In this competitive global economy that holds lots of opportunities and threats at the same time, it has become crucial for organizations to respond actively to these. These responses have to be accurate and timely. For such accuracies, the managers just can’t wait for the threats to come and then start preparing, but have to be ready and well-informed about their company’s current performance and position in order to respond to the unpredictable challenges.

The most important department of a company that can help the stakeholders stay updated with company’s performance is the finance department. The challenges to cater enterprise-wide visibility, an accurate analysis and almost real-time reporting have kept them on the edge to ameliorate. Several finance professionals in different companies believe in concealing the financial data from the rest professionals working in the same company. This is obvious because these data are the most critical data of the company. But one cannot gainsay the fact that if the reports and insights are shared in a constructive way, it can be enormously helpful to other members of the company.

Role of finance professionals is very critical as there is no room for inaccuracies. Either the books are balanced perfectly, or the data is wrong. From paying taxes, recording the expenses, to recognizing the revenue! Every little transaction needs to be recorded in the ledgers and forwarded to the balance sheet accurately. All these records don’t only help in calculating company’s revenue but also help make estimates about its growth. When shared the data smartly, many other members of the organization can benefit from them as well. This can’t be done single handedly and needs to be shared in an organized manner through integrating the whole data and customizing its sharing capability according to the requirement of the members. Let’s have a closer look on the importance of integrating accounting data and how it can benefit different members of the organization.

1.    Sales Representatives: Through the finance data, the sales reps can easily get the updates on payment of invoices. This will help them know when a customer made the payment and that the deal has finally been closed. Secondly, the sales reps can also keep a track of their sales through accounting tools integrated with their company’s CRM. They can create objects like invoices or subscriptions, opportunities and other financial entries that are carried out through their sales channel. This will reduce the burden of the finance team and at the same time keep the revenues balanced.

Another important data is the data derived from inventory management. It helps the sales reps to keep know-how of the inventory available for sale.

2.    Account Managers: Account managers’ responsibility is to keep their customers satisfied and happy, ingeminate business and customer retention. Financial data in this light is essential in order to keep a track what’s the customer’s current situation, i.e. if the customer has made the payment or not, if the subscription has been renewed, etc. An integrated accounting system will give an upper hand to the Account Managers to stay updated with regards to their customers’ financial activities in the company.

 3. Operations and Support representatives: Operations and support are difficult roles. They can certainly benefit from being a part of the finance team by staying updated with a customer’s financial activities. Not just that, they can also play an important role in assisting the account managers and the sales reps.

It’s a prerequisite for growing organizations to integrate accounting systems in order to standardize the procedures for entering transactions and disseminating the organizations’ financial information. Adoption of an integrated financial system is a necessity for companies because the complexities have grown with the modern method of operations. But companies should make sure that they select the right accounting system that is user-friendly, affordable, flexible and updated.

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