Accounting & Finance For Multi-Location Companies

Some pointers:
1. Domestically, how complex and large are your state based reporting needs? In some states maybe you outsource to a CPA firm.
2. Internationally, make sure you know local regulations around nominating a "responsible person" to handle local compliance reporting (could be a local CPA firm); also do you need a good person on the ground to manage the financial decision making with local management?
3. System wise: can you deploy your system in multiple countries and still keep your data intact? Does it support 1. multiple entities, 2. FX translation, 3. Inter- company transactions.

Central staff need to learn how to engage with remote colleagues and become good at it, to cope with different time zones, cultures, GAAP rules locally. They may need to travel there on occasion to succeed in this.

I have worked for a multinational corporation in the corporate office, and boy can it be nuts. We were highly decentralized, meaning that consolidating everything could be. The consolidations manager is now in a different country integrating an acquisition. Figuring out inventory for tax purposes was nuts. But it made the job interesting, that's for sure.