4 Ways to Improve Finance and Accounting Department Efficiency

Your finance department is, quite simply, the organization that helps manage your company’s money. They help you plan, organize, audit and account for your company’s expenses, and they help produce financial statements. The finance and accounting department within your business has many requirements to meet, which is why, if you do not help simplify or manage their workload, chaos can ensue.

There’s a growing need for your finance and accounting department to quickly overview your company’s income/revenue so that they can calculate all business costs and expenditure and make an accurate analysis of where your business stands. Processing numbers manually, entering supplier payments by hand; these are all business processes that can slow down your business and leave room for greater human error.

However, with innovative technology being introduced to the business world at an alarmingly fast rate, how can you cut through the noise and digest the information that’ll help your business’s efficiency?

Digitize Your Strategies

Look at the everyday processes of your finance and accounting department, and determine which manual tasks could be digitized. By identifying the manual working methods that are slowing down your workers, you can find a solution that’ll not only increase workplace efficiencies but will also improve employee morale. Finding solutions that’ll streamline your business processes can eliminate any monotonous tasks that grate on your employees and lessen their enjoyment at work.

• Modernize invoice payments – No matter the size of your business, having to fill out and process invoices by hand can become a tedious experience. To help speed up the payment process, you can find software or a website that allows you to create a free invoice, which you can either print and send, convert into a PDF or send it directly to the customer.
• Find a stand-alone budgeting tool – It is crucial for your business to stick to its budget. Overspending can have consequences, so to ensure you keep on track and only spend within your means, use tools such as PlanGuru. PlanGuru can help implement a budget for your business, while also providing a financial overview and the ability to forecast the upcoming months of your business with more accuracy.
• Manage your inventory better – With the help of cloud-based solutions like SOS Inventory, you can track your goods, generate sales reports and set-up automatic alerts for when inventory is running low. You can also manage shipping.

Appoint a Digital Manager

Delegating specific roles to each member of the team can ensure each task is being completed without crossover. While there is, of course, the need for collaboration between workers, you will want to appoint a leader and have them set tasks for each other member of the team. By having a set digital manager, they can look at your department as a whole and that each employee is pulling the department together into one, streamlined entity.

Continue Training Your Employees

The world of business is changing at a rapid rate. One minute, there is no software to automate an area of marketing, then the next there’s an innovative solution that’ll reduce your overall manual labor. You need to ensure all your team members are trained in all the relevant software and solutions that become known in the finance world. Rather than only have a few employees trained in specific areas, however, train the whole team so that if someone were to fall ill or leave suddenly, an employee can step in and reduce the chance of upheaval.

Reduce the chance of a knowledge gap by conducting regular training, and that there are back-ups in place for certain job roles.

Increase Department Collaboration

Your finance and accounting department relies on all departments in your business; they do not function in isolation, and so they depend on the data of other divisions. All data needs to, therefore, be submitted on time, so that your finance and accounting department can audit and examine the numbers accurately.

Ensure data is submitted on time by having your financial manager have regular meetings with the managers of each department. Allow them to voice any concerns, and if departments continue to miss the deadlines, find a solution that is sure to last. You could, for instance, have an alarm that goes off on each manager’s computer or smartphone, or have an automated email be sent to each department manager where it is a rule for them to respond to with the data.

The performance of your finance and accounting department must be closely monitored. They handle sensitive data, and data which, if processes incorrectly, could lead to huge repercussions. Your finance and accounting department, however, can be smartened up with the help of automation, improved collaboration and the appointment of a manager to oversee all business processes.