The Cost of Manual Process in Financial Teams, and How to Fix Them?
The CFO is no longer the ‘Ringo’ of the C-suite, drumming in the background while the other band members accept the applause. In recent years, as information has become both more valuable and more abundant, CFOs have found themselves very much on the frontline. They are now seen by organisations as major sources, or indeed the primary source, of innovation.
The emergence of big data has been the catalyst of this transformation. Almost everything a business wants to know is hidden somewhere amongst the wealth of zeroes and ones now available to it, and the CFO plays a key role in turning binary code into actionable insights.
The challenge for the CFO then can be simmered down to one of labour. They simply need to find ways to do more. So let’s take a look at how to do just that, by replacing manual financial processes with automated.
High operational costs
People are costly to employ, and managing talent is arguably the greatest drain on a CFO’s time. By automating menial, monotonous and repetitive tasks, you can seriously increase efficiency, reduce costs, and win your time back.
Difficulty gaining budget approval
Business budgets are often mired in ambiguity, as ROI and efficiency is anchored in the current state of affairs, and can be significantly affected by the smallest deviation from projections. Automation, however, can assist a CFO in building a compelling business case, generating insights and extrapolating estimates in ways and to degrees that manual processes simply can’t.
Unacceptable risk
Humans are fallible, machines are not (unless of course they’ve been misprogrammed by a human…) Manual processes increase operational risk in a number of ways:
- A misplaced keystroke can see you beginning with inaccurate data, making any insights you gain inherently flawed.
- Manual processes are slow, and may cause you to miss closing deadlines and payment dates.
- Humans have a tendency to jump to behavioral conclusions, i.e. drawing insights before a complete picture has been painted.
Automated processes grant you the opportunity to become more or less error free, greatly reducing risk
Clunky financial processes
As outlined in this 2018 McKinsey report, no fewer than 40% of internal financial processes have the potential to be fully automated. Imagine, for a moment, what you and your team could do if you were given 40% of your time back. Your focus could shift from the drudgery of bookkeeping, cash disbursement and compliance, to gaining insights and driving innovation
Difficulty in managing liquidity
Gaining a real-time understanding of your current financial position grants you unmatched agility – you can act on insights instantly and stay one step ahead of your competition. But it was long considered an impossibility to realise such a dynamic state, particularly for a CFO whose organisation stretches across borders and currencies. An automated cash management solution like Certomo will allow you to achieve just that.
Ringo no more, the shift from the shadows to the spotlight has been a quick one for the CFO. While the challenges you face are arguably greater than they have ever been, your ability to impact an organisation has followed the same upward trajectory.
And with automations like Certomo, you can be confident that this impact will be overwhelmingly positive.