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Process Note Library Month End

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page   
 Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022Month End Notes Contents Page
1.  Balance Sheet Maintenance 2.  Balance Sheet Peer Review 3.  Concur AP & Expense Accruals 4.  Group Monthly Toolkit Review Comments (TB) 5.  Intercompany Reconciliation 6.  MA Month End Tracker 7.  Toolkit Review Meeting 

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 Balance Sheet Maintenance Version Number 1.0 Section Month End Date of implementation 21/11/2022 Date of Last Review 21/11/2022 Process Scope Balance Sheet Roll forward – how to prepare the balance sheet ready for month end Balance Sheet Maintenance – review balance sheet and post required journals for month end toolkit process Process Steps 1. Roll Forward This should be completed prior to month end (However, it is not recommended to roll forward your Balance sheet straight after completing the month end ready for the next month, as there are often later journals such as FX or CSI adjustments that would then need to be updated in 2 balance sheets) Copy your prior month’s balance sheet and rename for the current month. We do need to keep a reconciliation for every month end for audit trail purposes. 2. Standard Journals Some companies have a Standard journal tab on the balance sheet, others keep a separate sheet. Work through your standard journals sheet and see if the same items and figures apply for the upcoming month end by e.g. for Prepayments, checking if there have been any new prepayments entered into GP and adding them to your balance sheet tab, including entering the monthly future drawdown, then adding and changing the lines of the standard journals sheet to match what you need to release for the month 3. Handover Once handover is received, paste relevant data from the handover to your balance sheet tabs (see details X:\Misc\Process Notes\1. NEW\MA\Month End\Handover review.docx)

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 4. Trial Balance (TB) At a point in your month end where you have entered most of your journals, download a TB from GP and insert those figures into the “GP Input” tab of the balance sheet, this is a check that all figures you have input into the rec agree back to GP. Save the TB to the F: Drive as .CSV format (select “replace” not append) and copy and paste the sheet or figures to local drive, the download and saving will be faster, though you will have to log in to the F: Drive to retrieve your download. 5. “Variance” Tab Check “Variance” tab to see which balance sheet tab/s need updating. You can click on the nominal account number hyperlink on the right to go directly to that tab 6. Re-download Trial Balance After all monthly postings are complete, re-download TB and check there are no variances 7. Final Balance Sheet Once all postings and variances are cleared, mark Balance Sheet review as complete on the Month End tracker for the month (X:\Management Accounts\2021\1 - Data Measures\Month End Tracker)

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 8. Peer Review On the month end tracker, check if there is a peer review to take place on your company (see process “Balance Sheet Peer Review”). If there is, let the appropriate MA know that the balance sheet is ready to be reviewed (a Teams message is fine). Once they confirm it has been reviewed, read and action their review points as appropriate Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 Balance Sheet Peer Reviews Version Number 1.0 Section Month End Date of implementation 21/11/2022 Date of Last Review 21/11/2022 Process Scope On a monthly schedule, MAs each peer review one of their colleagues’ balance sheets to develop further understanding of other BUs, provide a secondary check for any potential errors and gain learnings across the MA team Process Steps Check the Month End Tracker for the company that you will be reviewing balance sheets for, example location where spreadsheet is saved down below: Review schedule on tab “Balance Sheet Review Tracker”. Months across table columns, company & responsible MA along rows, look for your initials under the relevant month to find the company you are reviewing. Confirm with responsible MA that balance sheets are reconciled & ready to review (by Teams or email). On confirmation, look in the BU folder to find balance sheet file, save a copy to review. Example location & name for copy below:

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 Download a trial balance from GP and insert a copy into a new tab of the review file called “BS Review”. Add title for next column “Comments” where you can annotate with queries/issues. Balance sheet codes are those where first 4 digits are numerically less than 5000. Each balance should have its own tab or be included within a group of similar balances in a tab (e.g. VAT contains 1400-10, 1400-20 & 2710-00). For each code, compare the up to date balance from TB on “BS Review” with that of the relevant tab. Look for the following, highlighting balance in “BS Review” green where ok and yellow with further detail in “Comments” column where issue/query identified: • Is there a “Handover” tab? Has the correct month’s handover been saved? Do the balances match with those on TB & relevant tabs? • Does the TB balance match that on the tab? Look out for codes where late changes can occur e.g. accruals & prepayments for toolkit call adjustments, FX revals on interco tabs • Is there evidence for the balance e.g. bank statement snip or SQL breakdown? • Is the balance clearly described and broken down in a logical way where required? • Each tab should have a line showing the difference between the breakdown of the balance and that per TB in “GP Input”. Is the difference nil? • Is the balance made up of items which have seen no movement in recent months or don’t seem to clear down cleanly? • Is the balance a debit or credit as expected? E.g AR is a debit, accruals code is a credit • General housekeeping – are all formulae needed present and correct, referencing the right cells? Once review is completed, let responsible MA know. They will review comments and come back with any responses or explanation as required. Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting To download a trial balance from GP:

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 Save the TB to the F: Drive as .CSV format (select “replace” not append) and copy and paste the sheet or figures to local drive, the download and saving will be faster, though you will have to log in to the F: Drive to retrieve your download. It can be useful while reviewing balance sheets to open a new window for the “BS Review” tab so there’s no need to jump between the tab you’re making notes on & the one you’re reviewing. This process is also useful for MA doing the reviewing as it is a good method to gain learnings from other BUs & ways of working. Look out for what’s being done well too, to develop team-wide best practice.

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 Concur Accruals – AP & Expenses Version Number 1.0 Section Month End Date of implementation 21/11/2022 Date of Last Review 21/11/2022 Process Scope Concur is the system used to manage invoices & employee expenses. At month end Concur sends out automated reports detailing the invoices & expenses sat within the system which have not yet been posted to GP. MAs use these reports in order to accrue into the month. Process Steps 1. Automated reports are sent from Concur on the first of the month

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 2. Save down these reports to the month’s Concur folder on the X Drive, example below: 3. Combine 2 invoice accrual reports into one workbook with all Concur invoices, coding & BU where available a. Save down a copy of accrual report 1 as “Vesta Invoices Accrual Combined MMM” b. Name 3 additional columns at the end of the report (N – P) c. In column N do xlookup of supplier invoice number (col E) in Combined workbook against same column in Accrual Report 2 Example formula: IF(ISERROR(XLOOKUP(E4,'[Vesta Invoices Accrual Number 2.xlsx]Page1_1'!$E:$E,'[Vesta Invoices Accrual Number 2.xlsx]Page1_1'!$N:$N)),"Not yet processed",XLOOKUP(E4,'[Vesta Invoices Accrual Number 2.xlsx]Page1_1'!$E:$E,'[Vesta Invoices Accrual Number 2.xlsx]Page1_1'!$N:$N)) d. In column O extract BU name from within brackets in column D unless already given in column K Example formula: IF(ISERROR(IF(ISBLANK(K4),MID(D4,SEARCH("#",SUBSTITUTE(D4,"(","#",LEN(D4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(D4,"(",""))))+1,LEN(D4)-SEARCH("@",SUBSTITUTE(D4,"(","@",LEN(D4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(D4,"(",""))))-1))),"N/A",IF(ISBLANK(K4),IF(RIGHT(D4,1)<>")","N/A",MID(D4,SEARCH("#",SUBSTITUTE(D4,"(","#",LEN(D4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(D4,"(",""))))+1,LEN(D4)-SEARCH("@",SUBSTITUTE(D4,"(","@",LEN(D4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(D4,"(",""))))-1)),K4)) e. In column P extract BU name from within brackets in column C as final check, consolidate BU name from other columns. Should either result in BU name or “TEMPORARY VENDOR” Example formula: IF(O4<>"N/A",O4,MID(C4,FIND("@",SUBSTITUTE(C4,"-","@",LEN(C4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C4,"-",""))-1))+1,FIND(")-",C4)-FIND("@",SUBSTITUTE(C4,"-","@",LEN(C4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C4,"-",""))-1))-1)) 4. Filter last column to relevant BU/s, copy over into relevant tab of balance sheet (2050-10-0-000) or separate workbook as appropriate 5. Check/add full coding based on prior invoices, adjust or remove invoices from accrual as necessary (e.g. adjust figure for 12 month invoice or remove if identified as duplicate) 6. Pivot data by coding & supplier name to generate accrual amounts

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 Group Monthly Toolkit Review comments Version Number 1.0 Section Month End Date of implementation 21/11/2022 Date of Last Review 21/11/2022 Process Scope Monthly after toolkit you will need to complete information for any large variances to forecast on Revenue, COGS and Op Exp. Process Steps 1. You will be notified that the Toolkit Review file is ready for review, this is uploaded to the below location in the current month folder 2. Open the file and go to the tab ‘Review’ then find your company, where there are questions in the ‘TB Comments’ column for variances to be explained then add your answer/explanation in the ‘MA Comments’ column’.

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 3. The explanation/information required should have been covered in your toolkit calls with the business, but if more detail is needed then go back to the business with the request 4. Update the tracker once completed Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 Intercompany Reconciliation Version Number 1.0 Section Month End Date of implementation 21/11/2022 Date of Last Review 21/11/2022 Process Description Ensuring the group balances net off in both Balance Sheet and P&L at the month end Process Steps 1. Receive email from Jonas HO (Danielle Wong/Annie Wu) These start to arrive daily at the end of the month (around day -2) and you will keep receiving them until all balances in the group net off or have been satisfactorily explained. You will need to keep checking the reports to make sure nothing new has been posted, that is causing a variance, on a company you are responsible for 2. Interco BS Open the report and go to the “comparison” tab Variances are shown by region so look down the Region column to see if there are any UK variances, see the Entity column to see which 2 companies the variance is between. If you are responsible for one of those companies, double click the variance value in the “Sum of origination currency” column so get the data for the journals in a separate tab

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 The company ID tells you which GP entity the posting comes from, there is also a lot of other information such as journal reference, nominal account, series (sales/purchases/financials), and document numbers and references on this tab to help you find the reason for the variance. “User who posted” column is also present if you need to go back to the original poster. You may wish to start by ticking off the items that do match: Then whatever is left, look at the nature of the posting ie. is your company missing an invoice from the other company that you need to accrue for. If you need to contact the MA from the opposite site, there is a list of MA s responsible for intercompany balances here:

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 3. Interco PL The process is the same as the BS report, see the Comparison tab for al the variances and investigate each variance 4. FX and comments to sender Sometimes the discrepancy is caused by FX or something else that does not require a posting correction/accrual. Make sure to fully investigate the discrepancy and make comments back to the report email sender explaining how the variance occurred. Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting Open both sheets at once – there maybe differences on both sheets that apply to the same variance e.g. if Company A has sent Company B an invoice for Hardware, but Company B hasn’t processed it yet, there will be a variance on AR/AP for the invoice and PL for the Revenue/COG On pre-month end reports, just check postings done by MAs, since the transactional team are still posting there is often a delay in invoices processing and cash postings which will resolve as things get posted, check these once the handover is complete to see discrepancies that have not been resolved once all the postings for the month are finalised Always check the Summary sheet tab if you think the posting has been made in GP, the formula could not be picking all lines or be labelled incorrectly in the ‘Journal Entry Type’ column, so not pulling into the figures

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 MA Month End Tracker Updates Version Number 1.0 Section Month End Date of implementation 21/11/2022 Date of Last Review 21/11/2022 Process Scope How to complete the month end tracker file, which tracks the completion of month end toolkit tasks for each BU Process Steps 1. Month end tracker save location as below, one per month: 2. 3 tabs to complete: a. Month End Tracker – month end tasks listed, to be completed with date of completion for each BU b. Sign off sheet – balance sheet accounts listed, to be completed at completion of month end toolkit processes, highlighting any areas of concern c. Review tracker – balance sheet peer review tracker and schedule

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 3. Vesta Month End Tracker This details the general month end tasks which need to be completed in preparation for and during the process. Dates are formula-driven by the target working day completion. Key shows the conditional formatting which will colour each cell as date of completion is filled in. Any tasks completed late should highlight orange, there is a comments column AJ where explanations/issues should be noted. 4. Month End sign off sheet This is to be completed once the month end toolkit deadline has passed, in order to record the review status of balance sheet accounts in each BU and highlight any issues. Each account to be reviewed and cell completed with a number corresponding to the key provided in the top left of the tab. Any specific comments can be added as a note to the cell for reference.

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 5. Balance Sheet Review Tracker Once toolkit is finalised and all journals have been posted, each MA will update balance sheets for every BU. They are peer reviewed on a schedule set as per the tracker tab. Once the review is done, initials are added to the tracker to mark completion. Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 Toolkit Review Meeting Process Version Number 1.0 Section Month End Date of implementation 21/11/2022 Date of Last Review 21/11/2022 Process Scope MAs will hold a toolkit review meeting with BU leaders following toolkit preparation in order to review results and make any adjustments as required. Following the meeting, once all agreed adjustments have been made, MAs will send updated toolkit notes for BU leaders to approve final figures. Process Steps Arrange a toolkit review for a suitable time on workday 5 of the month end with BU leader, group leader, central transactional team member & others within the business as needed. Send out completed toolkit notes file on workday 4 to give BU leader time to prepare for review. During call, discuss each tab of file as relevant, see below: • Toolkit figures, reasons for variances and key ratios o Run through identified variances and confirm with BU any assumptions are correct, or ask BU to answer any remaining queries o Assess and assign any actions required e.g. further investigation, journal amendments • Run Rates and Graph o BU will have received copy of run rates ahead of time for review, run through any queries still outstanding • Working Capital Analysis and Graph o BU or MA to raise any queries as identified • BPC download and breakdown of all revenue buckets o BU or MA to raise any queries as identified o Use relevant tab to investigate any variances highlighted in toolkit figures • BPC download and breakdown of all COGs o BU or MA to raise any queries as identified o Use relevant tab to investigate any variances highlighted in toolkit figures • Opex Breakdown via GP smartlist o Use pivot by coding to investigate any departmental variances highlighted in toolkit figures

Vesta Software Group – Finance Process Note Contents Page Last Amendment Date: 21/11/2022 • Contracted not yet recognised figures and tracker o Any significant deviations to be identified and investigated • Concur accruals report breakdown o BU to advise of any accrual adjustments required e.g. deliveries not yet received, annual invoices Additional points to discuss: • Any forecast changes required to remaining months of the quarter • Any new/changes to leases, assess for IFRS 16/forecast/other impact Any agreed adjustments to current month or in-quarter forecasts are completed by MA in GP or BPC respectively, either during the call or afterwards, and toolkit notes updated accordingly to reflect results – see process note on creation of toolkit notes. MA to send updated toolkit notes file to BU leader for their approval, saving down approval email in month folder of X drive for audit purposes. Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting