As an accounting lead without formal authority over other departments, how would you influence cross-functional teams to adopt a new internal control or process change that improves financial reporting accuracy?

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VirtualInterview.AI · Accepted Answer

At my last company I needed a new three-way match control to cut down on AP errors that were costing about $150K a year and extending month-end close from 7 to 10 days. I started by mapping stakeholders across purchasing, ops and IT—about 12 people across 4 teams—and built a one-page business case showing error rates, time lost (about 24 hours per month) and a projected 60% reduction in exceptions. I ran a two-week pilot with two suppliers, got IT to automate notifications, and created a simple KPI dashboard so each team could see progress. Within one quarter we reduced reconciliation exceptions by 68% and shortened close by 3 days. I credited team members publicly and turned the pilot into a standardized control rolled out to all vendors.

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