News & Insights

“Why is our controller still rebuilding the same spreadsheet every month when the company pays for sophisticated accounting software?” 

We hear some version of this question from small and midsize businesses every week. An invoice still gets emailed for approval. Customer information gets entered into a system twice. Month-end depends on a file only one person really understands. 

Individually, these workarounds may seem minor. But when they happen every week across approvals, invoicing, reporting and month-end close, teams spends more time moving information around and less time using it to help the business make decisions. 

That’s why finance modernization doesn’t always start with new software. For many businesses, the best first project is fixing one recurring task that keeps eating up somebody’s time. 

Start with the work people repeat 

Take accounts payable, for example. An invoice arrives as a PDF, gets entered into the accounting system, and then emailed to a manager for approval. The manager misses it while traveling. A few days later, the vendor calls, and finance starts digging through email to find out where the invoice stalled. 

What we often see is a handoff problem hiding inside a technology complaint. Fixing that handoff gives finance one place to see what’s waiting and gives the manager one place to respond. 

The same test works elsewhere. If someone is entering information another employee has already entered somewhere else, that’s a good place to look for the next process to fix.

Fix the handoffs that slow finance down 

Suppose that sales closes a new customer in the CRM. Finance gets the details by email and enters the customer again in the accounting system. One wrong billing address delays the first invoice, and now two departments are trying to figure out which record is correct.  

A cleaner connection between those systems removes a step people shouldn’t have to repeat. Sometimes that means an integration. Other times, the systems already have the capability and the process between them needs to change. 

That distinction matters. Modernization isn’t about adding technology wherever there’s friction. It’s about removing the friction with the simplest solution that works. 

Look at the close before buying another dashboard 

Many of our clients want faster reporting, so we look at what’s holding up the close first. 

Say the controller wants the books closed by the tenth business day. Day eight arrives with a bank reconciliation unfinished because the same information still has to be pulled from several places. Ownership is waiting for the monthly package. 

A new dashboard will still be waiting on those numbers. 

Start with the step that keeps delaying the close. Maybe a recurring entry is still being prepared by hand every month. Or maybe bank activity has to be downloaded before anyone can reconcile it. Or maybe the technology is fine, but nobody clearly owns the task. 

Fixing the bottleneck may do more for reporting speed than adding another reporting tool.

Know when the accounting system has reached its limit 

Sometimes the day-to-day process improves but the platform’s still holding the team back. 

A business adds a second entity, and the controller starts maintaining a consolidation workbook every month. A reporting request that once took ten minutes now takes an hour. Approvals still depend on someone being at a particular computer in the office. 

Those are good reasons to review the accounting platform itself. 

Cloud financial management systems such as Sage Intacct and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central give growing businesses more options for workflow automation and connected reporting. But more capability isn’t automatically better. The useful question is whether a new platform removes the constraints that are actually slowing the finance team down. 

Ask the people doing the work 

If you’re unsure where to begin, ask your finance team one question: 

What task would you stop doing by hand tomorrow if you could? 

Most teams have an answer. Maybe it’s rebuilding the same monthly spreadsheet. Maybe it’s chasing approvals. Or maybe it is entering customer information twice. 

That answer is often a better starting point for finance modernization than a list of new software features. 

Modernization doesn’t have to begin with a major system implementation. It can begin with the spreadsheet everyone hates rebuilding, the approval everyone keeps chasing or the information someone keeps entering twice. 

Find that task first. Then decide whether the answer is a better process, a connection between systems or a different platform. 

Not sure which finance process to fix first?

Maner Costerisan’s Lansing and Grand Rapids teams help small and midsize businesses identify where manual work and disconnected systems are slowing finance down. We can help determine whether the right next step is a better workflow, an integration or a new accounting platform, and help your team put that solution into practice.