Revamping the finance department can be a daunting and expensive prospect. But just because you’re working with tight budgets doesn’t mean that improvements aren’t possible. You can make many small but effective changes to your operational processes, technology, and day-to-day working practices that will have a noticeable effect on both efficiency and business performance.
1. Get the right technology
First of all, you should ensure you have the right tools and technology. In this day and age, plenty of amazing software tools are available to help you manage your finances better than ever before. Many cloud-based solutions can help you access your data from anywhere at any time — no matter where your team members are—making managing your finances even easier!
2. Embrace automation
Automation is a powerful way to streamline your finance department, and it doesn’t need to be complicated. The first step is to embrace automation by using tools that allow you to integrate data from multiple systems into one place.
You can then use these tools to automate tasks like expense management, vendor payments, and approvals. You’ll be able to see what’s coming up in the pipeline, who needs what approvals, and when those approvals are due — making it easier for everyone involved with the process to stay on top of things.
3. Focus on data quality
The most important step in streamlining your finance operations/department is focusing on data quality. This involves ensuring that all of the data collected from various departments is accurate and up-to-date. If you don’t have reliable data, then it’s impossible to make informed decisions about your finances or anything else for that matter!
You should also make sure that all departments use standard terms for things like expenses, revenue, and accounts receivable so that any time someone refers to them in an email or document, everyone will have a crystal clear understanding of what they mean by those terms.
4. Use analytics to gain insight
One amazing way to streamline your financial operations is to use analytics to gain insight into what’s happening inside your organization.
Analytics tools like Salesforce Analytics Cloud can help you gain visibility into how different departments work together, what types of activities are common across certain groups or roles, and even how your company stacks up against similar businesses across the industry.
When you start analyzing data within Salesforce Analytics Cloud, you can uncover patterns that will help you make better decisions and ultimately get more done with less effort.
5. Get the right people in place
Most finance departments are understaffed and overworked. This leads to problems such as lack of communication and lack of cooperation among team members. The first step toward streamlining your finance department is to get the right people in place.
The right people are people who care about the company’s success, want to make a difference, have the skills and experience needed for their job, and are reliable and trustworthy. If you have employees who don’t fit these criteria, then it makes sense to let them go or retrain them so they can do what they do best — or find someone else who does.
Here we come to our next point.
6. Outsource if you don’t have a specialization
If you don’t have enough people or skills in your finance department, then it’s time to outsource. This will make things easier and save you money. You might think that outsourcing means hiring someone from outside your company, but that’s not always true. You can hire an outsourcing firm like Elevate Outsourcing that can help with your finances’ day-to-day operations without coming into your office every day.
Conclusion: Take advantage of new technologies and focus on the right technology for your organization.
Everything you need to streamline the finance operations department is already out there. It’s your job to wade through it and see what works best for you. And maybe that’s just a start. You can make small changes, gradually making a business process more efficient. Or you can go big and integrate all the functions into one cloud-based platform, which would be even more efficient. Choosing which one works best for you is ultimately up to your needs and will depend on how flexible you are willing to work with the technology at hand.
Connect Payment Pilot expert team today to streamline your payment processing and take your business to the next level.
