Driving success with the next generation of finance software

Today’s finance directors face a multitude of challenges, from strategic planning to navigating political and economic upheaval. FDs need to take advantage of technological developments and harness new systems to support them in their ever-changing, complex role.

 

In 2017, finance directors face a multitude of challenges within their role as finance leader. New regulatory and compliance controls require careful planning and organisation, ensuring systems are in place to capture and submit relevant data. Strategic planning has become a core focus, with FDs partnering other business departments and communicating effectively with the board and stakeholders to drive company growth and success. In addition, political and economic instability has thrown up a range of obstacles, meaning that finance directors must respond with agility and creativity to achieve company goals and targets.

So, how can finance directors find the right support to help them fulfil their responsibilities?

While digital transformation presents its own challenges, finance directors can take advantage of technological developments and harness new systems to support them in their day-to-day responsibilities and activities, contributing to the success of their organisation.

Improved reporting and analytics

With intelligence a necessity for making informed budgeting, planning and forecasting decisions, keeping on top of software developments and implementing the latest updates is key to ensuring that organisations thrive in changing environments. Being able to quickly access accurate and insightful data leads to companies being able to identify new opportunities, or challenges, and respond accordingly. Failure to have such software support slows down a company’s ability to react and prosper, affecting short and long-term growth.

Updated technology also removes the risk of inaccurate reporting by taking manual entering of data out of the equation. Inputting data by hand can easily lead to simple errors, which can have a significant impact on a business. Consequences include financial losses and reputational damage – neither a welcome occurrence for finance directors.

Implementing company strategy

Within a business, data needs to travel, whether that’s to other business departments or from a company to its suppliers. Interoperability is therefore essential to an efficient finance function, and choosing software that allows business systems to transfer and share this data is critical.

In addition, it is important for finance directors to ensure that IT suppliers are in tune with the company’s digital ambitions. Businesses should ensure that their suppliers are continually improving their processes and technology, allowing them to move forward together innovatively and quickly.

In recent years, the role of finance has evolved, with the finance function becoming strategic players within a business. Next generation finance technology enables the finance software department to be a strategic partner to other business departments by promoting easy sharing of data across the organisation. And this can all be done without additional time pressures on the finance team. By implementing systems that allow for devolved access, non-finance staff can access the information they need, whenever they need it.

The result is an effective partnership between the finance team and non-finance departments. Removing the need for finance staff to provide continuous reporting updates, the team can focus on company strategy and analytics – again, supporting overall business growth.

Delivering success

Moving from traditional accounting software to cloud accounting has many benefits for businesses, including time and costs savings, multiple user access, and real-time updates. Once this step has been taken, further developments in technology and software allow businesses to drive forward their company growth strategies by providing key data reports and time savings to finance teams.

Innovation enables companies to stay ahead of the competition and overcome business obstacles, all the while ensuring regulatory compliance and accurate reporting without the need for increasing spend. For finance management software directors in particular, embracing digital transformation and adapting to new technology is key to success in 2017.