Your Record to Report - Period Close & Reconciliation Data Template

The Activity Name describes a discrete step in the period close and reconciliation process, such as 'Journal Entry Posted', 'Reconciliation Approved', or 'Period Closed'. These activities form the sequence of events that constitute the end-to-end process for a given financial period.

Analyzing the sequence and duration of these activities is the core of process mining. It helps uncover the actual process flow, identify bottlenecks where activities take too long, and discover deviations from the standard procedure. Different activity names allow for the segmentation of the process to focus on specific sub-processes like reconciliation or consolidation.

This attribute is fundamental for visualizing the process map, identifying bottlenecks, and understanding the sequence of events in the closing cycle.

Derived from transaction codes, event logs, task descriptions in a workflow tool, or document status changes in the financial system.

Event Time captures the precise date and time that an activity began. This timestamp is crucial for ordering events chronologically to reconstruct the process flow for each financial period. It serves as the starting point for all time-based process mining analysis.

The accuracy of the Event Time is critical for calculating key performance indicators like cycle times and waiting times between activities. By analyzing the time differences between consecutive events, businesses can pinpoint delays and understand the temporal dynamics of their close process. This information is essential for identifying opportunities to accelerate the close and improve efficiency.

This mandatory timestamp is required to order events correctly, calculate cycle times between activities, and measure the overall duration of the closing process.

Usually found as a 'Creation Date', 'Posting Date', or 'Start Date' in transaction logs, document headers, or workflow system event tables.

The Financial Period represents the specific accounting period, like '2023-12' or 'Q4-2023', under which all closing activities are performed. It functions as the central case that links disparate events, from subledger closing to final statement generation, into a single end-to-end process instance.

In process mining, analyzing activities grouped by Financial Period allows for the measurement of the total period-end cycle time. It enables comparisons between different periods to identify trends, improvements, or degradations in performance. By using this as the case ID, all related journal entries, reconciliations, and approvals are contextualized within the same closing effort.

It is the essential case identifier that groups all related activities, allowing for the end-to-end analysis of the period close process cycle time and efficiency.

Typically found in the header or general data sections of financial documents and task management systems related to the period close.

This attribute records the date and time when the dataset was last updated. It provides crucial context for any analysis, indicating the freshness of the data and the cut-off point for the events included. For a dynamic process like period close, this is vital for real-time monitoring dashboards.

Understanding the data's recency is essential for stakeholders who rely on the process mining analysis for decision-making. It ensures that they are aware of whether they are looking at a complete, historical view or a near-real-time snapshot of an ongoing close process. This timestamp is a key piece of metadata for maintaining data integrity and user trust.

Provides context on data freshness, ensuring that users understand how current the process analysis is.

This is typically metadata generated during the data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) process.

The Source System attribute indicates the originating application or module where an activity was recorded. In a complex IT landscape, the period close process often involves multiple systems, such as an ERP for journal entries, a reconciliation tool for account validation, and a consolidation system for reporting.

Tracking the source system for each event helps in understanding the technological footprint of the process. It can highlight dependencies between systems and identify issues related to data integration or system-specific performance. This view is valuable for IT and finance leaders looking to streamline their application landscape or diagnose process delays caused by a particular system.

Identifies where each process step occurs, helping to understand system handoffs and diagnose technology-related bottlenecks.

This information is often part of the data extraction framework or can be found in technical metadata fields within the source tables.

The Company Code represents the specific legal entity or subsidiary within a corporate group for which the period close is being executed. Financial consolidation often requires closing the books for multiple entities before creating group-level reports.

This attribute is critical for organizational filtering and benchmarking. It allows analysts to compare the closing process efficiency and timeliness across different companies within the organization. This helps identify best practices in high-performing entities that can be replicated elsewhere, as well as entities that may require additional support or process improvements.

Enables comparison and benchmarking of the closing process across different legal entities, helping to identify best practices and areas for improvement.

A standard organizational field found in the header of almost all financial transaction tables in an ERP system.

The End Time marks the precise date and time that a specific activity concluded. While Start Time tells you when an activity began, End Time is necessary to understand how long it took to complete. This is particularly relevant for tasks with a measurable duration, like generating a complex report or performing a manual reconciliation.

In process mining, the combination of Start Time and End Time allows for the calculation of activity processing times. This is a fundamental metric for identifying inefficiencies and resource-intensive steps. Analyzing processing times helps differentiate between time spent actively working on a task versus time spent waiting for the next step to begin, providing a more detailed view of process performance.

Enables the calculation of activity processing time, which is crucial for identifying inefficient tasks and resource bottlenecks.

Can be found as a 'Completion Date', 'Last Changed Date', or a status change timestamp in the source system's transaction or log tables.

The Journal Entry ID is a unique number or code that identifies a single accounting document. These documents are the primary mechanism for recording financial transactions, including standard entries, accruals, and adjustments made during the period close.

This attribute allows for a detailed analysis of journal entry processing. By linking activities to a specific Journal Entry ID, one can track the lifecycle of a journal from creation to posting, including any review and approval steps. It is essential for dashboards focused on manual adjustments, as it helps quantify their volume, value, and impact on the closing process.

Uniquely identifies accounting documents, enabling detailed analysis of journal entry volume, rework, and approval cycle times.

A primary key field in accounting document header tables, often labeled 'Document Number' or 'Journal ID'.

Reconciliation Status indicates the state of an account reconciliation at a given point in time. Common statuses include 'Not Started', 'In Progress', 'Submitted for Review', 'Rejected', and 'Approved'. These statuses often correspond to the activities in the process.

Analyzing status changes is a primary way to reconstruct the reconciliation process flow. The status is key to measuring performance indicators like the First-Pass Reconciliation Rate, which tracks the percentage of reconciliations approved without any rejections. It also helps in identifying which accounts or departments have a high rate of rejections, signaling potential quality or training issues.

Tracks the progress of reconciliations, enabling the measurement of rework rates, approval times, and overall reconciliation sub-process efficiency.

A status field on the reconciliation task or object within a reconciliation management system.

This attribute identifies the individual employee or system user responsible for executing a specific task in the period close process. This could be the accountant who posted a journal entry, the manager who approved a reconciliation, or the analyst who generated the financial statements.

Analyzing the process by Responsible User is essential for understanding workload distribution, team performance, and identifying training needs. It can reveal if certain individuals are bottlenecks or if work is unevenly spread across the team. This human-centric analysis helps in resource management and optimizing team productivity during the high-pressure close period.

Allows for analysis of workload distribution, team productivity, and identification of individual training opportunities or resource constraints.

Found in fields like 'User Name', 'Created By', 'Employee ID', or 'Owner' in financial document headers and workflow task logs.

Transaction Amount represents the financial value of an event, typically associated with journal entries or adjustments. This can be the total document value, a line item value, or the amount of an adjustment in a reconciliation.

This attribute adds a critical business context layer to the process analysis. It allows for the prioritization of issues based on financial impact. For example, analyzing the value of manual journal entries can help focus automation efforts on the most significant adjustments. It also helps in risk assessment by identifying high-value transactions that may require more stringent controls or approvals.

Provides financial context to process events, enabling analysis of the monetary impact of adjustments, and helping to prioritize improvements based on value.

Found in financial document line item or header tables, often in local and group currency fields.

The Department attribute specifies the business unit, such as Finance, Controlling, or Accounts Payable, responsible for a particular activity. It provides a functional view of the process, complementing the legal entity view provided by the Company Code.

Analyzing the process by department helps to understand handoffs and collaboration between different teams. It can highlight delays caused by waiting for another department to complete a prerequisite task. This information is valuable for improving cross-functional communication and streamlining workflows that span multiple teams.

Helps analyze process handoffs and performance across different functional teams, highlighting opportunities for better cross-departmental collaboration.

Can be derived from user master data, cost center information linked to transactions, or specified directly in workflow management systems.

The General Ledger Account is a fundamental element in financial accounting, representing a specific type of asset, liability, equity, revenue, or expense. In the context of the period close, activities like journal entries and reconciliations are always tied to one or more GL accounts.

Analyzing the process by GL Account allows for a more granular view of the closing effort. It can help identify which accounts are most difficult or time-consuming to reconcile, or which ones require the most adjusting entries. This insight can guide efforts to simplify the chart of accounts or improve the accounting practices for specific high-risk or high-volume accounts.

Allows for granular analysis to identify which accounts are most complex or time-consuming to reconcile, guiding targeted process improvements.

Found in the line item details of journal entry tables and as a key attribute in account reconciliation systems.

The Is Automated attribute is a boolean flag (true/false) that distinguishes between tasks executed by a person and those performed by a system process, such as a scheduled batch job or a robotic process automation (RPA) bot. This is crucial for understanding the level of automation in the close process.

Analyzing the process with this dimension helps quantify the impact of automation initiatives. It allows businesses to track the percentage of automated versus manual activities, identify top candidates for future automation, and verify that existing automations are functioning as expected. This view is essential for any organization focused on digital transformation and increasing the efficiency of its finance function.

Distinguishes between human and system tasks, enabling the measurement of automation levels and the identification of new automation opportunities.

Can be derived from the user ID (e.g., system or bot users), transaction codes associated with batch jobs, or specific flags from workflow tools.

Journal Entry Type categorizes accounting documents based on their purpose or nature. Common types include standard entries from subledgers, manual adjustments, accruals, reclassifications, and reversing entries. This classification provides important context about why a journal was created.

Analyzing the process by Journal Entry Type helps to differentiate routine, automated postings from non-standard, manual interventions. A high volume of 'Adjusting' or 'Manual' entries can indicate issues in upstream processes or a lack of automation. This analysis is key to identifying opportunities for process standardization and reducing manual effort during the close.

Categorizes journals to distinguish between routine and exceptional entries, helping to quantify and analyze the impact of manual adjustments.

Typically stored as a 'Document Type' or similar classification field in the accounting document header.

The Planned Completion Date, or target date, is the deadline set for completing the entire period close or specific major milestones within it. This is a key component of the close calendar that finance teams use to manage their activities.

By comparing the actual completion date of the process with this planned date, organizations can measure their On-Time Close Rate, a critical KPI for the finance function. Analyzing deviations from the plan helps teams understand the root causes of delays and improve their planning and execution in future periods. It transforms the process analysis from being purely descriptive to being prescriptive about meeting deadlines.

Enables the measurement of on-time performance against the close calendar, helping to identify chronic delays and improve future planning.

Maintained in close management or task management applications, or potentially stored in a central calendar or spreadsheet.

The Reconciliation ID uniquely identifies a single reconciliation effort, for instance, the reconciliation of a specific bank account for a specific period. It acts as a sub-case within the overall period close process, grouping activities like preparation, review, and approval for that one reconciliation.

Tracking this ID is crucial for any detailed analysis of the reconciliation sub-process. It allows for the measurement of the end-to-end reconciliation cycle time, from initiation to final approval. It also enables the calculation of rework rates by identifying reconciliations that are rejected and sent back for correction.

Enables detailed analysis of the reconciliation sub-process, including cycle times, rework rates, and bottlenecks at the individual reconciliation level.

A primary identifier in specialized account reconciliation systems or modules.

This attribute classifies reconciliations into logical groups based on their nature. Common types include Balance Sheet, Bank, Intercompany, Fixed Assets, or P&L reconciliations. Each type may have a different level of complexity, risk, and standard procedure.

Segmenting the analysis by Reconciliation Type allows for a more meaningful comparison of performance. For instance, it is expected that Intercompany reconciliations might be more complex and time-consuming than simple bank reconciliations. This attribute helps set realistic performance targets and identify specific challenges within each category of reconciliation work.

Allows for performance benchmarking across different categories of reconciliations, providing a more nuanced view of process challenges and efficiency.

Derived from the GL Account properties or stored as a specific category field in a reconciliation management tool.