The Consolidation King on Working Better with FP&A – Charaf Bourhalla
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Welcome to FP&A Today. I'm your host, Glenn Hopper. Today, we're joined by Sharaf Barala, a financial consolidation and reporting expert with over two decades of experience. Sharaf has worked across Morocco, France, and Switzerland, supporting CFOs and senior leadership at some of the world's largest organizations, including Nestle Skin Health.

Known for his ability to simplify complex topics like IFRS and financial control, Sharaf is also a lifelong learner, holding certifications including the FMVA and PMP. He's passionate about empowering finance professionals with the tools and insights they need to excel in modern finance. Sharaf, welcome to FP&A today. Yeah, thanks.

Well, really excited to dive in. And first off, I'm jealous of your geography and the great places you've worked. So maybe if you could take us across kind of your career journey across Morocco, France, Switzerland, and then take us to what led you back to consulting in your current role. Yeah, of course.

You're right. I'm located in Switzerland today. It's like a really nice place. I'm in the French part of Switzerland, which is like near to the big lake of Le Mans Lake, which is like in the border with France, which is a really nice area. You have mountains and you have lake and it's really, really green place.

to be. So yeah, quickly to give you a little bit about my experience and my journey. So I was born and grew up in Morocco until the age of 22 years old. I get my bachelor degree in Morocco in the public university. My bachelor degree was in economics and finance. Then late 19s, like in late 98, I

I moved to France for finishing my high studies. So I went in France to, because the French system is close to the Moroccan system because it's French language speaking and it's more close. So I went there to do my master degree and I get my master degree in auditing, finance and consulting. And after that,

professional experience started at that moment. My journey, like, I can summarize it in like four steps. The first step, it's like two years of struggling, to be honest. I did, after my master's degree, two years of interviewing

internships, three internships in three different businesses for many reasons. And one of the reasons is at that time, like when you are coming from a foreign country, even if you have a master degree, you are struggling more to land a first job. So I went to some internship and I encourage like finance students to

even if they don't land a job, when they go out from school, they start, they need to start as an internship. So you put your feet in a company, so you learn some skills, then it will open for you opportunities. So I did two years of internship, like nine months, six months and six months in big international companies. And it was like very, very helpful for me because

I discovered finance, I discovered auditing, I was in TPMG audit, and I was also in a US company, Kimberly Clark, as a reporting analyst. So these two years opened for me the door to enter to a pharma company at that moment,

as a business controller. FP&E, it's like a new word today that we are using, but before it was like business controller. So I started my career in business control in charge of the P&L for an animal nutrition business. And at that moment, this company was sold to a private equity and the new team, the new CEO and CEO for build a new finance team. So I was part of this new finance team and I was in charge of P&L.

of the P&L, also for consolidating data. And after that, or during these two years, I started to touch consolidation and consolidation tools at that moment. And I didn't have any like specific training or education on consolidation. I discovered it on the job.

And after these years, when I put these two lines on my CV that I did consolidation and I worked with one of the major tools of financial consolidation, which is ACP financial consolidation tool, I started to get a lot of calls and a lot of opportunities asking me to join them to do consolidation in either in big companies or in consulting companies.

So I had choice at that moment after two years to go either to a consulting company or to integrate a big group as an internal employee. I started to go for consulting because I like consulting. So I went for, this is like the second step of my career, which is like the consulting world. I stayed almost 13 years in two different consulting groups, but doing the same thing, addressing the same issues.

problems and helping the same clients solving the same problems. So during these 13 years, I can summarize this as a rich experience in which the three main subjects that we touched with our clients, it was interim financial

which is like big groups, they need some assistance during the closing period of time. And they need someone that is like available quickly, operational quickly, that can replace someone from the team. So you do the job as a member of the team. So this is almost 50% of our job as a consultant. The second part, it's like all these projects

relating to tools implementations, which is like financial reporting tools implementations. So this is like big, huge projects

project that needs people from the clients and from consultants, technical and functional consultants. So I was like more on this functional consultants part. So we help those groups for all those steps of this kind of project, which is defining which tools, defining the specifications, training the teams, implementation,

post-implementation assistance. So big projects lasting from six months to two years, sometimes for big groups. So this is the second part of what we do. And the third one is like specific project, like IFRS conversion, US GAAP conversion, when you have a new IFRS coming, so help clients to assess the impact of this new IFRS and help them absorb this workload.

So this is like the main three aspects in which I worked for almost 13 years for big listed companies. Most of our clients are listed companies in Europe. And also during these three, 13 years of consultants, I was both at headquarters most of the time and also on subsidiary level or on subgroup level. So I saw the two sides of the coin.

So this is like the main part of my career, 13 years. Then for personal reason, I wanted to settle a little bit and enjoy my family because it was like really extensive and I was traveling a lot and I was like doing like really, really big project in which like you are almost traveling and working

many, many hours. So I started to think about finding something locally and integrate corporate work. So for the last seven years,

or more, I worked for three companies as a head of consolidation. First one, it was a private equity in Geneva, here in Switzerland for one year. And then I integrated Nestle, one of the businesses of Nestle, which is Nestle Skin Health for two years and a half. And I was in charge of the consolidation.

It was almost 70 subsidiaries around the world and almost 3 billion of Swiss francs sales revenue. So a big subgroup of Nestlé and we were reporting to Nestlé. Then the last one as a corporate job, I was also in charge of consolidation of a pharma company here in Switzerland for two years.

And I helped them implement a new financial and consolidation tool. And yeah, almost one year and a half now, I was like thinking about coming back to the consulting world to make like the circle. Because now I have a very clear view on expectation because I was also on my last jobs working with CFOs.

and feeling what are the struggles for these kinds of jobs. And with my background, I can feel that I'm legitimate today to bring this added value and bring some practical help for companies in that space. So this is like in summary, my background.

Gotcha. And there's a lot to unpack there, but the two areas I want to track on. First, I want to talk about consolidation because it's a niche area of finance, but it's vital. And you've spent so much of your career really becoming an expert there. So,

If you could just kind of break down, like, how do you simplify the complexities of financial consolidation for your teams and clients and your approach there? And I just I want to hear more about your work in that space and how that's been been your primary focus. That's fascinating to me. Yes, yes, definitely.

And this is one of the reasons also that I wanted to come back to the consulting because I have like activity of consulting. And also I try to share my knowledge with mainly new finance professionals and to give them a little bit some advices and to make them know better this function, because I discovered on the job that

but you don't have a lot of training, education specific to consolidation, to be honest. That's why you have this question because I know your background, Glenn, you are a CFO, you worked for many groups, startups, but consolidation, a lot of people

People don't know exactly what it is because they think that it's just an aggregation of numbers, like just you add numbers, but it's more technical than that. And it's accounting. It's like a niche in accounting because we use financial statements of subsidiaries because most of the time when we are talking about consolidation, it's like international big groups that have subsidiaries around the world.

The consolidation, it's the process to consolidate, make the conversion of those financial statements that are normally built locally because they have to be compliant with the local requirements locally, for example, in the US, Latin America, Morocco, everywhere in the world. And then you have to convert all those numbers. You have to be compliant with the gap of the group because if the group is listed in the US, it's US gap. So even if you are in one

You need to have like a double reporting. You have the reporting for your local requirements and you have the reporting to the group. So you need to have both skills and both knowledge. And also you have a layer of transaction elimination, intercompany elimination, which is like sometimes it's going to be like easy when you are telling that you need to eliminate internal transactions. But when you have like big groups like Nestle or,

whatever, it's like a very, very huge volume of transaction that you need to eliminate. It's not only sales or intercompany like loans or it's more than that. You have dividends, you have a lot of technical issues. And also you have all these IFRS adjustments that you need to put

on the top of that in quick deadlines, because as you know, now there is a big pressure on deadlines. The groups need to produce their numbers quickly, not only PNL, but all of you. It's not only revenue or EBITDA or adjusted EBITDA. They need an aggregated financial statement, PNL, balance sheet, cash flow on a monthly basis quickly so they can take decisions.

And this is like the financial part, but in consolidation also we have non-financial KPIs to consolidate. And you know, with all this requirement now with ESG environment, societal and governance reporting that is now mandatory in many jurisdictions, we have more to report and more to consolidate as well.

What I wanted to highlight also, Glenn, because all people think about consolidation only talking about actual numbers or like the past and the present, but also forecasting because, you know, our friends from FP&A, because I work with FP&A,

teams in hand in hand, they need to consolidate budget, they need to consolidate forecasts, they need to build midterm plan, which is three years, five year projections. And we are using the same tools to consolidate and we need to help them consolidate those numbers because it's not only

allow revenue or gross margin, but you need to consolidate everything. But when you have like IFRS adjustments, you need to give them what is the impact

the forecasted impact of the IAEFers adjustment as well. It's not only you go to the sales department, they give you what is the forecast of the sales and it's done. You need also to think about the balance sheet and the other things. So that's why consolidation is really, really important. The problem is like the light, it's not put on this function. People don't know this function.

as they should. And it's not attractive because the expectations are high. The technical skills demanded for this kind of job is very high. And also the turnover is high because people sometimes go to consolidation, stay three, four, five years, and then they go for another finance department.

So there is a big turnover. There is a shortage in this function, but I really encourage finance, the young professional to go there because it's at the heart of finance departments in big groups.

And thinking about to do it well, I mean, you have to understand the differences, the very minute differences in many cases, I'm sure, between Gap and IFRS and whatever local practices there are. You know, the bulk of my career was in U.S.-based, U.S.-only companies. I've had a little bit of experience with IFRS, but not enough. I would need someone like you on my team to help with that.

that because I would be at a loss. But are there some big differences that jump out that are material like between GAAP and IFRS or particular country accounting standards that you can think of, whether it's in revenue recognition or treatment of depreciation or what are some big areas? Because I think a lot of us don't even think about the differences. Yeah. What you need to know is

is that US GAAP and IFRS the last years are working together to converge, to have like most of the big items in the financial statements, we have conversions. So there is not a lot of differences. There are still, and as you know, there is this battle between US and Europe, you know, who will have the power at the end? It's like, but we have more and more countries adopting IFRS in the world, like you

like you have in Asia, you have in Africa, Latin America. So we have a lot of entities in the world working with IFRS and also

IFRS, it's moving. Like every two, three months, you have updates on IFRS. That's why consolidation, it's not static. You need to be updating yourself. You need to be knowing and training yourself every time if you want to be updated. And the second question you asked, IFRS with like local gaps, it's all the time, IFRS with local gap can have like

50 to 60% common, same treatments. In some specific areas, that IFRS comes with new ideology or a new concept, but you are not starting from scratch. It's like you are building IFRS adjustments as in the margin of what you have already built on local. And that's why consolidation also, consolidation teams are

One of the main tasks that they are doing on a monthly basis, it's like to audit what is reported from local entities. So you have to challenge them. If you want to challenge them, you need to understand also their local gaps. So you know IFRS, but you need to have a broad knowledge of how they are working locally, their standards. So it's really rich and technical, but it's not that different from US GAAP.

IFRS open for you sometimes options for one topic, for example, financial instruments or something. You have the option to book it this way or this way.

In US GAAP, it's like, no, it's a rule-based GAAP. It's like one plus one, it's two. You don't have choices. You don't have options. So sometimes big companies like EY, Auditin, can have even for the same topic, different views and different, because it's open.

Yeah, it's an amazing specialty. The most experience I've had with it, I worked with a client last year. I was more on the financial operations, FP&A side, and technology side working with them. But they were an Indonesian company, a shipping company that was going to go public in the US. They had...

Indonesian finance rules, some was IFRS and then they had to get everything to GAP and it was just years and years of information that they, you know, everything you have to do before filing to go public. And it was a significant amount of work to get straight with them. So that was about enough exposure for me. I thought I'd leave it to some people smarter than I am to figure this out. That's why we have also one thing that I wanted to highlight. It's like when we close the books, for example, on a monthly basis,

One of the things that we do in big groups, it's like we are having continual training for teams in subsidiaries. Because in big groups, they have turnover either at their level. So they have all the time newcomers. So you need to train them. You need to explain to them how the gaps are for the group and you need to explain to them how to report.

these things. So if you want to build a win-win relationship between the headquarters and those subsidiaries, you need to train them all the time. So you need to train the teams in headquarters, then you need to train the teams at subsidiary level for IFRS, for consolidation and for reporting.

matters. So this is also a good thing, because you need to update yourself and you need to also train people. So this is a good thing for consolidation teams at headquarters.

Yeah. So the other thing that you touched on, and I know we talked about this before the show as well, is the technology piece and all this. Because I think, you know, if we were trying to map all this in Excel, what a nightmare that would be or whatever. And I'm wondering, I mean, technology, just because of the complexity, I'm sure that's a big part of what you do. So walk me through maybe some of the...

we don't need to identify, you know, specific tech stack or whatever, but the types of technologies that you use and maybe how you've seen it evolve over the years. And if there's been some technology that's, you know, some software that's come out that's made it easier and,

You have for big groups, like you have the leaders on the market, you have the US leader on those solutions like HFM, which is like Oracle solution, which is HFM. Most US companies are using this. Even some big European groups are using HFM. And you have the equivalent in Europe, which is SAP. SAP, you have a financial consolidation module.

that is used by the main European countries. And then you have middle class ERPs in financial reporting and consolidations,

that are designed for mid-sized groups, you know, because like the tickets, the investment is less than the big ones and they answer the requirements and the needs for those groups. So you have this kind of solutions and those solutions, like the last few years, they are now integrating new technology, like cloud-based technologies.

Before you need to put like a lot of money to buy the license. Now you are using the software as a service. So you pay for what you are using and you don't care about like all this, how to say, updates of versions and you know, you pay what you consume and which is a good thing.

And also with this new technology, you have now cloud-based technology, so you can have some real time reconciliations. You can connect from wherever you are. So it's like the technology is helping, but I know that you are also involved in this technology, AI technology, so we can discuss about this. But what people doesn't understand, it's like,

It's not the technology that solves the problems. Technology is here to help us, but we need to make a diagnostic for what are our problems, what are our processes. But the technology is just here to support us. Not we go for a technology because everyone is like now putting new technology. I need to have the same technology. If it makes sense, it's giving some added value to me. Yes, but it's just not going for technology for technology.

Yeah. And we talked before the show too. So a lot of your consulting work, you are helping make those technology decisions and helping companies move across. And I think, you know, a lot of times we see the benefit of technology, but change is hard and companies, you know, don't like to, you know, if they've got a process and they know it works, even if they know it could be better, they're scared of the change and they don't. Last thing you want to do is break things and not be able to do the month end close because you've done something wrong, put in new tech that didn't work. When

When you're dealing with technology, whether you're doing it internally or coming in as a consultant and giving guidance to a client, I talk to CFOs all the time and they say, "I went to school for finance, not for IT." What do you think about CFOs being asked to become these technology experts? This is a real problem, Glenn, in finance in general.

you have three components and most of people, sometimes they put technology as one of the main components, which is not true. For me, the three areas is first, it's people. It's like in finance, if you have people with the right skills and the right mindset. So this is the first component. The second one, it's processes.

If you have in your finance team, your finance department, you have the right processes because, you know, from all the processes, from invoicing, putting, recognizing transaction, everything, you need to have processes. So this is the second component. Then the third component, it's tools. And in tools, I can put in this area, all tools, all technological tools, you know, reporting tools, ERPs, AI, all that stuff.

So sometimes people, they think that the technology will solve their problems, which is not the case. The problem is like to make a real diagnostic to say as a finance team or finance department, what's our needs? What's our needs for our manager?

our decision makers, what they need, what KPIs they want to follow, what are the specifics of our business, what KPIs we want to follow. Then to see, do we have the processes to get the right information, accurate information on time and with all this process to check the information, like with the best practices, who do the things, who double check, who validate.

you know, segregation of duties, you know, processes to have the right process, to have procedures, instructions and all that stuff. Then at the end to see what technology on the market can help us put in place what we want to do. So this is like the steps or the order in which we have to follow because I always see some groups because

my competitor or I know someone that are implementing whatever tool I need to put this tool. It's not the right mindset. It's like what we see today. Everyone is like trying to put AI

We talk about AI, intelligence, RFS, in the finance and how it can streamline. And yeah, fine. But for me, AI and all the benefit that we can have from AI today is good. But what we are talking about, we talked about this

10, 15 years ago to say that in finance departments, people are fed up with data crunching. They need to spend more time on added value. And at that time, we talked about make interfaces, make connecting ERP between themselves, having some automatic works done.

to reduce this amount of time put on crunching data and freeing time to add value analysis. So this problem exists years before. Now just AI with these capabilities can go further, but AI, it's not...

the only solution because AI also, if you don't have the correct numbers, the accurate numbers, the correct processes, AI will amplify that as well. So this is like the main thing. Yeah, no, I mean, it's funny. You and I are on the same page here. And I always say, I think that the worst thing that can happen is a really good SaaS

or ERP salesmen can get a hold of a CFO and convince the CFO that they really need this particular software. And then the CFO come and say, we're switching to whatever is our new ERP or we're going to use this new SaaS tool. And then realize that it's the cart before the horse.

I have a good one for you, Glenn, because one of my clients, it was like funny. They asked me to come to help them because they have like a big problem because they were consolidating more than 70 legal entities under Excel. It's like four business units, 70 legal entities.

And they were doing this in Excel. When I came, they told me that they don't have anyone skilled to do the project. And what was funny, they told me that they have already purchased the tool. They have the tool.

So I was laughing. They were looking at me. They say, why is he laughing? Because it's just what you said. They are taking it from the wrong piece. So they bought a technology that they don't even know if it's the good ERP for them or not. So I was obliged to do this job to make it

fit in this tool, what was good for me, because I didn't know this tool before, but that's fine. It's like...

I want to ask your question that you want to tell me before, is a CFO or a finance guy needs to be IT expert to take project? My answer is definitely yes. Why? It's the example that I'm talking about now is the pure example. I didn't know this technology, but I know what's the outcome that I'm expecting from a reporting or consolidation tool.

You know what I mean? So I can, this is what I did. I was with some technical guys from this provider of this tool, but I tell them I need this and this and this, and I'm expecting even the results I need, like, for example, for these adjustments.

the result is to be zero at the end because I know it should be eliminated. I don't know. I don't care how you would make the code. I don't know how it is running the logic behind for your ERP. But at the end, this is the result. So if you have the basics of finance,

and the basics of consolidation, and you know what you want, then you need to play project manager that can pick the right skills and have a team working together from different departments. Because like those kinds of projects, you need to have to include people from tax, you need from treasury, from M&A, from other departments. So your tool is not only answering your specific needs,

because you need to have the big picture. Because as you know, Glenn, most of the consolidation tools now are connected to this kind of data warehouse, like Power BI or this account to have one source of truth. So if you do your project online,

in the corner, in your room, without talking to others, when you finish your project, someone else will come to tell you, did you think about this? This is my requirements. Do we reconcile? Do we have the same definition of the KPIs? You know, the basics.

So that's why what I wanted to highlight here is like, you don't need to be expert in IT on these tools, but you need to clearly know what you want. And also you have a lot of consultants, company, you can ask them, give them the business case and they come to you with some presentations, with some demo. And yeah, the advice I can give you, don't pick up.

consultants that have like a partnership with only one provider. You know, you have to take independent consultants that can like adapt because it's not all the time, even if you have the best tool, but sometimes for midsize groups or from some other businesses, you don't go for big, really expensive tool because it doesn't fit what you need. So you need to have independent people that know and can have benchmark

And then the most important, it's like to identify internally what the management needs, what the KPIs that we want to follow. Then we build like a customized solution for you.

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So in my day job, I sell data and analytics and AI services to companies and so many companies. And it's great as sort of a lead to get a company in the door. People want to talk to me about AI, but I'm finding they're talking to other consultants and vendors who pretend that...

artificial intelligence is some magic wand that they're just going to wave over all the problems and fix it. And so they're coming to me and saying, I need an AI solution. When really a lot of times it's just a rule-based business system. You don't need AI, you need an API. But with everything, and it's not sexy, and it's not always the most fun thing in the world, but you actually need to track

your processes, what your people are doing. So the process flow and the data flow, and you start there and you figure out what are you solving for? Where are the roadblocks? Why does your current system not work? And then you pick the software.

software. You don't just come in and throw the software or we're going to do AI or we're going to do machine learning. It's, well, do we have to go that complex? It's, you know, try to go as simple as you can first. Yeah. From my experience, I like, I used 10 of almost 10 of reporting consolidation tools.

The logic behind it is the same. It's the same. You collect data, it's packages, you make conversion, you need somewhere to put exchange rates, you need to eliminate, you need to have administration tool to give access to people. So all the modules are the same. Sometimes the technology is slightly different, but if you are curious, even if you don't know this solution, but when you ask

the right questions and you are really, how to say, motivated, you will learn because normally those kinds of projects lasts from six to one year, six months to one year. So if you have a good consultant, they do a demo, they do some training at the beginning. So I think after three, four weeks,

If you are curious and you really need to learn, you can learn quickly and you start to even challenge them because you will have like just some logical questions. You tell them why your system is not doing this or this, you know, so you challenge them. And this is good because they can customize some specific things.

Thanks for your business if you ask the right questions. So yeah, a definitive go for the project, take it because you want to learn, you are going to grow. And it's important because you need to implement it correctly to have a big view on the business, on the flows in the company. You will be having interactions with other departments and you will learn a lot. So I will encourage people to take these kind of projects.

Yeah, and you're really speaking my language. I feel like we could talk about this all day, but I do want to bring this home. And we have a couple of questions that we ask all of our guests at the end. And we dove straight into the consolidation and the technology. But I do, we like to, when our guests come on, get a little bit of the personal side as well. So a couple of questions that we always end with is, what's something that maybe not many people know about you? Something that isn't apparent on your LinkedIn profile or that they couldn't find by Googling you?

Yeah, I even in Google, you can find it. But it's, I think I had when I was in Morocco, I played football at a high level in Morocco. And I still use what I've learned from this experience as a high level, like sports athletes.

Because as you know, the expectation in finance are high, the same as when you are doing like sports at a high level, expectations, the pressure, collaboration, because football, it's teamwork. You know, I was like the captain of the team. So I was like trying to bring all my team to give the maximum of what they can give on the pitch. So the same as I do with my teams in finance.

And I'm lucky also because my children, I have three kids and they are doing also some sport. And I encourage them to do that because the values of sport, you can find them as well in corporate world.

And this is like the only thing that people don't see on my profile, but I like it. And this is from time to time I play with some friends, but mostly I'm just following some football on TV. Yeah. We get old, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. The body breaks down, but the passion stays there. And at some point, just watching the younger people do it, it's like, all right, you guys got it. But you don't forget it. If you have the skills, you still have the skills. That's great. That's great. Okay. So everybody's favorite question here. What is your favorite Excel function and why?

We share a lot of common things, Glenn. But, you know, we did, I think, the FMVA together. You have the FMVA certification, I have it. And when I studied this, one of the courses, it was like all these Excel shortcuts, like, you know, Control-C, Control-V, you know. Yeah, you have these classical ones, I'm fine. But I'm not a very believer of like all this knowing by heart, all of those shortcuts, all the functions. Because, you know, sometimes in some models, you have some people that put in

very complicated models. So for me, Excel, less is more. I try to build something very easy,

to hand over to someone else because I struggled a lot to come to my clients and find some very complicated Excel files. So in Excel, I encourage people not try to overcomplicate it. But to answer your question, I like index much and some prod because it's like easy to

Yeah. And that is great advice. I think, you know, as analysts, we love building complex models and doing crazy stuff and like showing it to other analysts and say, you know, look what I did here with this offset and this. The problem when sometimes you go, you know, you have this kind of CFOs that don't care about Excel and you come to him, you show him your Excel, you navigate your Excel quickly and just he can't stop you. Can you go slowly, please?

can you show me so it's easy for you because you build it but you need to be able to explain to your ceo or to others so this is the challenge sometimes you over complicate but it's

He's not going to be happy yet. You know it, but he knows that it's complicated for someone else to come and understand what you've done. So that's why you have this kind of CFOs that tell you, yeah, go really simple and explain step by step how your model is working.

Yeah. And as you, you know, as you get through this year after year, you realize explainability, reproducibility, and, you know, because you send it around and if anybody else inputs, the chances are they're going to break it. And so it just, it gets to be a problem. So yeah, sometimes less is more with those approaches.

Really, I feel like we could talk all day, but we are backed up against time here. So I guess we'll go ahead and wrap it up here. And I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your insights and wisdom with our listeners. Yeah, thank you very much. I get pleasure to discuss with you, Glenn.