The Value of Automated Finance Operations

Finance teams are the unsung heroes of almost every business. While others are credited with closing the big deals or successfully delivering a project, finance teams toil away in the background. Their role is to track money coming in through Accounts Receivable and invoicing and stay on top of payments to suppliers through Accounts Payable (AP). They are also responsible for ensuring that employee expenses are paid promptly and fully accounted for. Managing these processes well lays the foundation for optimising the business’s finance and cash
position, adding significant value to the bottom line. However, being in the background can often mean that finance teams must use whatever desktop technology is available – email, spreadsheets, MS Word documents, shared drives, etc.- to complete the job. While flexible, this approach can be inefficient, unscalable, error-prone, and ultimately costly for the
business.
 
Let’s explore these issues more deeply and see how technology can help finance teams support business growth and fully add value to the bottom line.
 

The Challenge: Delivering Streamlined, Accurate and Efficient Automated Finance Operations


Using desktop tools and other business apps to provide an end-to-end finance operation can be an excellent way to start a business. However, beyond the start-up stage, it quickly becomes apparent that something more robust and suited for purpose is needed. Furthermore, it needs to be a system that is aligned with how the business operates, even as its needs change. Desktop tools have multiple shortcomings, primarily because they rely heavily on manual effort throughout the finance management process:


1. Manual Processes are Time-Consuming
Any business process that relies on piecemeal technology and processes places great demands on employees to make them work effectively. While there may be a need to input data manually at the beginning, whether an invoice, purchase order, or expense claim, you want to avoid a situation where people are constantly having to manually check that details are correct, confirming when payments fall due, repeatedly entering or copying/pasting payment details, or constantly emailing managers for approvals, for example. Finance teams are typically run lean; companies are pressured to help staff deliver more value-added activities, solving business problems instead of constantly
attending to the basics.

2. Manual Processes are Inaccurate
A by-product of all this manual effort introduces errors into the finance system despite everyone’s best endeavours. A golden rule for efficient automated finance operations is for the critical data – invoice details, purchase order details, payment details, etc. – to be entered once only, with automation and controls ensuring that it remains unchanged throughout its lifetime. However, if processes utilise desktop tools rather than automation, the moment people start emailing documents around or copying/pasting changes in a spreadsheet, changes and errors are
guaranteed to be introduced. At best, it introduces duplicate effort as people check and re-check documents. At worst, it can lead to a missed payment, breaches of contract, cashflow issues, and significant reputational harm.

3. Manual Processes are Expensive
Experienced and capable finance teams are valuable—and expensive. Their skills, experience, and expertise are best focused on solving business issues and challenges, especially ensuring that payments in and out of the business are timed and sequenced to optimise cash flow and profitability. Time and effort spent checking and resolving errors is not time well spent. Equally, inefficient finance processes impact end users too, whether it is employees getting frustrated over a cumbersome expense claim process, account managers mollifying irritated
customers who have been double-invoiced AGAIN, or senior managers making painful operational decisions because cashflow forecasts have been missed.

4. Manual Processes Don’t Support Business Development
Another issue with desktop tools and the manual processes they utilise is that they hinder business growth and the introduction of productivity enhancements. While these tools have their place at the ‘bootstrap’ phase of a start-up, they become much more
problematic as the business begins to scale. First, business growth is constrained by a finance team’s limited capacity to process orders, invoices, purchase orders, and expenses quickly, accurately, and efficiently. Second, enhancements to business processes are constrained by the employees’ ability to use the tools effectively and reliably. So, instead of implementing business processes that work most efficiently, companies are constrained to use methods limited by the expertise and the tools they have at hand. Lastly, ad hoc tools and processes struggle to integrate all the data and insights that finance managers and Executives need to make decisions about investments, sales, and tax reporting.
 
 

The Solution: Streamlined Automated Finance Workflow Tailored to Your Needs

Automated finance operations platforms are ideal for helping companies deliver finance operations that meet the business’s current and future needs. What capabilities can these provide?
 

1. A SaaS-based Environment
Modern finance operations platforms are typically provided as ‘Software-as-a-service,’ which removes the problem of commissioning, implementing, and managing a complex IT environment. In essence, all you need is a browser on every device, and you are ready to go wherever your customers, suppliers, and employees are based. These platforms typically provide database, integration, workflow, and admin capabilities that require little to no IT expertise or coding skills.

 
2. End-to-end Automation
Automation drives productivity, efficiency savings, and accuracy. The ideal environment will allow you to capture your key finance data, covering AR, invoices, AP, and expenses. It should also capture your workflow processes, covering approvals, management reporting, as well as systems integration into other applications and processes that your business uses daily.

3. Tailor-made to Fit Your Business Needs
SaaS-based platforms are designed to be flexible and effectively meet the business’s needs. Typically, there are ready-made templates to support AP, AR, and expense management business processes, which can be an ideal place to start your journey toward a fully automated environment. The most significant value comes from working with implementation partners who understand the value of technology and who can help you define and implement the optimal business processes that will help you bring together your customers, suppliers, and employees into a single unified finance operations platform that supports the business’s needs in terms of growth, development,
and efficiency.
 

How Can Telic Digital Help You?


Telic Digital exists to help organisations deliver significant value by simplifying the digital transformation and automation of their processes. With over 20 years of experience in process management and intelligent automation technologies, Telic Digital can help ensure your
transformation project is successful. Clients trust us to build solutions that work. Your Telic Digital team will overcome obstacles, find solutions, and deliver exceptional results. Building trust builds a better company. By understanding your business goals, we can ensure our solutions quickly deliver maximum value. At Telic Digital, our growth is based on mutual success. When our customers and our employees grow, we grow.
 

Learn more here

 

About the Author

Share this post