Leveraging blockchain in the accounts payable workflow, for instance, addresses the root cause of high invoice processing costs while reducing invoice exceptions and payment delays. AI-enabled technologies allow companies to manage their data challenges while augmenting and enhancing human expertise. These technologies drive new problem-solving techniques which improve productivity and open up new ideas. You want a manager who gets their reward from their own people doing well – not the CEO type, who is more of a “me, me, me” person.

• Rather than a massive initiative that proceeds slowly through a linear path, finance transformation may be best accomplished by executing change processes in agile sprints.
• Finance transformation is taking place in companies of all sizes, and there are best practices to maximise its benefits.
• So, we might want to furnish relevant stakeholders with a tool that lets them check out spending across departments within defined timeframes.
• Ultimately, finance transformation is crucial for enterprises to stay resilient, drive sustainable growth, improve profitability, and create long-term value for stakeholders.
• For companies wanting to optimize their service delivery models, we offer deep expertise in organizational design and in business process outsourcing options including HR outsourcing, IT outsourcing and more.

Learn about robotic process automation , a form of business process automation technology that uses software robots to automate tasks performed by humans. Driven by market demand and fueled by technology, digital transformation means adopting digital-first customer, business partner and employee experiences. By automating and standardizing finance processes and systems, organizations can avoid errors and increase efficiency. Learn directly from Oracle finance executives who will share their proven best practices along with lessons learned. You’ll also get a first-hand account of the company’s own successful digital transformation. This training offers a combination of theory, strategy, and practical advice to help jump-start — and accelerate — transformation to a digital model for you and your finance team.

Technology’s place in managing your finance team

You may also want to conduct a gap analysis to compare your current state to where you want to be in the future. This will help you define your vision for the finance function and determine the key initiatives that will drive transformation. By creating a more efficient workflow, finance teams can reduce manual errors and improve accuracy, which saves time and resources. To succeed in finance transformation, you must have a deep understanding of your company’s goals, customer needs, and market dynamics.

One obvious cluster is traditional financial tools – like Quickbooks or Xero. Nowadays, like basically any other business software, accounting tools are typically shipped on a SaaS model. Then, we can begin to figure out how we’ll achieve this – by analyzing our current finance processes to determine where we can make improvements most effectively. Finance teams are filled with approval rules for all sorts of tasks – including around expenses, client management, project kick-offs, procurement, salaries, recurring costs, and anything else where we need controls relating to how our team spends money. What data we store, how we store it, and how it’s accessed are fundamental to the effectiveness of any internal process.

How The P2P Team at Equans Has Adopted AI To Meet Their Strategic Company Objectives

Identify disruptive factors within the business environment and its impact on the finance function. The AICPA & CIMA and KPMG collaborated to develop the Finance Transformation Learning Program to teach you the importance of, and how to, evolve and upskill your career and finance team in today’s era of disruption in the business environment. Composed of three certificates, the Manage Disruption Certificate is the first in the series. Visit the Finance Transformation Learning Program site for more information about the full program. The insights and services we provide help to create long-term value for clients, people and society, and to build trust in the capital markets.

A modern finance strategy must help the organization make the best use of digital technologies, such as cloud software, automation and data analytics to create a more agile planning and forecasting function and adapt with evolving business demands. With the CFO being one of the key architects of an organisation’s digital transformation, Gartner says the CFO needs a finance function that drives the strategic ambitions of the enterprise. “To create more business impact, finance functions may need to reimagine their strategy, leadership, operating model, talent and/or technology,” said the analyst.

The Transformation of Transactional Work

The successful finance teams of today function as partners with their business rather than a department of the enterprise. Yes, you are still responsible for the bottom line; only now, the bottom line must come with data-driven insights based on analytics and predictive modeling. Finance teams that pivot to using traditional data metrics for analytics gain insights that drive future business decisions, like finding growth opportunities in underperforming areas of the business. The typical digital financial transformation finance metrics tracked by businesses—like vendor payments or total number of invoices—are data points that don’t add any business value. Switching to analytics-based solutions gives that data value because it takes individual data points and creates usable insights for decision making. We’re all familiar with the mentality of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But that thinking has kept outdated financial reporting systems and processes as “best practices” in finance for decades.

It’s also important to understand the desired outcomes of the initiative so that changes can be made with these in mind. Once these needs have been identified, companies can then begin planning how to implement finance https://globalcloudteam.com/ transformation best practices in their FP&A departments. In addition, these initiatives often require substantial resources – both financial and human – which can present another set of challenges for organizations.

Our approach to finance transformation

They’re not going to have their teams saying “I have no time.” Plus, there is going to be more room for things like scenario planning, better cash-flow planning, better budgeting planning and tidying up the basics of what they have. Additionally, it’s easy to be persuaded by ‘quick-win solutions’ such as interim technology, which may be more affordable in the short term, but which you will outgrow quickly. CFOs know they need to make changes, but it can feel overwhelming to initiate an “overhaul” when a simpler, more affordable solution might keep problems at bay for a while.

No member firm has any authority to obligate or bind KPMG International or any other member firm vis-à-vis third parties, nor does KPMG International have any such authority to obligate or bind any member firm. © 2023 Copyright owned by one or more of the KPMG International entities. Support from the top is crucial to kick-start a transformation in F&A, and I realised this the hard way. The background research and preparation using the three strategies above need to be in place, and when the right time comes along, you will be ready to present your ideas. These three points, simple as they may seem, are difficult to implement in real life.

Free Up Time and Reduce Errors

Nowadays, there are a few key solution classes that are widely utilized here. Specifically, workflow automation tools, integration platforms, and low-code development are all at the center of how modern businesses implement finance transformation. Creating efficiency in transaction processing and reporting means standardizing your enterprise resource planning and enterprise performance management systems. A software integration better connects those systems for business growth. Without integration, while the ERP is processing back-office transaction information one way, the EPM is tracking the budget and forecast in another way which results in a lack of clarity and multiple versions of the truth. It is often in place with primary objectives to improve operational efficiency, optimise financial processes, enhance reporting and analysis, strengthen risk management and compliance, and elevate the employee experience.