Any business, in the right place at the right time, can find itself rocketing from zero to one hundred at a moment’s notice, adding employees, new departments, product lines and even acquiring new entities along the way. But by its nature, growth increases business complexity. And whilst this is a good problem to have, the extra workload can be particularly felt in the finance function, which can find itself mired in routine data aggregation processes, unable to conduct any meaningful analysis for the organisation.

As businesses scale up, efficiency must radiate from the finance function. Through the utilisation of new, intelligent capabilities, businesses can pump the brakes on their fast-growing plans before it’s too late, or slam down hard on the gas pedal when fleeting opportunities present themselves.

This financial agility requires the CFO to lead by automating routine processes and integrating intelligent technology to streamline reporting. Unleashing these new capabilities will help finance teams conduct new, granular levels of analysis across their businesses, that will radically change how the finance function is perceived within the company and provide a greater role for the team in making strategic decisions.

Business data belongs to finance

For business data to be helpful, it needs to be accessible on demand, reliable and structured. For many finance teams, this is a huge ask which requires a new mindset and new tools. But having the right finance system in place means that the team can remove the arduous process of scraping the data together and begin to derive meaning from the reports themselves, without delegating this responsibility to other departments. It allows the team to build rapport across departments and units, and enables purposeful discussions based on evidence and genuine business intelligence.

This new finance mindset is about moving away from processing transactions toward producing dynamic data that paints a true picture of the business, from moment to moment, and at fixed points in time, to analyse progress. This 360-view starts to create new observations and conversations that feed into strategy and tactics at both board level and cross functionally.  In addition, better house keeping in areas like working capital can  improve cashflow and forecasting and shorten the working capital cycle and  make the company’s assets work harder.

This means that the skills within the finance team can change, or rather, the existing skills can be better exploited and new ones learned. Finance graduates didn’t sign up to data entry, after all. The team already has the skills to deliver insights, they just need the opportunity to do so.

And there is no magic behind transforming finance and creating efficiency, it all comes down to the right choice of cloud accounting software and automation.

Efficiency via automation

Efficiency isn’t about removing tasks that are unimportant, far from it. Instead, it’s about making the most of the team’s potential, which for finance, is often about removing the time spent inputting data into Excel spreadsheets. There is recognition in all teams where manual processes dominate, that there must be a better way of working to impact business growth.

The biggest gains in efficiency are made through automation. For example, a cloud accounting platform with Optical Character Recognition technology can digitise invoice processing, automate a tiered approval system and store all the data securely on one central platform, with full banking integration for auto-reconciliation.

Applying technology allows for inverting the traditional finance pyramid, where transactional processing along with compliance and reporting take up the majority of finance time. By automating the tasks that can be automated, the finance team can devote more time to what it should be doing –providing insights across the business that support intelligent, evidence-based decisions.

Along with cash and cashflow forecasting, consolidated and segmented P&L, the finance team also needs to be on top of sales forecasts and the product sales mix. But when multi-entry consolidation or multi-currency management can tie up a department for weeks at a time, how can the finance team fulfil its expectations without automating these tasks into one-click operations?

Increasing efficiency improves the business

Finance departments historically act as the business treasury, they count, audit and manage cashflow to support the direction and growth of the business. These functions are not going anywhere and will always remain within finance’s remit, but in transforming how tasks are undertaken, technology has also transformed how the team can now spend their precious time.

Once these manual tasks are tamed, then collaboration is possible and finance can provide meaningful insights across the business. Finance teams can finally move from data entry to consulting other departments to drive growth.

The finance team should set an example to the rest of the business and radiate efficiency. When it does this, it illuminates every dark corner of the business. Requests are handled faster and queries are met with on-demand data. The business just starts moving faster. Finance is the lynchpin of any organisation, and when it stops being a bottleneck, the entire organisation feels the benefits.