Insights
Analysis on financial reporting, audit, tax, structure, and the finance function. Published every two weeks, and written to be useful before a deadline rather than after it.
The Audit-Ready Company
A series on the judgements, controls, and routines that turn an audit into a confirmation rather than a discovery.
Take the diagnosticAll insights
3 publications
The Income-tax Act, 2025: a new vocabulary, and the documents still written in the old one
The Income-tax Act, 2025 changed the language of Indian income tax far more than its substance. What still quotes the old sections, from contracts to system codes, is where the cost appears.
The audit trail requirement is a control, not a software setting
Most companies met the edit-log rule by switching on a feature. Auditors are now asking a harder question: does the trail cover every system and every change, for the whole year?
Selling a majority stake mid-year: consolidation through a loss of control
When a subsidiary becomes an associate, the reported gain includes a revaluation of the stake the group keeps. Getting to the right number means taking five steps in a set order.
Before the dashboard: agreeing what the numbers mean
Before a company can manage by its numbers, it has to agree what they mean. That work is mostly about definitions, owners, and a reconciliation to the ledger, and very little about tools.
What lease accounting demands after the adoption project ends
Years after adoption, lease accounting is still a common source of audit adjustments. The errors have moved away from first-time recognition and into modifications, variable payments, and discount rates.
The month-end close as a design problem
Most finance teams treat the close as a reporting exercise. The fastest treat it as a design problem, and the first half of the improvement needs no new system at all.
The judgements auditors test in an expected credit loss model
Expected credit loss is a framework of judgements that happens to end in a calculation. The models that struggle in audit tend to share the same three weaknesses.
FEMA for exporters: realisation, advances, and set-offs
Unmatched EDPMS entries, ageing export advances, and informal set-offs build regulatory exposure slowly, until the day a bank stops processing transactions.
The first foreign subsidiary: decisions that are expensive to reverse
Where to incorporate, how to fund it, and where it is really run from: the choices worth settling before the first entity is registered abroad.
Assurance of BRSR Core begins with data lineage
ESG reporting is taking on the discipline of financial reporting. Most preparers have spent their effort on drafting the disclosure, and far less on where the numbers came from.
The Brief
A fortnightly email for CFOs, controllers, and founders: one piece of analysis, and the regulatory changes worth knowing about. Nothing promotional.
You can choose topics on the subscription page, and unsubscribe whenever you like.