4 minutes
Automation in our financial statements aims to steer our institution in the right direction, not only from a budgetary perspective but also strategically.
This is no easy task in times like these, when geographical and political events, exchange-rate instability, and price volatility constantly test institutions. Under these circumstances, it is clear why chief financial officers are compelled to provide more accurate information more quickly.
All of this explains why institutions increasingly turn to automation to make financial processes faster and more efficient. Automated processes allow chief financial officers and their teams to produce reports more frequently and accurately, perform financial closes more efficiently, and dig deeper into company data to provide useful strategic insights instantly to other business leaders.
Thanks to automated processes, chief financial officers and their teams produce more frequent, accurate reports and perform financial closes more accurately.
Finance professionals understand this need. More than half (54%) of finance leaders favor changing current financial systems to meet the need for greater productivity and agility. Another revealing figure: 43% support implementing these changes to meet a growing need to embrace innovation and new ideas.
There are many reasons why automation has become one of institutions' best allies, most notably:
- Bringing order to chaos.
- Increasing speed without sacrificing quality.
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Working more securely in the cloud.
Bringing order to chaos
Many institutions admit they still prepare reports using manual data entry and spreadsheets, resulting in very lengthy processes that can be delayed at many points along the chain. Some organizations admit that, before automating their reporting processes, they needed up to 20 days to complete the financial close.
Instead of a disorganized regime of emails and unclear, frustrating audit trails, automated cloud processes allow any entry or change made in one report to propagate automatically to all other affected documents. This means everyone works with the same up-to-date information.
As a result, the process is faster and the audit trail clearer, which in turn allows institutions to create and share up-to-date reports whenever stakeholders need them, not just quarterly.
Chief financial officers need to make decisions quickly and be sure they are based on sound data. It is essential to be certain that data is accurate and in the right hands at the right time. Essentially, manual processes are no longer useful.
A more unified, precise reporting process also enables greater accuracy.
Increasing speed without sacrificing quality
A more unified, precise reporting process also enables greater accuracy. Manual processes usually involve several participants working with multiple versions of multiple spreadsheets, creating many opportunities for errors.
When everyone works with a single, up-to-date information source, the possibility of errors is greatly reduced, allowing institutions to complete financial closes faster and with greater confidence. Institutions reduce their financial closing process by 90% by automating their processes.
Working more securely in the cloud
Automated cloud processes also improve data security because confidential information is not exposed during a reporting workflow. All data is stored and updated centrally, and finance leaders can control access so each contributor can manipulate only the relevant entries.
It is understandable for organizations to be wary of entrusting financial information to an external provider, but institutions that avoid the cloud for this reason are guided by a false sense of security. An organization's Information Technology team or technology infrastructure may be very good, but is unlikely to outperform that of a cloud specialist company, whose experts constantly work to optimize the security and availability of its applications.
Do not forget skills
It is encouraging that finance professionals view automation more as an opportunity than a threat. But although automated processes help chief financial officers and their teams work smarter and meet stakeholders' expectations, technology alone is merely an enabler.
The increasingly close cooperation between people and machines does not mean robots will take charge. Rather, it is about integrating a growing treasure trove of valuable data into daily business operations to optimize how business is conducted. Strategic decisions are still made by humans, and understanding, interpreting, and acting on financial data requires an enthusiastic mind with broad industry knowledge.
This is another way the finance professional's role is changing. They need a much broader knowledge base to ensure new technologies are used in the most appropriate way, so people are more productive and the board gains added value.
The best chief financial officers move in the same direction as their organization's objectives and know how to use the processes they manage toward that end.
Financial work has already undergone a transition from accounting ledgers and manual calculations to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, so the time has come for another major leap. Today, many ways we communicate and interact at work are automated, and we are already accustomed to finding information instantly at the click of a button. It is therefore natural for this evolution to reach the finance department sooner or later.