How CFOs Achieve Efficient Process Execution and Continue to Act Strategically

Once you’ve determined the best structured approach, it’s time to turn your to focus to creating efficient finance procedures. CFOs need to utilize a simple, fully integrated and real-time finance system that is able to handle a range of complex financial data, from business budgeting to internal controls accounting. This means developing a streamlined process to access specific aspects of the company's finances, along with the related data, all from a central location. The standard procedures you created in the previous stage can now serve as the groundwork for creating an efficient, optimized system. Optimizing your financial data system not only saves time - it also reduces risk, cost and lost opportunity.

Focus

The main goal at this stage is to eliminate redundancy and reduce expenses. Having to validate and reconcile the data you collect creates inefficiencies that can have a substantial impact on the bottom line. This also affects your workforce’s production, as your employees frivolously spend time on redundant tasks. The effects may not be readily apparent, but it’s important to focus on reducing them wherever possible to ensure an efficient, workable system. The two most important aspects of this stage are reducing costs and an efficient execution of data-related processes.

Roadblocks

The largest thing that stands between a CFO and optimal efficiency is the existence of multiple, heterogeneous systems of data organization coexisting within the company. Using multiple methods of recording and organizing information makes it difficult to discern a single version of the truth, as each department has their own practices and perspectives. Incompatible data creation software and structures can hinder viewing information across different areas of the company. These inefficient multiplex systems also generate an increase in IT costs because each system must have dedicated staff who are familiar with the setup.

Moving to the Next Stage

Completing this stage requires you to implement the right tools to unify disparate pieces of financial information into a single, streamlined data system. A big part of this is having a system that can reconcile and combine data from across the organization. This is done in four steps.

1. Optimizing your operations starts with creating a centralized location to record, store, analyze and report financial data. This enables you to make better sense of your company’s business intelligence, and provides a single, comprehensive version of the facts.
2. Making sure that the recording of each piece of data is accurate is the second step to an efficient finance data system. Having a centralized location can help ensure that the data entered into the system is uniform and adheres to the proper specifications. This reduces the need for double-checking and reconciling information, and can free up time for more high-value activities, such as analysis and planning.
3. Businesses also need the ability to record expenses and other financial information immediately, instead of day or weeks later. This practice saves time and increases the accuracy of financial information.
4. Beyond workflow efficiency, the last step toward an optimized data system is implementing flexible enterprise resources planning strategies that require minimal investment of company resources. Having a central hub that offers shared services for all financial data can also reduce associated costs. In fact, a recent survey by intelligence and advisory firm IDC found that organizations which utilized Unit4’s data system reduced their finance-related costs by 55% over other enterprise resource planning systems.

Warmest Regards

Ali Salim