporting teams and high-performing
accounting reporting teams.
Service Level Dimensions for Accounting Reporting
Detail
1 = Bare minimum level | 7 = All relevant detail
Metric
All AR Teams
5.5
Overall Score
High-Performing
AR Teams
6.4
4.3
4.0
5.0
4.8
Levels of Internal Reporting Drilldown
1 = nformation provided only at consolidated enterprise level
I
3 = Information provided at the business unit level
5 = information provided at the production line level
Ad Hoc Reporting Detail
1 = Direct pull of data from reporting system
3 = Multiple sets of data from multiple sources/systems
5 = Multiple set of data, sorted, and synthesized
7 = Multiple sources, sorted, synthesized, and cleaned
High-performing AR teams provide greater amounts of detail than their peers.
Frequency
1 = Only as needed | 7 = Real-time service
Metric
All AR Teams
5.4
5.1
4.2
4.4
6.0
Overall Score
High-Performing
AR Teams
6.3
Frequency of Ad Hoc Reporting Requests
1 = Every couple of weeks
3 = Every week or so
5 = Every couple of days
7 = Every day
Frequency of Responses to Ad Hoc Requests
1 = Never
3 = Sometimes
5 = Most of the time
7 = Always
High-performing AR teams tend to provide services less frequently than their peers,
freeing up resources to include more detail or ensure a higher level of accuracy.
Advisory Support
1 = Completely standardized services | 7 = Completely customized services
Metric
All AR Teams
5.1
Overall Score
High-Performing
AR Teams
5.0
6.0
6.3
Ad Hoc Reporting Request Fulfillment
1 = e do not provide any custom ad hoc reporting—only
W
direct to existing reports
3 = Provide ad hoc report if existing report is unable to fulfil
80% of the request
Additional Dimensions Assessed
Through the Finance Performance
Benchmarks
■■
Speed (days to close, collect
information)
■■
Accuracy (data and reporting)
5 = Provide ad hoc report if existing report is unable to fulfil
90% of the request
7 = Provide ad hoc report if existing report is unable to fulfil
95% of the request
High-performing AR teams provide the same level of customization as their peers,
but provide less support to ad hoc reporting requests.
n = 77.
Source: CEB analysis.
Finance performance benchmarks
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5. Next Step: Use Finance Performance
Benchmarks with Your AR Team
Finance Performance Benchmarks are a feature of CEB Finance Leadership Council.
Members who participate can expect:
■■
■■
■■
■■
A customized report using TruePeer™ Benchmarks that assesses the overall finance
function and six sub-functions including FPA, Accounting Reporting, Tax,
Transaction Processing, Treasury, and Investor Relations
Individual guidance to ensure company data is accurately recorded and reflected in the
report
Consultation from CEB’s Executive Advisors™ who will walk through the results with
your senior finance leaders during a live or virtual meeting and recommend ways to
take out costs or add more value
Access to our resources (e.g., best practices, training, executive meetings) aimed at
implementing the recommendations coming out of your report
How Long Does It Take to Participate?
Participation takes roughly eight hours total, most of which can be delegated to a
budget analyst. The assessment requires roughly two hours of executive time to answer
qualitative questions about processes, services, and value delivered to the business. The
entire assessment can be done online, and a report can be generated within one week of
completing the assessment.
What Is CEB Finance Leadership Council?
One of 50 function-specific programs at CEB, we aim to serve finance executives who
desire to improve the performance of their function and develop their staff. We offer
participation in Finance Performance Benchmarks as well as support in the following
five areas:
1. Finance Function Performance Management
2. Finance Organizational Structure and Role Design
3. Finance Talent Development
4. Finance Information Technology
5. Enterprise Capital and Cost Management
Member Reaction
“Seeing that our company was
spending more and providing more
services than our peers was insightful,
but even more valuable was the
revelation that we were not as
valuable as peers for all the effort.”
VP of Finance
Information Technology Company
Finance performance benchmarks
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6. CEB Finance Leadership Council
Membership Features
Advisory
Support
Executive
Networking
Research
and Insight
CEB Finance
Leadership Council
Maximizing the
Effectiveness
of Your Finance
Organization
Live and Online
Learning
Decision and
Diagnostic Tools
Member Reaction
“We’ve been thinking about all
the consulting firms to support
our transformation efforts. We’ve
spent a lot of money with other
benchmarking providers over the
years, but the CEB report we walked
through this week blew them out
of the water. It was 10-to-1 in terms
of how much we learned and how
actionable the results were—and in
much less time.”
Peer Benchmarking
Specific Examples of Support for Benchmarking, Best Practices,
and Live and Online Learning
Proven Best
Practices
Peer Benchmarking
■■
Finance Performance
Benchmarks:
Determine where and
how to spend, allocate
head count, and set
new performance
targets.
■■
Business Alignment
Tool: Identify and
prioritize performance
gaps and focus on the
activities that matter
most to your internal
customers.
VP of Finance
Energy Company
Who Is CEB?
■■
CEB is the world’s leading member-based
advisory company. With 30 years of experience
working with top companies to benchmark,
analyze, and apply proven practices to help your
team unlock their full potential.
Every year we equip more than 16,000 senior
leaders from more than 6,000 organizations
across 60 countries with the insights and
actionable solutions they need to respond
quickly to evolving business conditions and
transform operations. We do this by combining
our advanced research and analytics with best
practices from clients across more than 88% of
the Fortune 500.
■■
1
Contact CEB to Learn More
Proven Best Practices
Finance Talent
Test: Assess the
completeness of your
talent management
approach using our
behavioral model of
finance professionals.
Anatomy of a TopPerforming Finance
Organization: Set
finance strategy by
determining which
initiatives will have
the greatest effect on
overall performance.
■■
CUNA Mutual uses
business outcomes to
quantify the relative
importance of different
transformation work
streams, which enables
effective prioritization.
■■
John Deere transforms
finance to address the
key staffing model risks
presented by future
changes in its business.
■■
CSX improved its
interview structure and
rigor by introducing
the Influence Screening
Interview.
■■
Alpha Company1
teaches staff how
to say “no” to lowvalue tasks without
jeopardizing business
partner relationships.
Live and Online
Learning
■■
Customized
Workshops: Work
with our Executive
Advisors to create a
full-day, customized
training workshop
on a variety of topics
including enterprise
cost management,
talent development,
and developing finance
challengers.
■■
Virtual Webinars:
Participate in virtual
webinars to learn how
leading companies
solve both common
and emerging
challenges for Finance.
■■
Online CPE Training:
Use our online, CPEaccredited training
courses to improve
your business acumen
or technical expertise.
Pseudonym.
+1-866-913-8102
flc@executiveboard.com
www.executiveboard.com
Finance performance benchmarks
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This study may not be reproduced or redistributed without the expressed permission of The Corporate Executive Board Company.