Why CFOs are Upgrading to Intelligent ERP Solutions

The heart of any business is finance and as the CFO, you are tasked with improving financial performance and managing profitability.  How’s that going? If you’re like most of the CFOs I’ve spoken to recently, it is a bit of a moving target, fraught with uncertainty.

Driving stability is a significant task, but it’s been made harder of late. One way to make your life easier is to have the right tools and techniques in place.  That’s what a modern, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system can bring to your business.  Our clients see an increase in efficiency and effectiveness almost out of the gate when they embrace change and get the ball rolling with a cloud-based solution built just for their needs.

From accounting, human resources, to manufacturing and distribution, a modern ERP helps keep everyone on the same page, it tracks and brings visibility to every department and process, to help you adjust priorities, lead change, and improve efficiency and effectiveness, increasing your bottom line.  It also helps to stay competitive in the digital transformation era.

Here are the top reasons CFOs are choosing to upgrade ERP solutions:

Transformation 

Transforming your business starts and ends with finance.  So, you must always be looking ahead, continuously innovating and improving.  Growing businesses must be ready to handle new problems and adapt to fluctuating markets with ease. Without the proper system in place, these growth opportunities become barriers. Imagine if you had to run your department using a green screen solution, from an office an hour from your house, and were still relying on paper timesheets, receipts, paper vendor documents, handwritten expense reports. Nightmare! No judgment if this is still where you are – but let’s get you on track to something that will serve you better now and into the future.

Increase Revenue Opportunities

Intelligent ERP can help you grow and gain profitability in new markets and geographies. The bar is higher than ever for companies to grow and exceed goals. The right solution helps you accomplish more with less and frees up your time to be proactive and innovative:

• Real-time financial information helps you to make better decisions.
• The ability to run accounting simulations and what-if analyses.
• Boost your business ability for meeting new opportunities with a flexible system.
• Better and more accurate reporting with a central location for information from all your departments.
• Get greater insight with automatic updates to your accounting system from manufacturing, procurement, sales, and service.

Improve Financial Efficiency with Automation

Remember those handwritten documents and painful processes? Get rid of them with modern tools that leverage automation and help you close the month faster and more accurately. Look like a rock star to your leadership team, and get more traction with new roads to revenue.  Here are a few ways we help our clients deploy automation:

• Get information faster from a single source.  Transactions are recorded and automatically show up across all ledgers.
• Automate repetitive manual processes to minimize errors and missing data or steps.
• Close your monthly, quarterly, and annual books faster with complete financial data at your fingertips.
• Automatic audit trails with drill-down features into details, postings, and changes.
• Automate operations such as payment reminders, electronic banking and more.

Gain Visibility into Finances

Great data and insight is worthless if no one knows where to find it, or if it takes weeks to compile. A modern ERP system like Acumatica is built to help you optimize and gain real-time visibility into financials at every level of your business.

• Payment and dunning statements can be sent automatically with manual resolution for efficient oversight.
• Shorten you days-sales-outstanding (DSO) with increased collections and transparency into exact amounts owed, length of time outstanding and from whom.
• Manage cash and liquidity with central management to all bank-related accounts and information.
• Leverage best practices for financial processes with built-in models for standardized services and outsourcing.
• Manage cashflow more accurately with real-time information on collection activities and disbursements.
• Limit fraud and get better security with a role-based system.  Employees only have access to what they need.

Improve Financial Metrics

You need (and will get) a complete set of standard analytical reports to display consolidated and summarized data in a variety of views. Data can be displayed in monthly, yearly, and quarterly views. Reports can provide information from the point of view of departments, selected account classes, and other dimensions.

These essential reports come out of the box, and can be used as-is to access real-time data from the system. Each report can be easily modified, and new reports can be created using a powerful Report Designer. Users can also create templates for commonly used report types.

In addition, Acumatica supports multi-dimensional reporting using subaccounts with segmented keys. Break down information into smaller facets to view items by price, color, size, store location, or any of a number of dimensions that you select. You can also:

• Schedule reports to run as needed.
• Generate signed PDF documents.
• Customize reports with your own branding and images.
• Create reports in real time, and apply filters as needed to get only the information you need now.
• Use Generic Inquiries to access data for your reports and then share that data with other applications for more analysis.
• Tailor report information by role.

Intelligent ERP Matters

A colleague of mine is fond of saying that our systems have to get smarter. He’s right. An intelligent ERP solution gives you real-time information, allowing finance to shift from periodic workflows to an always-on mode to fit the business. For example:

• Have continuous accounting versus waiting for the month-end to close.
• Built-in, state-of-the-art security and risk management.
• Flexible business and billing models, so no matter where you take your business, it’s ready to go.
• Easily add people, offices, and customers world-wide with language and regulatory requirements built-in.
• Close the data and workflow gaps that slow down your business.
• No more disjointed departments. Connect finance to the rest of the company.

Reward Your Business

Don’t rely on IT for access and enablement.  Reward your employees and business with a tool built for them. Faster access to reliable data means everyone can do their job more efficiently.  And as a CFO, you can make better and more informed decisions. Learn more about Acumatica and how it’s changing the way businesses work.

Can you afford to keep using an antiquated system? If you’re ready to talk about what’s next for your accounting department, we’d be happy to share how we help CFOs get a handle on all things finance. Call us at (866) 901-9955 or fill out our contact page and we can call you.

If you’re not ready to chat, we understand. Take a quick look at some of our helpful resources for busy CFOs like you.