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IMPLEMENTATION OF SMALL BUSINESS FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING SOFTWAREThe Finance Function Is In Transition   The finance function is now fully implicated in strategic decisions concerning IT, however with increasing workload, the Finance Director (FD) is increasingly being asked to report on whole range of non-financial as well as purely financial measures. Issues such as globalisation, growth, standardisation, e reporting, consolidation and CRM are but some of the considerations FD’s have to take responsibility for.
Whether you are a start up, small to medium or large enterprise decisions as to which financial management system to implement should be carefully considered. Our experience in Matching business needs to appropriate systems is considerable. Furthermore, we can manage the entire process, including implementation, staff training and support. FD’s are acutely aware that their job is far broader than just finance and also encompasses, importantly, the role of information manager. As guardians of information, they must ensure that information is shared across the organisation. Once, it was acceptable for the finance department to hold all the business data, sending bland financial statements to board-level directors. Now, detailed management information must be distributed all the time to improve the quality of decision-making at every level of the organisation. The old joke that accountants were mere “bean counters” is now a redundant one. They are now the ones responsible for disseminating information throughout their business. Poor Quality Reporting “Old” accounting systems that churned out reams of data reinforced inefficient working practices and the piles of paper these systems churned out are usually incomprehensible to non-accountants who want answers to questions rather than just streams on numbers. Managers who received these reams of data knew better than to raise queries about them. If a set of month-end or interim figures took several days to produce, so too would a query. Indeed, the answer might only come in the form of some more paper. Hardly the format for rapid decision-making in today’s business. Moreover, all the data achieves is to confirm what has already taken place. Many company directors it seems have yet to see the light. The entire concept of management information continues to evolve. Information can be used by the entire organisation. It can be real-time, being as up to date as the last posting made. It can be delivered automatically without intervention from the accounts department. Most important, management information can be proactive, automatically informing the user of a situation, which breaches pre-set criteria as it occurs. The implication of these changes to the way the organisation manages the business is immense in terms of benefit, yet minor in terms of disruption. Broken Promises The improved efficiency offered by many computer systems, in speed, for instance, is universally welcomed. But elsewhere the contribution is seen less positive. Vendors love to talk in technological terms, yet every survey of financial managers’ attitudes towards financial IT shows that the desire for technology itself is not high on their list of priorities. What really matters is providing quantifiable benefit. Finance managers’ expectations of systems are low because their experience has given them a low opinion of them. This means that when they come to think about potential improvements, they only plan in terms of a five percent saving here and there. Some of the new generation accounting software products available in the market today offer the potential of making not a five percent saving, but a 25% or even 35% improvement. That sort of gain is something every financial manager would find compelling. Scalability should be a priority. Business information has become enterprise-wide. Knowledge is universal and every manager needs it to make decisions. As organisations have downsized and de-layered, so the need for executives at the lower levels of management to have access to it, has become acute. The concept of “new generation” financial management software reflects the very considerable change that has taken place over the past few years in IT, much of it driven by Microsoft.
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