Here’s how finance teams are leading the way for businesses to succeed

Finance teams have been overlooked and underappreciated for too long. However, since lockdown, financial workers have become the heroes of every organisation, leading the way for businesses to make it out of the crisis.

Without the insights provided by finance teams, businesses would be flying blind. This has fundamentally changed the way businesses view their finance function – for the better.

Like any good hero, finance teams need the tools to help them succeed. This newfound respect for the finance team means access to more powerful software packages that can save organisations money and time. Here’s how finance teams can keep up the momentum and lead their businesses to a stronger post-lockdown position.

Tracking resilience

Many organisations are operating with a reduced or sluggish cash flow because of lockdown. This has highlighted the importance of tracking your business’s resilience on a function-by-function basis.

If one part of your business is starting to show cracks, your organisation can funnel capital over to help them weather the storm. Executive teams need this data and accompanying analysis from their finance team to help them make this happen.

Business intelligence for resilience tracking

That’s where business intelligence software can come into its own. Executive business analysis packages such as IRIS Analytics can drill down into your financial statistics across every element of your business and present this information in an easily digestible format – which is essential for busy executive teams who need to make agile decisions.

Even better, they can sync directly with your financial management software to pull this information. This empowers your finance team to budget and produce forecasts on a daily basis instead of the traditional yearly or monthly cycle. The COVID-19 situation changes daily, so a near-constant appraisal of your financial position is invaluable.

IRIS Analytics makes this all possible thanks to its business intelligence infrastructure. It pulls all of your data into a single place for quick analysis.

Automation frees up valuable time

In the coming weeks, you’re going to be spending a lot more time generating reports and forecasts on a lightning-quick basis, but this won’t be possible if you’re still caught up with low-value administrative tasks.

You can add automation to your toolbelt to help you focus on the more important hero finance tasks. Invoice processing is a huge drain on busy finance teams’ time, but machine learning tools can take over the process for you.

IRIS Invoice Matcher, for example, is so advanced that it can read just about any invoice with a nearly error-free success rate. This information is then paired with your financial records, so you don’t even have to lift a finger.

You can even automate your purchasing approvals with PS Purchasing. Rather than chasing up your key stakeholders to get their sign-off, you can manage it through the system and let it do the chasing for you. Approvals are automatically routed to the appropriate key stakeholder, so nothing can slip through the cracks.

Both of these automation tools work best with a unified ledger financial management system. IRIS Financials only has one ledger to manage and all entries are automatically consolidated, so it transforms the difficult task of accounting.

Whether you need a business intelligence package that enables agile reporting, a financial management system that keeps all your important information in one place, or automation tools that free up your finance heroes’ time, we’ve got the tools to empower your finance team. Don't hesitate to get in touch and let us know your business needs.