The 3 A's in Data Prep for Financial Operations

In a previous post, I spoke about the 3 R's that financial professionals do in financial operations. In this post we're going to discuss the 3 broad personas that perform those tasks and how they rely heavily data preparation.

The 3 A's are:

• Accountants

• Analysts

• Auditors

These roles rely on Data Preparation to transform raw data into structured, usable information that supports both operational and strategic outcomes.

Accountants

This does not exclusively refer to only Accountants. This includes Accountants and those who do 'Accounting-like' work. It's about that nature of the work that needs to be done as a part of the job function, and Accountant is a broad term here. What do accountants and accounting-like roles have in common? The most common types of tasks include:

• Reconciling General Ledgers

• Daily Balancing

• Performing Journal Entries

• Identifying Exception Items

These are core functions for many accountants, but it is not only accountants, by title, that are responsible for these tasks. Any role that is performs these tasks, regardless of title is what I am referring to here as 'Accountants'. These professionals live and breath data, and spreadsheets. Significant amount of their time is spent doing this work, and that means doing 'Data Preparation'. They are constantly acquiring data, cleaning, transforming, exporting data.

Analysts

Similarly, they term here Analyst refers to any professional who needs to perform 'Analyst-like' work with data. They nature of work that an Analyst has to do is more important here than the actual title itself. So what do most Analyst and Analyst-like roles have in common? The most common type of Analyst roles include;

• Reporting

• Researching

• Communicating Insights

Analysts, are data driven, and have to draw insights, form conclusions and make recommendations using data. That data must be of high quality and prepared with the right business and domain context to support the initiative. That means Analysts and those who perform Analyst-like work spend a lot of their time preparing data as well.

Auditors

Last, and certainly not least, are Auditors, and those who perform 'Audit-like' work. Audits are all about testing, and validating compliance within acceptable limits, identifying exceptions and communicating those to the right stakeholders.

• Sampling

• Researching

• Communicating Insights

A critical ingredient to these tasks is data, and the ability to prepare data which involves sourcing it from a system of record, cleaning and transforming it with a sufficient understanding the business.

Data Preparation as a Discipline

It is not uncommon to find a financial professional that does all three types of work in their role. For example, an accountant does daily reconciliations, then needs to create a daily report to show balancing (analyst-like work), and then need to go research and better understand exceptions that arise and communicate that to necessary stakeholders who may not be operating within suggested guidelines (audit-like work).

Regardless, what the 3A's have in common is the ability, and skill of preparing data to support their role. They have to be great at acquiring, cleaning, transforming data with a sufficient knowledge of their business, how to report and communicate their findings, and show their work in the data.