The challenge
Regulatory reporting depended on a patchwork of extracts, spreadsheets, and manual checks spread across more than two dozen systems. Every reporting cycle required specialists to reconcile balances by hand, investigate breaks, and rebuild evidence for auditors.
The process was accurate enough to pass, but it was slow, expensive, and fragile. A single late extract could delay a filing, and audit preparation consumed weeks of senior analyst time each year.
The approach
1. Map every report to its sources
The team built a source-to-report inventory so each regulatory figure had an owner, a system of record, and a documented transformation path.
2. Automate reconciliation, not just extraction
4DAlert connectors pulled balances from core banking, general ledger, and downstream reporting systems. Reconciliation rules replaced the manual tie-outs, with exceptions routed to the right analyst.
3. Make evidence continuous
Every reconciliation run produced a timestamped audit trail, so audit preparation became a review of existing evidence rather than a reconstruction exercise.
4. Add controls before go-live
Thresholds, escalation paths, and sign-off gates were configured with the controllership team, keeping the automation inside the institution's existing risk framework.
The results
Audit preparation time fell by 60% and reporting cycles accelerated by 40%. More importantly, the institution gained a repeatable control layer: new reports can reuse the same connectors, rules, and evidence model instead of starting from another spreadsheet.
- 25+ systems reconciled through a single platform
- Exceptions routed to named owners with a full audit trail
- Audit evidence generated as part of every run
The client's identity is withheld under NDA. Metrics reflect the engagement as reported by the client's finance and controls team.
What made it work
Three decisions mattered most: treating reconciliation as a control rather than a report, agreeing exception ownership before automation, and keeping the audit trail in the platform instead of in email. Each one reduced the amount of manual work that survived the project.
Related reading
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