Becoming A Next Generation Finance Director

06/07/10

By Neil Robertson, CEO of Compleat Software

The role of the finance manager is fundamentally changing. During the recession, the emphasis has shifted from managing business growth to imposing tighter financial control. But organisations are still hamstrung by manual purchasing processes and a delegation of authority across the business which is making strong cost control hard to achieve.

As Neil Robertson, CEO of Compleat Software, explains, finance management is at last coming of age, and new technology enables forward thinking finance managers to proactively impact the day to day profit and cash performance of the business, benefiting their role and responsibilities and businesses...

...they represent.

Delegating Control

Over the past twenty years, accountants have leveraged technology to systematically improve the financial information available to the business. As the functionality of technology and applications has improved over time, so has the quality and timeliness of the financial information which, in turn, improved the effective management of the business.

However, there remains one last bastion of manual processes that spans the entire organisation and its function could not be more critical and sensitive in the current commercial environment - the way the company spends its cash.

At the heart of the problem is delegation: the responsibility, process and the management of corporate spending has traditionally been delegated out through the board to the business management and staff, leaving the finance team to report historically on what actually happened.

It is the delegation of the maintenance and management of corporate budgets to departmental staff which typically causes overspend; whilst delegating procurement to each department simply creates an ever growing list of suppliers. There are no attempts to achieve best price and significant wasted money. And by delegating the purchase order generation and purchase invoice approval processes across the business, financial managers have absolutely no chance... continued on page two >

 

 

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