Finance ERP for Better Profitability: A Futurist CFOs Best Bet

  • 02 January 2023
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In 2023, you decide what type of CFOs you want to be: a number-cruncher or a strategic winner. 

We say so because the CFO’s role has evolved dramatically in the last few years. As the demand for data-driven insights and skills grows, the CFOs job is getting increasingly challenging (in a good way!).

Complex risks, potential disruptions, and evolving customer expectations are sure there. But this is the best time to prove yourself. That’s why 76 percent of finance leaders say there has never been a more exciting time to be a CFO. What will distinguish you from a daily struggler or a decision-making force is your ability to reimagine the future rather than simply reporting on the past.

The role of ERP and technology

Today, every business is hungry for up-to-the-minute and insight-ready data. Decision-makers now tend to demand forecasts every 30 days or less so they can respond to changing signals in the data.

This is different from the past when the finance department aligned to quarterly or annual reporting practices. Today, CEOs want updated financial data to make decisions in real-time. Also, previously, FP&A [financial planning and analysis] was considered labour-intensive and required the manual responsibilities of creating extensive spreadsheets. Traditionally, finance heads or CFOs were the gatekeepers of this duty. But today, mature FP&A and financial reporting can take months!

This calls for enterprise planning tools that support finance digitization and automation. A single platform that unifies financials into core processes and automates tasks would effectively maximize financial performance. The use of cloud-based ERP software has risen dramatically. These platforms typically offer rapid deployment and ROI, modern user experiences, and lightning-fast results through scalable computing technology. A Gartner® survey in late 2020 listed “RPA and other workflow automation technologies in finance” as one of the “Top 5 Digital Priorities for CFOs in 2021” and reported 66 percent of “CFOs expecting to spend more time in [that] area.”

Thus, everything boils down to ‘Automation is critical for success.’ The CFO has to stay on top of all information flow in an organization- otherwise, a vacuum will develop.

Let us find out how centralized ERP software can help futurist CFOs maximize financial performance and visibility. We have a few use cases to help you understand better:

  1. CFO seeking insights on customer payments to take automatic actions based on the historical analysis for each customer.

Real-time finance insights can help determine customer payments and project discrepancies. ERP can help CFOs set up a more proactive process and help them get a better financial overview.

  1. CFO dealing with complicated billing and payment processes at different sites.

ERP can help automate supplier invoice processing, efficiently manage credit collections and save time as well as labour costs by digitizing billing procedures. You can carry out system unification and intercompany reporting, providing real-time visibility into enterprise-wide financials.

  1. CFO facing challenges in making predictions.

When you have a system to record every transaction in one place, you can accurately predict cash flow, payments, credit risks, tax obligations, etc. CFOs can utilize historical data, trends, forecasts and “what if” analyses to develop highly accurate forecasts and budget predictions.

  1. CFO prioritizing cost management and profitability analysis

ERP has robust product costing, overhead cost management and profitability analysis capabilities. CFOs can seamlessly collate and assess costs project-wise or resource-wise. They can evaluate the profitability of channels, products, markets or segments.

  1. Pressures during financial year closing time.

ERP helps you close books faster and more accurately. Simplify accounts receivable, payable, tax and revenue management. You also enjoy outcome-driven financial reporting free of errors. The single chart of accounts and unified reporting significantly speed up financial closing.

  1. CFO exposed to financial complexity, risk, governance and compliance issues.

Streamline regulatory reporting and quickly adapt to changing regulatory requirements. ERP helps you comply with local and international tax regulations by offering greater efficiency in creating separate ledgers that can be used for statutory accounting and management reporting. You experience simpler enforcement of global accounting policies and greater efficiency in auditing and reviews.

  1. CFO seeking to become a strategic decision-maker and enterprise growth contributor.

Map data using ERP to raise awareness of how decisions impact business financials as a whole. CFOs can utilize new technologies, such as AI, to redefine transactional finance and get instant insight to make effective business decisions.

From crunching numbers to making strategies: CFOs can impact and multiply the bottom-lines!

In a fast-changing world, the strategic CFO is more central than ever. The game-changer and winning CFO will swear by ERP and analytics technology to steer an effective corporate strategy. They will drive conversations about how organizations respond to ESG, DE&I, and global risk trends by identifying material impacts and potential outcomes of various courses of action. Futurist CFOs will be able to spend more time on high-value activities, such as preparing predictive analysis and working directly with business stakeholders.

A holistic, real-time view of every department, function and operation will make this possible!

Enhancing financial decision-making will require expert support and insights. Technology service providers play a vital role in helping CFOs actively identify current and future trends, monitor cash flow and make data-driven decisions using finance insights.

Uneecops strives to enable CFOs to become strategic partners in their business through a complete range of enterprise IT modernization solutions. As India’s #1 SAP Platinum Partners, we leverage industry understanding and ERP best practices to help finance leaders deliver decision-ready data to the business, drive strategic decisions and automate financial processes while reducing complexity and risk.

Are you ready to leverage our SAP ERP technology solutions to derive meaningful insights from data and turn numbers into real value? Become a futurist CFO now!

Team Uneecops

About the author

Uneecops provides a comprehensive bouquet of business automation products and services to help companies optimize organizational productivity and maximize profits. We are a CMMI Level 5 company with various recognitions from our partners and customers affirming our belief in technology led business transformation using ERP, Analytics, CRM and Cloud.