Finance users often fall prey to the cyclical nature of their day-to-day operations. As one budget or month-end reaches conclusion, the next looms, leaving little scope for effective evaluation of whether they way in which things are being done is necessarily the most efficient.
"Finance users, for the most part, do take cognisance of the fact that their time is spent manipulating data and formulas. When they do see the light, however, and consider implementing tools to improve efficiencies as well as their strategic capabilities, it is unfortunately done in a narrow window of time," says Caron Mooney, director of Microsoft Gold Certified partner, IS Partners.
This does not allow for adequate consideration of all the possibilities available to them.
Mooney says these users are not always aware of accessible options that could extricate them from their brutal monthly/quarterly/yearly cycles, while at the same time making these processes more efficient and increasing productivity.
"Excel is typically favoured by financial people, and has been used as a relatively agile tool for the past 26 years. Most users, however, are not accessing even 15% of Excel's functionality," she says. As a standalone tool, Excel does not offer users the ability to consolidate data from multiple sources, for example, and is also a cumbersome means to extracting meaningful information from your data, she explains.
"Companies often have too much information stored in too many places. This makes budgeting, modelling and forecasting processes time consuming and inaccurate, as information is too difficult to access for it to be useful. Too much time is often spent on compiling information, rather than analysing it. Manual processes also typically result in errors," Mooney says.
Users, however, continue using Excel at its lowest level of productivity. "The capability to use Excel as a front-end application to a rich store of enterprise information and integrate it with all your other applications is becoming essential for finance to ensure greater efficiency, accuracy and speed - fundamentally a better use of their time."
She says finance users should firstly look to exploit more of the functionality they already have, but may not be aware of. The technology platform, which in the majority of cases is Microsoft-based, should offer an indication of where to start.
"Selecting a set of commoditised tools for budgeting and forecasting capabilities that integrate with backend enterprise applications, while still presenting information through the familiar Excel front-end, is the most viable and cost-effective approach and one that is certainly available today," Mooney says.
While proprietary tools have been available to finance, these do not always integrate well with existing systems and cannot be cost-effectively made available across the organisation. "They do not effectively address the key requirements of cost and functionality to the same degree as tools that take advantage of a pervasive technology platform," she adds.
It's not always a case of market ignorance, however. Once caught up in a repetitive cycle, the inclination to make changes passes as the next month-end comes into sight. This can, however, be eased by identifying a single pain point, and once a solution is devised and implemented, moving to the next.
"For many organisations, improved decision-making and budgets that can support the corporate strategy will remain a pipedream as long as users stay on what amounts to a financial planning treadmill. Real-time, shared visibility into your financial data will, however, ensure ease of budgeting, corporate governance compliance and quick access to numbers that are always changing," Mooney says.
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