The Colson Group, Chicago Illinois

International Accounting

The Colson Group was formed in 2001 when it was spun off from the Marmon Group. Colson designs, manufactures and sells a full line of consumer and industrial casters through a worldwide organization.

Their objective was to manage international accounting with a very small head-office finance department.

Created a two-step, multi-tier workflow system for international accounting where approximately 45 companies located across the world posted accounting results into 5 regional centres for vetting, inter-company eliminations and roll-up before being delivered to head office.

Step one, or flash, provided management summary and detailed 'flash' reports indicating overall activity, revenue, collections and key performance data within 3 days of month-end.

Step two provided fully consolidated international results within 7 days of close, and sign-off was complete in less than two weeks, with a head office Finance Group of only 3 people, including the VP Finance.