This book is designed for finance executives and managers who want to understand meaningful measures adopted throughout a wide range of industries to evaluate performance and identify areas of improvement. The information provided includes standard measures used in evaluating performance regardless of industry or geography and identifies gaps among poor, average, and excellent performance in the overall finance function as well as within three key finance processes:
1. planning, budgeting, and forecasting; 2. internal controls; and 3. order to cash (revenue accounting).
Perhaps more important, it is also designed to provide insight into which business practices are associated with improved performance. We believe it is not enough just to know where the top quartile and bottom quartile lie. Our research goes beyond to explain what practices drive the variation in performance.
