One of the questions that we get the most is “who should own Fastpath”? This is a great question. While it would be inappropriate for us to tell you that answer, we can provide you with some insight and considerations.

We see different roles owning Fastpath depending on the size and nature of the organization.  In many of our customers, Finance owns Fastpath – especially where the line between Finance and Audit/Compliance is blurred, or where systems are more cloud-based (requiring a smaller IT footprint). Larger customers with an established audit function might move this ownership from Finance to Audit. Our largest customers tend to have a blend, with both Finance and IT owning Fastpath, and Audit as a key constituency.

Who should own Fastpath in your organization depends on many factors, but we’d recommend that you consider the following:

• Budget: the most pragmatic approach to ownership is based on who pays for Fastpath – given that this person has to forgo other spending, then they are the best person to own the tool, and determine who should administer and how it should be used.
• Use: while budget may sit in Finance or IT, it might be that Internal Audit is using Fastpath the most – in this case, Internal Audit should own the daily operations of the platform.
• Expertise: Internal Audit is a good option for owning Fastpath given expertise in Audit, but where systems are very complex (e.g. Oracle, SAP) then it makes sense to consider system administrators or IT as they may have the best idea of how to use our tools in the best way.
• Risk Ownership: Fastpath is a platform for reducing risk – whoever owns that risk is probably the most likely candidate for ownership. For an ERP, that risk is owned by IT or Finance, depending on company hierarchy.

There is no “right” answer for who owns Fastpath. Our platform was developed by auditors for auditors, with the intention of being accessible and easy-to-use for finance, but also technical enough for system administrators. If you use Fastpath for cross-platform functionality, you may end up with a single budget owner and many process owners. No matter who owns Fastpath, make sure leadership understands its use and purpose to get the most out of the platform.