Business models have been changing rapidly, partly fuelled by advances in technology and recent events like the pandemic. But what does this mean for the CFO? We sat down with Christine Bloy, our Functional Solutions Architect, and Sam Sheridan, our Principal Consultant, in this week’s episode of ColumbusCast to address:
Where does the CFO come in? As you’re responsible for approving technology investments, you must be able to assess how exactly they can further improve customer experience. This means you should have the tools to keep track of market trends.
Technology has transitioned the CFO from a role that focused on past transactional reporting to a role where they are more future-minded. Before the implementation of software (D365 as an example), CFOs would have to sift through weeks and potentially months of data to make and produce accurate forecasts.
This inevitably results in lengthy workloads.
The right software will provide an instant, complete overview of current standings with insight workspaces, enhancing standardised business processes by freeing time spent on underlying processes. This allows for more effort and time to be placed into analysing reports and looking into key performance indicators.
With the variety of software available, allowing you to automate, backlog, track finances and more, the advancement of technology lets the CFO prioritise and manage more effectively. As a result, the CFO role is now transitioning from a ‘backward’ position within a company (one that focuses on the past) towards a future thinking, proactive mindset.
Combining different departments' information from older systems can be tricky. By the time you have sifted through your past data on several systems, it may already be outdated, affecting your ability to forecast effectively.
As well as your data being out of date, you may also run into problems with finding the right information you need, caused by the number of systems you have for each department.
What new technology provides is the ability to access all of your company’s financial records in one, centralised location, improving your time management. Now you can focus on moving the business forward.
Without access to advanced reporting software, creating reports meant you had to rely on IT teams. Not only does this impact productivity, lengthen turnaround times and create additional workload across the board, but you may not always receive the reports you envisioned.
IT teams may not interpret and visualise data the way a CFO does, so conveying what you want from reports can be a challenge. With technology allowing you to automate many processes and providing you the tools you need; this will free up other departments' time and you can be in control of the analytics you want to report on.
Due to the fast nature of laws and regulations, companies need to ensure reports such as sales taxes or invoices are kept up to date. This can create pressure for the CFO. If no system is currently in place, this process can become incredibly difficult.
You may even need to identify an individual within the company to work everything out manually. That can, of course, be time-consuming and require resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
To adapt to the speed of laws and regulations being introduced, your system must have a flexible approach. With new regulations around data, spreadsheets aren’t enough. Some information you compile must come directly from an untouched system to improve accuracy and reduce human error, placing reliance on your choice of technology.
When you change any process, you will most likely experience resistance. For example, employees may be sceptical about whether:
This is especially the case in finance departments - there’s usually a lack of trust towards new technology and automation. So, it’s important to address how individuals deal with this change.
However, with the right technology and change management approach, employees should acknowledge that having software introduced to their ways of working can be massively advantageous.
Let’s say a team recoded transactions every month, spending days upon days correcting information in the system. Thanks to account structuring software, this stopped any issues prior to being posted, allowing the team to focus on other projects. It’s about how you can communicate benefits like this to your users.
Scroll to the top of this blog or search ‘ColumbusCast’ in your podcast app so you can learn more about how technology influences the CFO, including:
Finished the podcast and want to learn more about a potential future transformation project? Get your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance factsheet today and learn how the platform can benefit your organisation.