Digital Transformation in Finance and Accounting

PRIMARY CONTACT: Patrick B. Armknecht CPA, CITP

Our digital transformation solutions are applicable to all industries and business process areas, however, the areas of finance and accounting are a natural place to begin the digital transformation journey. These areas tend to own and manage much of the critical data used to make business decisions.

Because of this, they are often expected to provide senior leadership, management, and other decision-makers across business units with real-time, accurate information used to drive those business decisions.

All too often though, the finance and accounting functions are forced to compete with the demands of other business units also looking to fund and leverage data-driven technologies for their own set of problems.

As a result, it becomes critical for finance and accounting professionals to become advocates for change, convey the value of finance and accounting digital transformation, and explain how that benefits other business units and process areas. Without doing so, they risk falling behind on the digital transformation journey while other business units and even industry competitors get well underway.

Many data-driven technologies can be strategically implemented to benefit both finance and accounting and other business units and functional areas as part of an organization’s digital transformation initiative. Here are just a few examples:

Digital Transformation benefits both finance and accounting

Leveraging data management solutions to integrate systems and consolidate data removes siloed information, improves the flow of data, increases data quality, reduces costs, and promotes standardization. This benefits everyone, having the effect of improved cross-business unit communication, collaboration, data access, sharing and analysis.
Robotic process automation (RPA) has cross-business unit benefits as well. Through its ability to eliminate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, reduce human error, and work 24/7, RPA technologies, or “bots”, can free up personnel across all functional areas to perform value-added tasks that require a human to think creatively, critically, strategically, and collaboratively.
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solutions for comprehensive reporting, planning, and analytics can take advantage of the improved data management and automated processes by providing any business unit and process area with the data that matters to them.

These are just a few examples of how once data-driven technologies like those listed above are implemented, finance and accounting professionals and other business units can collaborate to achieve common goals and objectives. Furthermore, having these technologies supporting optimized business processes allows finance and accounting teams to act as a value-added resource to the business and ensures that these functions are able to properly scale and support the goals and strategy of an organization as they grow. Some of the end-to-end business process areas, and industries, and technologies we specialize in include:

Business Processes:

Financial Close
Financial Reporting
Financial Planning & Analysis
Treasury Management
Market to Order
Hire to Retire

Order to Cash
Procure to Pay
Forecast to Delivery
Plan to Inventory
Fixed Assets
Payroll

Technologies:

Reporting, Planning, & Analytics
Automation and Workflow
Data Management & Integration
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
Infrastructure and Cloud
Compliance & Security

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Digital Transformation Resources

About Schneider Downs Digital Transformation Solutions

Our solutions identify and implement process and technology enhancements that are scalable and enable improved data reliability, productivity and timely reporting and analysis. Through our cross-functional team of risk and technology professionals, we provide insights and assistance in improving the foundational business processes of an organization, and identify and implement technology to further automate and support critical business processes.

For more information contact the team at [email protected] or visit our Digital Transformation page at www.cgicalendars.com/digital-transformation.