Accounting and Financial Management
As an organization grows, it needs to effectively govern, manage and track its income, expenses and assets with an aim to ensure profitability and sustainability of the company. Accounting and Financial Management systems are designed for storing, reporting and managing the various financial transactions that occur in the organization.
An effective Accounting and Financial Management system can help in boosting short term business growth as well as ensuring long term viability of the company. It can also eliminate human errors and create an audit trail which will also help to address tax and accounting regulations.
What are an Accounting and Financial Management system?
An Accounting and Financial Management system is an end-to-end technology solution that addresses all the financial needs of a growing business, from basic functions such as tracking payments, receivables and expenses to handling taxation and accounting along with providing support for decision making and compliance.
Financial Management software can also help in building transparency, integrity and efficiency in the organization. Business leaders can be empowered by providing them access to relevant financial metrics and helping them make relevant and timely decisions. Most importantly, organizations can be compliance ready at all times.
What does an Accounting and Financial Management system do?
Growing organizations need an ecosystem beyond just recording payments, receivables and expenses. They need a technology solution that would make invoicing easier, help reduce errors and optimize cash flow on a regular basis.
An efficient Accounting and Financial Management can improve budgeting and forecasting, and streamline planning on a strategic as well as tactical level. It can also ensure compliances with national and international accounting standards. As these standards evolve and regulations change frequently, integration with a technology solution ensures that organizations are compliant at all times.
Integrated closely with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Accounting and Financial Management systems also ensure that the financial data aligns with business processes across divisions and teams. Further, with strict internal controls and security, it ensures that only finance and business leaders have access to the confidential information, that too on a need-to-know basis.
Functional areas of Accounting and Financial Management systems
- Finance and Accounting: These systems provide complete finance and accounting support for a company’s needs, streamlining all finance-related processes. They are also compliant with requirements such as ASC 606, GAAP, SOX, and so on.
- Financial Planning and Budgeting: Comprehensive solutions that provide support for several modeling scenarios ensure that budgeting and projections are carried out seamlessly.
- Invoicing and order management: A key extension of the accounting system, invoicing, billing and payments are well-integrated into the system that improves transparency and eliminates human errors.
- Employee expense management: Tracking employee expenses at individual, project and team levels is an important feature that ensures timely processing of claims as well as the profitability of projects.
- Risk Management: With built-in safety, anti-theft and anti-fraud controls, these systems also provide protection to organizations.
Reporting and Analytics: Moving beyond automated reports, business leaders can now customize and build real-time financial models across different scenarios that help them in the decision making process.
Trends and Industry Needs
- Cloud Accounting: The future of accounting for all businesses, cloud accounting provides simple interfaces and mobility to users, connecting business managers across geographies, which is extremely important in today’s globally connected world.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Blockchain: These technology disruptions are going to dominate the trends in this industry and are fast replacing traditional accounting by reducing redundancy in the system.
Increasing focus on cybersecurity: There will be an increased focus not only on ethical accounting procedures but also on data control and security in the foreseeable future. As regulations tighten, technology solutions will be forced to evolve to keep pace with past and future compliance situations.
Top Accounting and Financial Management software vendors
- Netsuite: Netsuite, which has been acquired by Oracle, is one of the most popular platforms that help to unify all accounting, finance and order management practices. Popular amongst the mid and large-sized industries, Netsuite helps in building efficiencies and improves decision making for leadership.
- Quickbook: Simple, agile and popular amongst small business, Quickbooks is popular for its ease of use and smart interface.
Zoho Books: Another popular cloud-based software, Zoho Books provides you a 360-degree view of the cash flow along with order management and easy integration into ERPs.