The 7 Reasons to move your organisation to Cloud Financials
THE FRENETIC PACE of modern business shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, it’s accelerating. Enterprises have to operate in an always-on, digital world in which we all expect results on demand. But their incumbent systems are letting them down. Traditional financial systems were typically designed in an era when it might take days or even weeks to collect and process information. The mismatch to today’s high-speed expectations means the right answers don’t arrive when they’re needed.
Every month that passes is yet another missed opportunity. Modern, ambitious businesses need a financial system that’s designed to operate the way they do–one that’s adaptable, responsive, and ready to deliver timely answers on demand. It’s always tempting to postpone the necessary action – to put off change until another day. But when colleagues don’t have up-to-date information, they risk missing crucial warning signals or remaining blind to developing trends. Margins stay under pressure because it’s so hard to chase down costs. Customer billing questions are left unresolved. Key performance indicators constantly lag behind the curve.Every month that passes is yet another missed opportunity. Don’t wait until a crisis forces your hand. The time to act is now.
Cloud Financials Keep You Ahead
A modern financial system can become ‘right-time’–not looking only at the past but also involved in what’s happening now and in the future. With earlier generations of technology, the only way to get things done was to run each function in isolation. The financial system kept to its core role of keeping a reliable historic transactional record. While that remains a crucial function, today’s robust connectivity makes it possible to break down those barriers and connect financials directly into day-to-day business operations. Implemented in just a few months or even weeks, a cloud financial system is able to work in sync with the business. Instead of acting as a brake on progress, it embraces and facilitates change. It delivers financial data in a business context that shows the real-world impact of decisions. It supports speedy digital alternatives to error-prone, slow-moving paper processes. It has the connectivity and integration smarts to automatically consolidate business data. Rather than running in isolation from the rest of the business, it becomes an integral part of day-to-day operations, decision-making and strategic planning. Fast-moving enterprises understand the importance of right-time information to compete successfully in a digitally connected world. They recognise the risks of delay and the rapid advantages a cloud financial system brings their business. There are seven reasons now is the time to move to cloud financials.
1. You can’t Afford to Delay Change
Businesses today need the flexibility to rapidly seize emerging opportunities or quickly deal with new challenges. But many are held back by disjointed processes and cumbersome systems that don’t easily adapt to new requirements. Conventional software packages can’t accommodate change without involving IT specialists. Multi-step manual processes can’t be altered without significant disruption and risk. Reports can’t be updated to track important new business metrics.
2. Business Demands to Know Now
If the business doesn’t have a financial view of day-to-day operations, it can’t control spending or margins effectively. Keeping finance isolated in its own functional silo denies access to crucial transactional data that business managers need to inform their decision making. Every day that action is delayed has adverse effects on the bottom line, and impacts competitiveness in fast-moving markets.
3. Information Logjams Cost You Money
Many organisations ‘make do’ with paper-based processes, time-consuming workarounds and spreadsheet consolidations–despite the waste of resources and increased risk of errors. The cost and disruption of upgrades and integration deter them from converting to a more automated system. But data that’s waiting to be entered or consolidated can’t be made available where it’s needed. These information logjams have a hidden cost that’s growing all the time as the pace of business accelerates.
4. Automation Makes You Lean
Up-and-coming businesses gain a significant competitive edge when they harness digital connectivity to streamline productivity and enhance outcomes. More established incumbents find it hard to respond because their processes are rooted in a history of passing paper forms and documents from one department or organization to another to get things done. These manual processes constantly burn up money–wasting productive employee time on repetitive data input, and then on copying, faxing, and physically storing documents that create complex, time-consuming audit trails. Going paperless instantly saves costs, improves efficiency and streamlines processes.
5. Self-Service Helps You do More
Improving access to information helps manage change and tune performance of business operations. But many finance systems require specialist expertise to develop or customize reports, turning the finance department into a bottleneck that slows down the availability of critical analysis. Unable or unwilling to wait for answers, business decision makers either abandon the attempt or turn to inefficient, unreliable workarounds to extract the information they need. This adds to costs every day and inhibits the effectiveness of the business.
6. You Have to Find Answers Faster
Everyone is trying to get more done in the working day and we are all less willing to wait for answers. Connecting processes and data within your organization puts the foundation in place but automation only goes so far. The picture is not complete until your people can communicate efficiently to co-ordinate and react promptly when exceptions arise.
7. You Want to be Thinking Ahead
In today’s fast-moving, digitally connected world, enterprises have to be on top of their game to survive and thrive. Not just lean and efficient at what they do, but ready to adjust their business strategy in response to new opportunities or challenges that can spring up at any time. The finance team has a pivotal role to play in this strategic thinking. But that’s a big ask when resources are tied up in day-to-day firefighting and meaningful metrics are sparse and slow to arrive.
The Time to Act is NowThe challenges–and opportunities–facing businesses today aren’t getting any easier. This is no time to be saddled with inflexible systems that can’t adapt to change and growth or aren’t able to deliver timely information flows. Every day that passes without making the move to right-time financials adds to the mounting waste of resources and missed opportunities.A cloud financial system brings fresh agility.Fortunately, a cloud financial system avoids the long-term disruption and implementation risk of conventional on-premises software projects. It can be rolled out incrementally, replacing core financial functions in the first few months or weeks. Later on, new modules, reports and connections to other systems can be added according to need and resource availability.
About Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct is the innovation and customer satisfaction leader in cloud Financial Management.
With the powerful combination of Sage and Intacct, the Sage Business Cloud offers the best capabilities of both companies. Bringing cloud computing to finance and accounting, Sage Intacct’s innovative and award-winning applications are the preferred financial applications for AICPA business solutions. In use by organizations from startups to public companies,
Sage Intacct is designed to improve company performance and make finance more productive. Hundreds of leading accounting firms and Value Added Resellers also offer Sage Intacct to their clients.
The Sage Intacct system includes accounting, cash management, purchasing, vendor management, financial consolidation, revenue recognition, subscription billing, contract management, project accounting, fund accounting, inventory management, and financial reporting applications, all delivered through the cloud.
