Conference Info
- IndustryHuman Resources
- Unique IDUSC2026363
- Duration100 Minutes
- DateJul 3,2026 - Sep 30,2026
Description
Overview
Most accountants understand what a balance sheet is, but fewer can say with confidence that every line is accurate, supported, and audit-ready at any given moment. In this webinar, Shana Cooper, CPA and founder of The AccountAbility Team, LLC, uses a comprehensive case study to guide participants through diagnosing balance sheet weaknesses and building the ownership, controls, and procedures needed to improve financial reliability.
Through a realistic mid-size organization scenario, participants will learn how to assess balance sheet health using 13 key characteristics, prioritize remediation with a risk-based methodology, and develop an action plan that creates meaningful activities, assigns clear ownership, and establishes proper documentation. This session emphasizes foundational accounting practices that support a trustworthy, audit-ready balance sheet regardless of the technology in use.
Key Topics Covered:
- Diagnosing balance sheet weaknesses through a structured, characteristic-based assessment
- Prioritizing remediation using a risk-based methodology
- Assigning process area ownership and establishing SME roles
- Building tasks, standards, and workflows aligned to risk levels
Your Benefits For Attending:
- Identify common balance sheet weaknesses and prioritize remediation efforts using a risk-based methodology.
- Construct an action plan that assigns process area ownership, outlines standards, and designs effective workflows.
- Evaluate balance sheet governance techniques through a before-and-after case study comparison.
- Understand how SME roles, task standards, metrics, and continuous improvement loops help sustain balance sheet integrity.
Attending this webinar will help you strengthen confidence in your balance sheet review process and apply practical steps to improve accuracy, accountability, and audit readiness. You will leave with a clearer approach to building reliable financial reporting practices that support long-term balance sheet integrity.
Shana Cooper
Shana is a proven accounting visionary and strategist, focused on leading accounting teams to confidence by protecting their reputation and being ready for anything. She has always been a champion of close optimization, especially through account reconciliations. Couple this with her passion for excellence and you get her signature Reconciliation Strong programs. This program is a culmination of her 30+ years of experience with account reconciliations and is key to Shana’s mission of helping every accountant learn how to do reconciliations the right way.
Shana spent the first 18 years of her accounting career in various audit and controllership roles across multiple industries. Her passion for accounting process improvement and automation led her to BlackLine where, over her 10-year tenure, she created, developed, and led five different teams, including Customer Success and Customer Experience. She was fortunate enough to be part of BlackLine’s successful rise from less than 100 customers to over 2000, and from a private to a public company. Shana went on to help build RSM’s BlackLine practice with an emphasis on account reconciliation optimization.
Shana has had the unique opportunity to influence thousands of accountants and impact the reconciliation of hundreds of thousands of accounts over her career. She has prepared, approved, and audited reconciliations, trained accountants, and optimized reconciliation processes. This expertise, along with her focus on customer experience, makes her ideal to champion reconciliation excellence across accounting teams. Shana believes strong reconciliations lead to overall accounting excellence which lends itself to her newest program, CloseStrong.
Shana lives in East Tennessee with her husband and kids. When Shana isn’t dreaming about the perfect reconciliation, she enjoys reading, taking walks, finding quality vintage and watching baseball.