The role that the office of finance plays in an organization has changed. Historically, the department was seen as a group of “bean counters” and spent most of their time manually processing financial data within spreadsheets in order to complete the Record to Report process. Many saw the department as a necessary part of the business, but not necessarily a value-adding one. But as time has gone on, and especially during the recent COVID-19 outbreak, organizations have begun to rely on F&A teams as a source of insight for the strategic, operational and financial facets of the business’s performance.

However, despite these new expectations, the office of finance is still often told to “do more with less”, and yet when the time comes to cut spending, they are often the first to see those cuts.

These two circumstances leave many F&A professionals wondering how they can transform their Record to Report process and become the guiding voice their organization needs, and maximize the efficiency of the resources they have.

Enabling Resource Efficiency

In order to maximize the resources that the office of finance has access to, organizations have begun transforming their Record to Report process with automation. Moving beyond manually processing information within isolated spreadsheets, automation has enabled accountants to spend their time on higher-value tasks that provide the needed insight into the business.
Additionally, organizations that have implemented automation have reported the following benefits.

Up to a:

• 99% reduction in preparation time on reconciliations (for reconcilers)
• 10% reduction in the risk of materials misstatements
• 90% reduction in the number of accounts to be reconciled
• 75% reduction in time preparing and reviewing journal entries (for preparers)¹

Implementing Automation Is a Journey

While the benefits of automation are well documented, and automation continues to be a driving force in transforming business’s Record to Report process, there is a common misconception held by some organizations. Many believe that automation is a sort of patchwork solution, and they come in with the expectation that automation will simply speed up how things are currently being done. While this is certainly possible, it’s far from the best course of action.

Due to the lack of visibility that is inherent in the historically manual approach to the Record to Report process, there can be little confidence in any final documentation that has been created through this method. Because of this, applying automation within an existing workflow runs the risk of simply doing the wrong process faster.

When selecting a financial automation solution, it’s important to work with a company that can walk you through this journey in order to maximize the benefits that automation can provide you.

Trintech has a proven track record of working and partnering with organizations in order to transform their Record to Report process. “They held our hand and talked us through the process, says Panera Bread. “If we were to implement another software solution, we would use our experience with the Trintech rollout as the role model.”

Currently working with the majority of the Fortune 100 companies, Trintech has a plethora of experience guiding organizations in the transformation process and helping them maximize the potential benefits that financial automation has to offer.

The Challenges Faced in Each Industry

As time goes on, more organizations will begin to transform their Record to Report process through automation. However, there is an important facet of automation that is often overlooked by not only the organizations implementing the solution, but by the companies that are supposed to be guiding them. As an organization automates their office of finance, both the challenges they will face and the areas that need automation the most will differ—typically this is based on verticals. These differences can affect not only the ROI of a transformation project but ultimately the success of one.

To best understand where organizations have seen the greatest benefit of automation, and where different verticals are headed with their own automation plans, Trintech conducted the 2020 Global R2R Benchmark Report. A comprehensive survey of almost 200 enterprise companies across 31 countries, our report covers the current state and future of automation adoption in the office of finance.

Organizations that choose to automate their office of finance should not be going in blind to any obstacles or opportunities that may present themselves. To successfully transform an organization’s Record to Report process, both the providers and the recipients need full transparency into what they can expect from an automated solution.

To learn what areas your peers have seen the highest level of ROI and what challenges they are currently facing within the office of finance, download Trintech’s Global Record to Report Benchmark Report.

Written by: Caleb Walter

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[1] Cadency ROI Study