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5 Tips for Using BPA Software to Support Effective Finance Teams
Often, people hear “automation” and think that it’s going to replace people. But business process automation (BPA) software has a different purpose. This type of automation helps employees do their jobs more effectively.
In financial departments, using BPA software can help CFOs strengthen their finance teams. Cloud-based automation software provides the tools needed to make finance departments run more smoothly. They’re also user-friendly, supporting employees and making their jobs easier.
1) Remove Silos
According to Plainview (as quoted on CFO.com), communication silos cost North American companies more than 350 hours per year. If the finance team can’t collaborate and communicate easily, then the team structure is forcing them to waste time. Part of the solution involves creating a company culture that encourages collaboration and communication rather than an “every man for himself” approach. It also helps if you automate the finance departments using BPA software that supports collaborative work and good communication.
With NextProcess’s cloud-based BPA software, everyone on the finance team gets to work with the same software platform. Our software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution makes it easy to collaborate. Everyone using the software logs on to the same online platform, and it updates in real-time so everyone can see the most up-to-date information available.
For example, if several team members are working on a capital project, the CapEx management software module makes it easy to store all the communications, records, documents, and plans associated with that project in a centralized location so everyone can work on it together. Internal communication tools make it simple for team members to collaborate, and to look back on past communications.
2) Streamline and Standardize Workflows
It’s important to get your team on the same page for how to do different finance tasks. In part, this is important to ensure compliance with external regulations and internal policies. Establishing standard practices helps finance teams ensure compliance that’s vital to company success.
A streamlined and standardized workflow also helps eliminate inefficiencies. If people format purchase orders differently, then some POs might be missing important information and be difficult to match with invoices. If several people maintain separate spreadsheet files with conflicting or incomplete records, reconciling them can be time-consuming and frustrating. Conflicts and inconsistencies take time to resolve and make training new hires more difficult.
Automation software provides tools that will help your company establish standard workflows. When implementing new software, you can customize it to match your company’s exact needs and automate regulation compliance. Once everyone is using the same software system, there shouldn’t be any conflicting files or procedures. That’s especially true when you use cloud-based BPA that updates in real-time and centralizes financial processing.
3) Automate Routine Tasks
Doing routine, repetitive tasks manually can bog down workflows and keep employees super busy. Too much of this sort of work (e.g. data entry, routine PO and invoice matching, etc.) can make it hard to keep up with everything. Overwhelmed employees can fall behind on processing, leading to issues like late payments. Plus, there’s always the risk of human error when doing tasks like manual data entry. Some studies show that 90% of business spreadsheets contain errors.
Automation software can take over routine tasks and do them more efficiently than people can. With data entry, for example, NextProcess software uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and data indexing technology to capture all the information in the document (text, barcodes, etc.) as well as metadata related to document submission (date received, user who submitted, etc.).
When automation software takes over repetitive, mundane tasks, it can also improve employee morale. Most people don’t like to do the same tasks over and over, especially if the task feels like it’s not adding value to the company. With automation doing the boring tasks, employees can focus on more interesting, value-added jobs.
4) Create Checks and Balances
Finance professionals agree that it’s not a good idea for one person to be in charge of all the steps of a financial process. For example, the same person shouldn’t be receiving invoices, matching them to POs, approving the purchase, and issuing payments without someone else checking their work. A system of checks and balances is more likely to catch errors and help prevent fraud.
Establishing checks and balances requires a human touch, but it’s much easier when facilitated by cloud-based BPA software. With financial workflows centralized, standardized, and streamlined by a system that automatically keeps meticulous records, it’s very easy for members of the finance team to work together on tasks and check each other’s work.
When you implement software with NextProcess, we’ll help you customize the software to your company. For example, with AP automation software, you can set up automatic processing and payment for certain conditions (e.g. invoices that match the PO exactly and are under a certain amount). For invoices and payments that aren’t auto-processed, you set who to route the invoices to at each stage, who to send approval notifications, and how the payments are processed. You can even outsource payments to segregate duties and speed up processing.
5) Choose User-Friendly Software
The last thing you want to do when implementing new technology to support finance teams is create more problems. If the new system is difficult to work with, it can make processing less efficient than it was before. This is another reason that SaaS solutions are a great option for process automation. They’re easy to use, and once you learn how to use one module it’s easy to learn another from the same supplier (just like it’s easier to learn Microsoft PowerPoint if you already know how to use Word).
When automating financial processes, you have a lot of software options to choose from. But if your main goal is to support a more efficient financial team across departments, you’ll want to choose a software solution that will work with existing ERPs, seamlessly integrate across departments, and be easy for your teams to work with.
NextProcess offers a true end-to-end solution with user-friendly modules to power your capital project management, procurement & purchase orders, accounts payable, travel & expense, and payment disbursements. To learn more and see our software in action, contact us to schedule a free demo.
