Daniel Elsdijk

Senior Accountant, International

Location: Chicago, IL
Nominator: Anna Tenenbaum

Lessons Learned #22: Those who say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it

Daniel has been instrumental with improving our entire international consolidation process and generally overseeing our international accounting departments. Since Daniel joined the Oil Dri accounting team in Feb 2023 he has continuously improved the international close process. He has successfully shortened the close from 6 day to 4 days! International accounting use to be the hold up for consolidated close every month and it no longer is the last thing. He was able to achieve this through continuously working on our relationship with each of the foreign subsidiaries, building standardized templates which make international accounting easier to do and review, as well as more accurate resulting in a lot less rework. He also was proactive in performing intercompany reconciliation activities earlier in the process and by being more connected with activities at the foreign locations was able to resolve reconciliation issues much quicker. 

In addition to accelerating the close he successfully implemented blackline (balance sheet reconciliation tool) at 4 of the key foreign locations. 

He also has been an active leader in Agromex remediation actions. 

He also help onboard a new accounting firm at ODSA resulting in more efficient and accurate accounting at that location.