http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/achieving-financial-reporting-harmony-post-m-a.html

M&A continues picking up speed in healthcare, generally producing expected results — planned benefits plus feared fragmentation. Among the many functions that may become at least temporarily stressed is finance.

M&A, for all its advantages, is a disruptor. The amount of disruption is based on such factors as existing infrastructures, maturity of business processes, level of change and enterprise readiness to accept the change. Everything about the conjoining organizations — people, schedules, cultures and systems — is pulled together with an expectation that on the backside the newly formed enterprise will work.

For the finance team, this means dealing with data that lacks common structure, terminology, business process and technology. Finance has the unenviable task of capturing data in its varied quality and formats in a myriad of locations within the formerly separate organizations. Order must be created so that the financial data is fit for consolidation, close and reporting for the new enterprise.