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    Internal Financial Controls

    Internal financial controls are the documented, tested checks over financial reporting that Indian company law requires a board and an auditor to sign off on.

    Service within Controllership

    How we help with Internal Financial Controls

    IFC becomes a statutory requirement long before anyone treats it as a useful one.

    1. Map the processes that touch the numbers

      Order to cash, procure to pay, payroll, close and reporting. Controls are documented against real process steps rather than against a template.

    2. Design controls that fit the company's size

      Controls suited to a five-hundred-person business will not survive contact with a fifty-person one. Each control has to earn its cost at the scale the company is now.

    3. Document them so an auditor can follow

      A control that cannot be evidenced does not exist as far as an auditor is concerned. The documentation is the deliverable, not a by-product of it.

    4. Test, remediate and prepare the certification

      Operating effectiveness tested, gaps closed, and the evidence assembled for the board and the auditor who both have to sign.

    More services within Controllership

    IFC becomes a statutory requirement long before anyone treats it as a useful one.

    Where we have done this

    SaaS

    Scaling a SaaS Platform to Series B

    Built the finance basics and the investor story that helped a software company serving one industry raise growth money from large funds.

    3.2x ARR growth in 18 months

    Consumer / D2C

    Building Investor Readiness for a D2C Brand

    Designed unit economics, cohort analytics, and a fundraising data room that anchored the next funding round.

    Closed oversubscribed Series A

    Manufacturing

    Operational Turnaround for a Manufacturing Scale-up

    Implemented financial controls, governance, and an FP&A function that restored margins and prepared the business for global expansion.

    240 bps margin expansion

    FAQ

    Questions founders ask about Internal Financial Controls

    What are internal financial controls?

    They are the documented and tested checks over financial reporting that Indian company law requires a board to establish and an auditor to comment on. In practice they cover authorisation, segregation of duties, reconciliation and review across every process that produces a number.

    Who is responsible for IFC?

    The board, and directors state so in the directors' responsibility statement. The statutory auditor reports separately on the adequacy and operating effectiveness of the controls, which is why the two have to agree on what exists.

    How is IFC different from internal audit?

    IFC is the control framework itself, designed and documented. Internal audit is an independent function that tests whether controls, including those, are working. A company can have IFC documentation and no internal audit, and frequently does.

    How long does an IFC implementation take?

    For a mid-sized company, typically a few months across design, documentation and a first round of testing. The variable is not the framework, it is how much of the underlying process is currently undocumented.

    What our research says about Internal Financial Controls

    The same contract is recognized differently by sales (for commission), finance (for reporting), and the CFO (for forecasting).

    Srikar Kedarisetty, in Revenue Recognition Mistakes That Distort Reality

    Are our processes designed to catch errors at the source, or are we relying on someone reviewing them at the end?

    Srikar Kedarisetty, in Accounting Is Not Controllership

    For any material number on the dashboard, can we trace it back to the source transaction in the accounting system?

    Srikar Kedarisetty, in Integrating Accounting, MIS, and Planning Tools

    The people behind Internal Financial Controls

    Internal Financial Controls is run by the studio team: one multidisciplinary team whose pods work in tandem, matched to the sector and the stage the company is in.

    CA Mallavarjalla Mounika

    Due Diligence pod

    Led by CA Mallavarjalla Mounika

    Lead - Due Diligence & Assurance. Assesses risks and investment readiness.

    See the pod structure
    Studio TeamThe operators, investors and builders who run engagements end to end.Meet them

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