TakeControl Recap: Streamline Close, Compliance, and Reporting with FloQast + DFIN

Whether your company is a growing private entity eyeing an IPO or already a public heavyweight, the processes surrounding the financial close can feel like a triathlon you didn't sign up for. Monthly balance sheet reconciliations, audits, and compiling financial statements for stakeholders — it’s a marathon of meticulous tasks where every second counts.
But what if the different legs of this race weren't run in sequence, but simultaneously, by a well-oiled team? That's the idea behind the FloQast and DFIN integration. It’s about transforming a series of disjointed sprints into a single, streamlined event. This post will explore how connecting your close, compliance, and reporting processes can save your team from the agony of repetitive tasks and the dread of last-minute scrambles.

The Challenge: Disconnected Processes

For many accounting teams, the close-to-report cycle is a fragmented relay race where the baton is a spreadsheet, and the handoffs are manual, error-prone, and frankly, a bit of a nightmare. You close the books in one system, manage compliance in another, and build reports in a third. This separation isn't just inefficient; it's risky.
As FloQast Solutions Consultant Amy Shepard notes, "The main challenge I see across month-end close, compliance, and reporting is when customers use a different tool for each process. This can result in a lot of repetitive tasks and longer completion times.”
This disconnect creates several problems:

• Repetitive, Manual Work: Teams spend countless hours manually transferring data between systems, re-keying numbers, and triple-checking for consistency. This isn't just tedious; it pulls skilled professionals away from higher-value strategic work.
• Shaky Foundations: When your close and compliance processes aren't interlocked, you're building reports on unstable ground. Donna Garabo, VP of ActiveDisclosure Product Management at DFIN, puts it perfectly: “When close and compliance aren’t locked in together, you’re building your reports on a shaky foundation; you don’t have that confidence in the data in your reports. That happens long before you hit the submit button on a filing.”
• Lack of Visibility: Preparing for an audit becomes a scavenger hunt. Without a centralized system, there’s no clear line of sight into the required evidence, leading to stressful, last-minute fire drills.

The Solution: Connected Workflows

The integration of FloQast and DFIN tackles these challenges head-on by creating a unified workflow. It’s designed to connect the dots between your close, compliance, and reporting functions, turning a fragmented process into a cohesive, automated one.

Eliminate Manual Handoffs and Democratize Insights

With a connected system, the manual baton-passing becomes a thing of the past. Data flows automatically from your close management platform directly into your reporting and compliance tools. This not only saves time but also reduces the risk of human error. Insights that were once siloed within the accounting team become accessible to compliance and reporting teams in real-time, fostering better collaboration and decision-making across the board.

Centralize Processes and Connect Key Teams

Imagine a world where your accounting, compliance, and financial reporting teams all work from a single source of truth. That’s the reality of a centralized workflow. By bringing everyone onto the same page (and platform), you eliminate the confusion and miscommunication that often arise from using disparate systems. Everyone has visibility into the entire process, which strengthens controls and promotes accountability.

Gain Visibility, Stronger Controls, and Accurate Reporting

A connected workflow provides an end-to-end audit trail. From the initial transaction reconciliation in FloQast to the final number in a DFIN report, you can trace data with confidence. This level of visibility makes audits smoother and gives you unwavering trust in your reporting. As Donna Garabo emphasizes, "You need to be able to trust your system, the processes, and your people to get the results you’re looking for.”

Benefits of the FloQast + DFIN Integration

Connecting FloQast and DFIN isn’t just about making life easier for your accounting team (though it certainly does that). It’s about driving tangible business outcomes.

Save Time and Boost Efficiency

The most immediate benefit is the time savings. Marc Reicher, Director of Product Management at FloQast, highlights this by noting that with linked documents, you can "update the number in the document once and it flows through the whole document, which saves hours and hours of work.” Think about the cumulative time your team spends hunting down numbers and manually updating spreadsheets. Now, imagine redirecting all those hours toward strategic analysis and growth initiatives.

Achieve Real-Time, Trusted Reporting

The shift to digital has accelerated expectations. "Over the course of my career, I’ve seen the transformation from a very manual, paper-based process to digital, real-time reporting, but the pressures don’t change. The deadlines are still looming,” says Donna Garabo. The FloQast and DFIN integration empowers teams to meet these pressures head-on. With real-time data synchronization, your reports are always up-to-date and reflect the latest information from your close process, giving you confidence when it’s time to file.

Trust Your System, Processes, and People

Ultimately, this integration is about building trust. When you have a reliable, automated system, you can trust your numbers. When your processes are transparent and controlled, you can trust your workflows. And when your people are empowered with the right tools, you can trust them to deliver accurate, timely results without burnout.

See It in Action

Reading about a streamlined workflow is one thing, but seeing it is another. In our recent session, "Accelerate and Align: Streamlining Close, Compliance, and Reporting with FQ + DFIN," experts from FloQast and DFIN demonstrated exactly how this integration provides the "missing link" between accounting, compliance, and reporting.

Amy Shepard walked through a demo of FloQast for the month-end close, showing how the platform centralizes reconciliations and documentation. Following that, Donna Garabo demonstrated DFIN ActiveDisclosure, illustrating how that data flows seamlessly into financial reports. The result is a single, unified workflow that eliminates handoffs and reduces risk.

Unlock a More Efficient Future

The pressures on accounting and finance teams aren't going away. If anything, they're intensifying. Disconnected systems and manual processes are no longer just an inconvenience; they're a significant business risk.

By integrating FloQast and DFIN, you can build a resilient, efficient, and transparent close-to-report ecosystem. You’ll empower your team to move faster, report with confidence, and focus on what truly matters: driving the business forward.

Ready to see how you can transform your close, compliance, and reporting processes? Watch the full replay on FloQademy for an in-depth demo and expert insights.