Digitising your finance function: a process that boosts business development

Over the last ten years, digitalisation has grown rapidly within companies. More and more functions are undergoing a digital transformation. This is particularly true for the corporate finance sector: dematerialisation of payments, digital invoicing, data tracking and analysis, detection and prevention of transfer fraud… Artificial intelligence has profoundly changed the way companies manage their finance functions. So why is it worthwhile for companies to digitalise their financial activities? What are the benefits? What are the risks? And how can you maximize full benefits? Everything in this article.

Why digitalise your company’s finance?

As a reminder, digitisation is a process aimed at transforming an activity or a business into an IT tool to make it more efficient. One example is switching from paper mail to electronic mail. Digitisation is a phenomenon that affects all sectors today. As far as a company’s finance function is concerned, it is proving to be more than effective.

Saving time and boosting productivity

When a company decides to dematerialise and automate its finance function, it is able to save considerable time. Digital technology relieves the finance department of a large number of time-consuming and tiring tasks, such as accounting entry, customer reminders and document archiving. Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the finance sector and related profession. Employees in this sector will be able to reinvent themselves thanks to the time-saving opportunities offered by digital technology. They will be able to devote themselves to other, higher value-added tasks, such as improving company performance, analyzing data, collecting proof of payment, filling in Excel spreadsheets, carrying out budget analysis and, why not, developing new strategic projects.

Strengthening risk management and legal certainty

For employees in charge of corporate finances, one of their main concerns is to ensure that financial risks are properly managed. This task is significant since a simple error in management can have more or less serious consequences. As such, to avoid potential dangers to the business, the finance department has to keep a close eye on unpaid customer bills, maintain good cash flow management and detect the risk of fraud and piracy. These complex tasks associated with corporate finances can be alleviated in part by digital technology. Indeed, certain tools, such as anti-fraud software or automated supplier RIB checks, help reduce the risk of management error, but also prevent threats more effectively and improve regulatory compliance.

Boosting business development

It is a fact: digital technology’s contribution to business development is huge. The automation of certain tasks enables a company to process more data, and in record time. On the financial side, digitalisation is useful for rapidly processing a considerable volume of invoices, for example. This will enable the staff in charge of the finance function to gain better control over disbursement forecasts and payment dates.

On a larger scale, the data collected gives companies a better overview of their business and the market. It also helps to strengthen management’s forecasting and anticipation capabilities. Efficient data processing considerably enhances a company’s competitiveness and promotes its development. Without digitalisation, most companies would miss out on the immense potential of their data.

Digitising the finance function: a practice that still leaves some companies confused

Although digitisation is becoming more and more widely used in business, some companies are still reluctant to use it to manage their finances. According to a study by BearingPoint, the level of digital maturity of the finance function in European companies in 2020 is just 4.9 out of 10. In a Gartner survey, 55% of finance managers claim to be unconvinced by current advances in digitalisation.

To optimise the digitalisation of its finance function, companies need to invest in training for the relevant teams, particularly by deciding to strengthen their data analyst skills. It is also a good idea to choose agile and scalable digital solutions that are adapted to the company’s needs. Not only will this make the teams’ work easier, it will also maximise the benefits of digitalisation.

Good to know:

When you start digitising, it is essential to analyse your needs and dematerialise the most important ones. For example, in the case of a company with a strong marketing dimension, what is likely to take precedence is the digitisation of the purchasing process and marketing expenditure commitments. For a company with more commercial objectives, dematerialising invoicing and expense reports may make sense, while for an industrial company, it will be the raw materials purchasing process.

Contact us!

Where you are a web agency, an e-commerce site, a digital marketing specialist, a start-up, a pure player, etc., outsourcing can be a difficult decision to make, but by entrusting your digitising needs to a reliable service provider recognised for the quality of its services, your company will gain a partner it can rely on to grow and survive in a highly competitive environment.

With decades of experience, ProContact is more than just a contact centre. Thanks to trained, qualified, hand-picked and multilingual agents, we enable the companies that choose us to gain in flexibility and reduce their operating costs, an important factor in the current economic recession.

To find out more about our services, click on our contact form, send us an e-mail or call us on (+33) 1 84 76 24 03.