Finance is under pressure to become a value-added business unit. As well as reporting financial results, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is expected to enhance and steer the business and so needs all the tools available to make this happen.
Most organisations are working with flawed finance models and ineffective collaboration methods because of their over reliance on Excel. According to a study by IBM 58% of medium to large companies still use spreadsheets to manage their planning and budgeting processes, and yet, 41% of Excel users say spreadsheets cannot handle their data volumes.
To become a fully value-added function finance needs to eradicate manual processes and automate wherever possible. This means finding an alternative from Excel which has been the finance teams’ tool of choice for decades. Spread sheets are siloed and hinder the ability for finance to get accurate business information out timely. Organisations lacking a centralised platform spend as much as 20% of their planning and analysis time collecting data and as much as 30% validating that information.
A fully unified solution will not only provide more accurate real-time data but will free up personnel from manual processes and allow finance to be a better business partner by focusing KPIs and analytics to improve and add value to the business.
The evolution from Excel to a unified finance platform will generally consist of two stages, first comes the automation of processes which will eliminate manual effort and make processes more efficient giving finance staff more time to focus on the second stage which involves quality improvements, improved reporting and developing better business insights.
How to Choose a Unified Finance Platform
Cloud solutions are driving the market as they are more agile, they require less IT investment and are much quicker to implement.
CFOs looking for tools to provide a unified solution often rely on the Gartner matrix to select systems for their specific requirements. CCH Tagetik reveals a strong proposition as a marker leader in cloud deployment, it also outperforms many competitors providing one place for financial planning and analysis, consolidation and financial close processes.
Over 200 global organisations already use the CCH Tagetik solution. It empowers decision makers and business users across all departments, helping them work smarter, streamline business collaboration, and make insight-based decisions with confidence.
CCH Tagetik works with certified consultants, across the globe such as AIS Consulting to support the business innovation journey and help organisations migrate quickly from Excel to a unified finance platform with confidence.
AIS can implement a corporate performance management solution that integrates a Centralised Financial Intelligence platform, Predictive Planning, Rolling Forecasts, Cashflow Management, Intuitive Reporting, In-depth Planning, Modelling and Analysis in a centralised place.
For a demonstration or more information on how the AIS team can help you bring speed and agility and a cost-effective migration from Excel click here. https://www.ais-consulting.co.uk/financial-planning-and-capital-budgeting/
Sources and references: