How to leverage technology in times of instability
By Geniene Scherer, Abdo
September 19, 2023
Finance leaders are facing significant challenges resulting from instability in today’s national and global markets. New drivers of uncertainty have emerged over the last few years, impacting the ways organizations are being led going forward and driving the need for long-term, sustainable change.
Some of the most significant issues resulting from that uncertainty are increased costs and staffing challenges. In the past three years alone, the cost of doing business has increased by as much as 30% and interest rates have jumped from nearly 0% to 8% because of inflation. This places significant pressure on expense levels for businesses and organizations in practically every industry and market.
To add to that, staffing challenges are also driving the need for structural change. In early 2023, unemployment was at a 50-year low, but there is a current — and projected — future shortage of accountants among the millions of baby boomers counting down the clock before they retire.
While drivers of inflation and the contributors to economic uncertainty have changed in the past few years, the need to understand these drivers, analyze their impact and prepare for a world of high uncertainty remains critical to an organization’s success.
Findings from a recent survey of CFOs highlight their strong focus on reducing expenses by increasing efficiency within their organizations over the next year. If you’re responsible for the fiscal health of your organization, your first priority in today’s economic climate is to gain an accurate and complete understanding of your current processes and systems, along with your current and desired state.
The most effective and efficient way to accomplish this first crucial step is to leverage tools and technology that automate the process, getting you to the information you need quickly and accurately.
Analyze your current state
As you assess your current state, there are some key questions that can help you get to the heart of your organization’s specific challenges and costs.
- What business applications do you currently use?
- Is there any duplication of these applications?
- Who uses each one?
- How much does each cost?
- What are the challenges with your current applications?
- What features or functionality are missing?
- Where do you or your team consistently see errors when using these applications?
- What impact does your current system have on staff and the organization?
Envision your future ideal state
Once you have a clear understanding of the current state, it’s time to determine your future state. Envisioning your ideal state requires knowing what’s possible. We now operate in a world where we can choose to be fully connected to our financial institutions, customers and vendors with built-in artificial intelligence to validate data and perform manual tasks.
It’s important to choose the right systems and then get started on implimentation. As you envision your future ideal state, consider:
- What does your ideal solution look like?
- What would you like to see enhanced or improved?
- What would your team be able to do if freed from manual and repetitive processes?
- What would your ROI be?
Here are some areas of opportunity to consider for building in automation with technology as you solidify how to achieve your goals.
- Accounts payable: Your system should be able to create the accounts payable transaction, code it, attach a copy of the invoice to the transaction and pay the vendors. Automating this process provides significant savings in time and cost.
- Accounts receivable: Leverage your system capabilities to automate both the creation of customer invoices and collecting payment. The customer should be able to pay the bill online and that payment should automatically apply to the bill in your accounting system.
- Electronic bank reconciliation: The bank reconciliation process is one of the keys to producing accurate and complete financial statements. A financial management system should allow for connection to your financial institutions, automated transaction reconciliation and transaction creation in your system according to the rules you create.
- Built-in workflow approvals: Look for a system that can do workflow approvals on accounts payable invoices, payments and journal entries. In systems like Sage Intacct, artificial intelligence is used to audit the data as it is being entered, highlighting anomalies for you to review to make sure the data is correct.
- System integrations: Data should move automatically between systems to increase efficiency, decrease costs and provide real-time information.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA): No-code or low-code software programs now are available to automate repetitive tasks with a limited number of variations.
Develop a plan
After determining what’s possible, set your organization on a path to a more automated and streamlined future by developing a plan. Begin by focusing on areas where you will see the greatest impact. Involve the right people, bring in additional staff and outsource as needed to fill key positions. Your bottom line — and your staff — will thank you.
Abdo has a strong focus on data and technology and our experts can guide your organization from where you are to where you want to be. If you’d like to learn more about how to customize and automate your financial management system, our team can show you how to improve performance and efficiency in your business using the latest technology in a free 30-minute virtual meeting.
For more information about Abdo and our services, visit
abdosolutions.com.
Geniene Scherer, CPA, MBA is a senior manager at Abdo, with a background in audit, controller/CFO and software assessments and implementations. Geniene leads the Sage Intacct practice for Abdo and has a special focus on CFO/controller services and process evaluation & optimization.
