ZAGG Internal Audit and FP&A Teams Move Past Excel

Working without traditional desktop-based spreadsheets? That might have been unthinkable a decade ago, but today's finance chiefs are calling for teams to go beyond Microsoft Excel®. 

In a free-flowing conversation we hosted, Eric Greene, Director of Financial Reporting, and McKay Bates, Internal Audit Manager, shared how they did just that at ZAGG, a leader in mobile device enhancements and accessories. 

Successful financial transformation or modernization efforts tend to start with asking why and how: Why are you transforming the finance function, and how will you get there? What are your goals? Will you first target areas that are easiest to fix or your biggest bottlenecks?

ZAGG's modernization effort was focused on moving past manual, time-consuming work. They wanted solutions that could not only help them today but well into the future.

In the near term, adopting and connecting FloQast for financial close management and Workiva for connected reporting and compliance helped ZAGG quickly automate manual tasks and transform their way of working. Because both platforms have the ability to import and export files in multiple formats and connect to other applications, ZAGG has flexibility over the long term to transform other infrastructure within finance and accounting on their schedule. 

Eric and McKay noted the benefits of using FloQast and Workiva with their own teams but also with each other. ZAGG has always had a well-documented audit process, but in the old days, it wasn't always easy for internal auditors to see progress on tasks, where to find certain data, who did what across the company, and if parts or people in the process had changed across dozens of control owners and hundreds of controls, McKay said.

"Now we have a system that manages that for us," McKay said. He can use workflows and dashboards to manage progress on internal audit tasks with Workiva, and he has ready access to supporting documentation within FloQast. 

Eric, meanwhile, has found the platforms have made it easier to communicate with McKay's team. They can embed comments to each other within documents to provide transparency into questions, responses, and resolutions. 

During the webinar, Eric and McKay also shared:

• What they were looking for in software solutions for finance transformation
• How they decided on FloQast and Workiva
• What their CFO wanted vs. what the staff wanted
• The benefits to external auditors
• What's next in ZAGG's financial transformation journey

The webinar is available on demand. For a demonstration of the things you see and hear in the webinar, fill out this form, and we'll be in touch. 
 

Excel is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.