Record to report

Record to report or R2R is a Finance and Accounting (F&A) management process which involves collecting, processing and delivering relevant, timely and accurate information used for providing strategic, financial and operational feedback to understand how a business is performing.^[1] It also covers the steps involved in preparing and reporting the overall accounts which are typically stored in a general or nominal ledger and managed by a controller. The detailed steps involved are:^[2]

data extraction
data collection
data validation
data transformation (generation of voucher)
voucher posting (to general ledger)
storing vouchers in de-normalized and compressed format
generating analysis account trial balance or consolidated analysis account trial balance
generating user-defined financial and management reports

In general the Record to Report function is not engaged in processing transactions, but rather the aggregation of existing data in computer systems to enable meaningful performance reporting to be prepared for management. However, the R2R function may be a part of a broader accounting department.

In accounting terms an ideal IT platform (or ERP system) would be one which presents the data management need at the press of a button, however, various factors such as legacy systems, complexity, changing information needs and so on usually mean a team is needed on an ongoing basis to ensure the correct format reports are prepared.

What to expect in such a report:

financial performance and position
key performance indicators/metrics
business commentary on the performance
reconciliation of actual results to budget, forecast and prior year results

The other divisions of accounting in this structure are:^[3]

invoice to payment (I2P), or P2P (Procure-to-pay)
collect to cash (C2C), or O2C (Order to cash)
manage fixed assets
manage internal financial controls

References

^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-11. Retrieved 2013-11-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ C. Cristian Wulf (2006), CFO Insights, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 53–54, ISBN 9780471770831
^ Nigel Rayner (2011), Top Processes for Core Finance Operations, Gartner

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[1] "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-11. Retrieved 2013-11-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

[2] C. Cristian Wulf (2006), CFO Insights, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 53–54, ISBN 9780471770831

[3] Nigel Rayner (2011), Top Processes for Core Finance Operations, Gartner

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