21 Sep Why You Should Automate Your Financial Reporting

It doesn’t make sense to continue spending hours compiling data when you could automate that process and use the time you’ve saved to interrogate the data instead. Many Financial Managers are married to their Spreadsheets, however, every second spent compiling data is one moment wasted, one Excel cell at a time. Not to mention the extra couple of minutes you waste searching for the right Excel formula on Google. There are many reasons why you should automate your financial reporting.

Even though we don’t list it on our balance sheets, we are all aware that time is the number one asset for us as individuals and as organizations. Imagine the compounding effect of missed opportunities due to all the human errors and inefficiencies of legacy systems. It’s 2020! You have all the tools you need to improve your efficiency, productivity, cost reduction, and reduce risks.

What are Financial Reports?

Let’s start with the basics. Before we dive into the benefits of automating your financial reporting, we will begin with a High-level explanation of what financial reports are. A company’s financial reports highlight the data of accounts payable in order to get an understanding of the performance of the organization. This is crucial as it assists in the process of planning the company’s budgets.

The pace of business is forever on the rise and unless you are superhuman, even the most astute financial practitioners are finding it difficult to keep up. This is why you need to lighten your load and automate your financial reporting.

Automated financial reports provide comprehensive insight that is drawn from your multiple data sources in order to create these structured reports. Your finance team will then be able to use their time more efficiently and focus on more important tasks. Don’t worry, you still maintain full control over the processing of this data.

How do Automated Financials Save Time?

Speak to any financial manager and they will never dispute how time-consuming it is to generate financial reports manually. For the sake of keeping their job they might not agree but let’s be honest, beyond it being tedious, it’s absolutely boring too. Automate your financial reporting and save yourself some time. Enjoy the power and accuracy of real-time reports in a matter of minutes. Reduce the time required to compile the financial data and spend time interrogating the information instead. Compiling management reports no longer has to be a time-consuming procedure when you have the correct accounting system/automation tools that fulfill all your reporting requirements.

How does financial reporting automation improve efficiency?

What wastes the most time in the process of financial reporting is the time spent gathering the data. With automated financials, gathering data and compiling reports is simplified. Your finance clerks no longer have to dig through dusty file storage rooms looking for old reports when you have access to historical reports and data at your fingertips. Efficiency is the name of the game. With the right business intelligence tools, you have the advantage of visualized dashboards and a streamlined reporting process.

How do automated financial reports reduce costs?

A storeroom full of dusty file cabinets with a forest worth of wasted paper is really not acceptable in a world where we need to be mindful of our impact on the environment. Furthermore, you can save on printing reports on reams of paper. We all know how expensive that can get. One error and you have to do an entire reprint. You also have the added benefit of being able to share the reports with all the relevant stakeholders at the click of a button. No need to still courier the printouts to that shareholder who lives in another province, or even worse, another country. Even better, they too can have the reports readily available at the click of a button. Invest in an integrated ERP solution and enjoy the benefits of streamlined financial statements.

Added security with Automated Financial Reports

There is no disputing that human error is a reality that can’t be avoided with any manual task. Automation cuts that problem outright. However, the most valuable benefit of automation is the reduction of fraud. Since all data can be traced to its original source, this increases transparency and reduces the risk of any person performing any unauthorized or illegal adjustments to the data.

Join the leaders of tomorrow in enjoying the benefits of automated financial reports with Sage 200 Evolution and Sage Intelligence Centre. We can take it a step further by providing you with custom reports such as management packs, cash flow reports, and tax reports tailored to your needs by our esteemed Power Business Analytics team. Unlock the power of automated financial reports today!

How to optimize workflows for your finance department, eliminate month-end woes during the consolidation process. Choose the ideal automation solution and reporting software that eliminates manual data entry, today.