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What Role Do CFOs Play in Digital Transformation?
In recent years, we’ve seen how rapidly things can change in the world. There’s a greater emphasis on remote work. Supply chain disruptions are more common than before. The rise of automation, AI, and machine learning are rapidly transforming how we do business.
Amid all of this, companies are working to keep up with technology and cultural changes with varying degrees of success. Digital transformation is one of the keys to keeping up with the new and evolving world of business. Paper-based and manual systems just don’t cut it anymore.
So what is the CFO’s role in all of this? Digital transformation typically includes Financial Process Automation, making the CFO a key player in the question of how to implement and use automation technology in a company.
How Automation Fits into the CFO’s Roles
CFOs traditionally act in a variety of roles, and they’ve taken on more in recent years. They keep the financial side of a company operating efficiently. This includes keeping track of cash flow, ensuring ROI, overseeing key processes such as Accounts Payable, and ensuring regulation compliance.
In addition to operational functions, CFOs also play a strategic role. They analyze and report on company financial data, forecast, lead financial planning, and act as advisors to the C-Suite on financial matters. CFOs can spearhead initiatives that begin in the finance department and then have a positive impact on the company as a whole.
Using Business Process Automation (BPA) software to automate key financial processes aids CFOs in all these roles. Also, implementing BPA software in finance departments is a way that CFOs can contribute to a company’s overall digital transformation.
BPA and Financial Operations
In regard to digital transformation, one of the roles of the CFO is determining which business processes can be automated and which are best done personally by employees. Routine and repetitive tasks, data entry, regulation compliance, and reconciling POs and invoices are examples of tasks that are perfect for automation. Reconciling discrepancies, delicate customer service conversations, and using data to generate strategic plans and innovative solutions are examples of tasks that benefit from a human touch.
A lot of the everyday operational tasks that fall under the CFO’s employees’ purview can be automated. In fact, automating purchase order generation, capital project management, accounts payable data entry, and similar tasks has significant benefits. For example, procurement BPA provides a way to automate purchasing compliance while also making purchasing a simpler task. Good CapEx software centralizes and simplifies project management. And AP automation software significantly reduces data-entry errors and speeds up the process of capturing data.
Automating financial operations supports the CFO’s entire team and every financial department, particularly when you automate using an end-to-end solution like NextProcess. Automation frees up employees to focus on more value-added tasks for the company rather than routine (and often boring) tasks like data entry, checking spreadsheets for errors, and generating purchase orders. BPA software also supports company efforts to catch fraud, errors, and theft.
BPA and Financial Strategy
Automating financial processes also supports CFOs in their strategic role. More accurate data entry and the addition of data indexing make it easier for CFOs to quickly access reliable data. And since data capture happens in real time, the data you’re pulling from the software is always as up-to-date as possible. The software system creates databases that are easy to search using keywords. You can also generate customized reports with just a few clicks.
How would it change your financial forecasting, budgeting, and strategies if you knew you had easy access to robust data? Accurate, timely, and accessible data is key to producing useful analyses and reports. The more complete, accurate, and timely the data you’re using to create forecasts and budgets, the more accurate and useful they’ll be.
Plus, automation software makes it easier to control financial processes. You can automate regulatory compliance right in the software. NextProcess, for example, lets you customize the software to enforce your company’s best practices related to purchasing, expense reports, invoice approvals, and more.
Handling CFO Challenges with Digital Strategies
According to an article published by Oracle NetSuite (one of the many ERPs that NextProcess integrates seamlessly with), 51% of surveyed CFOs say their biggest challenge is “Juggling too many responsibilities.” While automation can’t help with that directly, by using BPA to streamline financial processes and free up employee time, CFOs are better able to manage time for themselves and their workers.
Other tasks identified as the top five challenges for CFOs include “Managing cash flow,” “Developing accurate financial scenarios,” “Producing timely, accurate reports,” and “Implementing tech for finance.” Quality BPA software can help with all those challenges.
One of the key benefits of BPA software is that your company instantly gets improved oversight and control over financial processes. Managing cash flow is easier because you can quickly see real-time information related to cash flow. As already mentioned, improved data capturing and indexing leads to accurate, searchable databases. Easy access to complete and reliable financial information makes it much easier to develop useful scenarios and produce accurate reports.
SaaS and the NextProcess Difference
The final Top 5 challenge CFOs commonly face has to do with implementing tech solutions for financial processes. Implementing technology to support financial processes can be a challenge since software often places a burden on the IT department, represents a financial cost, and requires training for employees.
The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model for BPA suppliers like NextProcess makes implementing automation easy. The supplier handles implementation with no burden on IT, and they take care of ongoing software updates and maintenance. Cloud-based SaaS is also an economical solution, and you’ll start seeing ROI almost immediately. Plus, our software is user-friendly, and we offer robust customer service support.
NextProcess is the only end-to-end BPA software suite available. We offer modules to efficiently operate capital project management, procurement & purchase orders, accounts payable, travel & expense, and payment disbursements. Instead of trying to mix and match software, you can automate all your financial processes with NextProcess and eliminate software conflicts. Our software also integrates seamlessly with existing ERPs. To learn more and see how NextProcess can help your company realize its digital transformation goals, contact us today and set up a free demo.