Super charge your finance team through automation and efficiency

We recently held a round table breakfast event with several financial services CFOs and business change leaders, along with external transformation consultants, 10th Bridge, and Trintech – owners of The Adra Suite, a best-in-class SaaS-based financial close solution.                               

The role of the CFO is a constantly evolving and becoming more challenging as the CFO focuses activity towards adding strategic value and playing a key leadership role across the organisation driving business outcomes. Change and transformation in Finance and the digital organisation as well as other considerations such as ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) are high on the CFO agenda. The group discussed their key challenges and possible solutions around data, change and processes. Here are some insights from our discussion.

Data quality

Data has come front and centre, with a growing demand to produce data driven insights. Several participants discussed the impact poor data quality has on their output, in particular, their close process. From discussions around the table, processes seem to work best when finance, operations, risk, front office, etc. are all included in the development and journey, so processes do not diverge. 

Moreover, the consensus around the room was that reports issued by finance teams were only as good as the data provided. In several cases, poor data caused unnecessary inefficiencies, as there are often multiple versions of the truth, and the group concluded that there is a limited point in automating processes if the data isn’t right.

One solution, offered by a participant, was to utilise a single source of the truth, which will allow the finance organisation to communicate accurate insights to cross-function partners across the business, as this will allow finance directors to leverage dashboarding technologies to share information. Building upon this idea, another contributor added that "to build a sustainable source of truth, it is important to involve other function leaders in its development, so they can report to finance in a way that is suitable for a single source system". As such, by providing accurate insights, finance teams can consolidate data into one source of truth to avoid inconsistencies and eliminate reconciliation issues.  

Processes 

This discussion stemmed from the fact that many financial services organisations don’t have efficient close processes. Good processes and discipline are vital for a successful close and 10th Bridge talked about opportunities to shorten the close cycle. The group agreed that CFOs should be addressing issues between close dates to prevent their recurrence. Participants settled that employees must undergo effective training so they can utilise the full functionality of the technology in place to assist in the close process. Trintech mentioned that the Adra suite can give CFOs visibility of the close process helping them to control progress and delivery of a timely close.

Another participant explained that “CFOs should enforce discipline in the close timetable and last-minute adjustments should only be made if material and with appropriate senior approval”. Finance departments need to be disciplined with an early close date. Attendees agreed that a carrot and stick method would enforce the right behaviour. 

Interestingly, many participants said their goal with any automation process “is to do more with less”. And this is supported by wider research on the value of automation, as 88% of companies who apply automation can complete the monthly close process within six days, compared to only 40% of those who don’t.

Change in the finance function 

It's very easy to become overwhelmed with the long list of changes that need to be done. Finance leaders need to focus on one item and ensure it is completed successfully to demonstrate the benefits of the change. It is also key that Finance leaders demonstrate full support and engagement of the change agenda as senior sponsorship will significantly increase the chances of success. The CFOs in the room agreed, it was once the benefits have been demonstrated, it is significantly easier to request budgets for future change programmes, as you have gained the trust of the budget holder. 

In general, participants agreed that before exploring new systems to implement, the business must ensure they are utilising all the functionality of their current system, as often businesses don’t use what they already have in place. Once businesses have utilised the full functionality of their current system, they can begin to make more accurate comparisons between what they have now, and the new technologies that exist.