Key challenges in managing FA process

For large organizations, the simple traditional approaches cannot deliver a robust fixed management process because with scale increased the quantum of expenditure which involves substantial exposure to risk. For most organizations it a strategic and complicated process that involves participation from cross-disciplinary teams (including the requisitioning team, sales, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, information technology department, supply chain, buy to pay team, accounting team and various tax departments, etc.) and carries a high degree of inherent uncertainty.

Given below are some challenges inherent in a typically fixed assets management process:

1. Multiple organization structures for fixed assets
2. Shared Services in various locations, centralized within the biz, and standalone at sites
3. Numerous IT platforms used for fixed asset register ranging from advanced ERPs to local systems including Excel
4. Lack of standard data attributes/definitions relevant to capturing fixed assets across organization spanning multiple departments and teams
5.  Complexities to have multiple representations for the same set of fixed assets for other purposes like STAT, Tax, etc.
6. Complexity due to country-specific tax (US & Non-US), statutory, and VAT/GST requirements
7. Multiple systems may result in extraction/interface challenges
8. Need for expertise and discipline across business units to account for both US GAAP and local GAAP requirements
9. Limited central or regional SMEs consultation, Limited communication between tax and stat experts with the FA accounting
10. Best practices not leveraged across businesses
11. Limited/inconsistent policies, standard operating procedures, process documentation and training
12. Asset data is duplicated across several systems
13. Data held on one system is not made available to other systems
14. Reports are drawn from various sources and are inconsistent
15. No systemized verification exercises having taken place since long