Reimagining the digitized accounting and finance department

In business, financial risk management is an ongoing consideration in normal business conditions. From monitoring several interdependent macroeconomic risks, such as exchange rates, interest rates and inflation, to accounting for more recent additions to the economic dashboard like environment, sustainability, and governance (ESG) goals. Even at the best of times setting a comprehensive risk management strategy is a mammoth task for the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Add a global pandemic into the mix and the uncertainty it brings with it, you can imagine the difficulties accounting and finance teams face when managing and operating critical day-to-day financial management and controls. Taking a long-term view becomes increasingly difficult and become a huge challenge for CFO’s, whichever size or type of operation they are operating in. 

Getting a clear view of the financial position of the company is critical in order to support all business activities. But in such a fast-changing world, how is it possible to get accurate, real-time and actionable information when it is needed?

Over the last 10 years many companies have brought more technology to the accounting and finance department and adopted a digital approach, but that in itself is not the answer.
To truly transform how you operate the way we work needs to be rethought to ensure the technology serves the right purpose. 

The big change over the last two years is that digital adoption has accelerated, and this makes it even more important to make sure the right areas are targeted for change, so that they serve the needs of management and executives by provide the right information in the right form, so they are able to see financial data as an insightful and informative tool for decision making.

Getting your digital transformation right is more challenging. At ABeam Consulting we have identified three important areas for consideration in 2022 and beyond.

Not all management teams have a finance background, but they need to understand their financial performance to be able to make better plans and better decisions. Accounting and finance teams now have access to the digital tools they need to be able to share real-time financial data in a meaningful way to other departments.

Now is the time to move away from traditional tables and graphs and spread sheets and embrace data visualization as a better way of presenting information. This will help business leaders from all departments get a clearer understanding of financial performance, whether its production, marketing, IT or the CEO themselves.

Now complex financial data for ERP, Enhanced Cash Management & Analysis, and others can now be shown in real-time as a dashboard, and this will help improve understanding and decision making.

Enhancing your accounting and finance functions is one of the critical steps when planning your Digital Transformation Roadmap. Importantly, when making the right decisions when re-structuring or re-designing the accounting and finance function with appropriate digital solutions, the best approach is to do a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) to identify pain points, bottle necks, and areas of value proposition to the company.  

This BPR and subsequent digital transformation activity can result in a variety of time-and-cost saving solutions, reduce workload and make current operations more efficient so accounting and finance staff can move to more valuable tasks for the department.

Ensuring your CFO clearly understands the implications of any digital transformation should be paramount, as this will help change their role from being a provider of financial reports into a trusted advisor to the CEO and executive management, with a clear understanding of the company’s strategy and goals.