Are you sending emails for expenditure approvals or invoicing? Do you wish your finance department had more efficient workflows? Are there any manual financial processes that could benefit from automation? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’re in the right place.
In this blog post, we explain the benefits of unified financial management software, including the top features to look for and why we think Workday is the premier platform for businesses today.
Common Finance Department Challenges
If you work in a finance department, you’re probably all too familiar with recurring challenges and frustrations. Some of the most common ones include:
- Lack of an allocation engine
- Creating reports in Excel
- Manually consolidating information across disparate systems
- Lack of standardization for workflows
- Sending emails for expenditure approvals
- Processing invoicing requests through easy-to-lose emails
- Exporting period close documents from separate systems
There is an abundance of manual processes like those mentioned above that could be automated. However, many general ledger (GL) systems, such as QuickBooks, don’t offer much in terms of process management and consolidation tools. But that’s where a unified financial management system — like Workday — can help.
What Are Unified Financial Management Systems?
A unified financial management system is a multi-dimensional reporting tool that handles all data and processes related to finance — banking, cash reconciliation, recording payments, expense reports, and so on.
Traditional legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems typically hold data in one block, which can make it difficult to extract and report the information you need, especially in a timely, efficient manner. A unified financial management system breaks out that data, which means you can easily and quickly access the data you need when you need it.
Core components of a unified financial management system typically include:
- Supplier accounts
- Procurement
- Business assets
- Cash reconciliation
- Making payments out of the system
- Recording payments into the system
Benefits of a Unified Financial Management Software
The goal of unified financial management software is to lessen (or ideally eliminate) all of the previously mentioned challenges financial departments face. Benefits include:
- More visibility
- Risk management
- Flexibility
- Improved, expedited processes and planning
- Ability to partially close a portion of your operation transactions
- Single source of truth rather than maintaining multiple systems
Why Workday: 7 Must-Have Features of Financial Management Software
1. Accurate & Timely Reporting
This is especially important when it comes to the close of the period. By having access to all the modules in the same place, Workday enables you to start and end your close process earlier.
2. The Ability to Automate Manual Processes
Automating as many processes as possible will not only save time but also help reduce costly errors from typos and keystroke mistakes in manual data transformation. Additionally, an investment in Workday can be offset by the salary savings from increased efficiency and reduced menial tasks. Think about it this way: your dollars go further with Workday enabling your employees to spend more of their time on high-value-add tasks.
3. One Unified Platform
Managing data across multiple platforms and systems can be challenging and complicated — not to mention frustrating for employees who may spend unnecessary time trying to find what they need. Workday eliminates inefficiencies and redundancies and saves time and money with its unified platform.
4. All Users of Workday Operate the Same Version of the System
One of the major benefits of Workday is that there is one version, meaning everyone is on the same page when it comes to potential current issues and troubleshooting. This is particularly valuably because Workday continually invests in its technology and regularly releases new functionality (more on this below!). This means you always have the latest of what is available, effectively future-proofing your investment. Plus, you don’t have to worry about trying to find a solution for a piece of software that’s 10 years old.
5. Access to Workday Community for Advice From Peers & Experts Alike
Workday Community is a password-protected resource center that enables users to find answers to issues, questions, error messages, and much more. Whatever you need, you’ll find answers from not only your peers but also certified Workday professionals and consultants. Even more exciting is that registered users within Workday Community can suggest new functionality and vote for its release, allowing users to contribute to the continued advancement of tools available within Workday’s suite of applications.
6. Proven Experience
You want a financial management software company with proven success and years of experience, and Workday fits the bill. The company was founded in 2005 and now more than 70% of Fortune 500 financial service organizations are using Workday. Workday strives to improve upon its services and offerings with a continued dedication to customer service.
7. Expansion Capabilities
It’s a good idea to look for a system that’s always improving its products and services. That way you know you are investing in a platform that will grow with you as your business expands or your needs change.
One of Workday’s core values is innovation. They have continually invested in their software in order to offer clients the best, most comprehensive solutions — and continuously add new features with their bi-annual releases. Even further, Workday continues to expand its offerings. For example, the company acquired Peakon in 2015 and Adaptive Planning in 2018, adding to its already robust set of capabilities.
Deploy Workday Financial Management with TopBloc
Partner with TopBloc to transform your finance and accounting systems and optimize your business with a new Workday application built specifically for your organization’s needs. We have a broad base of experience, with CPAs accounting for more than one-third of our consultants, which means you will have a dedicated deployment team to address your needs and advise on best practices.
One of the unique aspects of TopBloc is that we work 100% on Workday — nothing else. As a preferred Workday partner, we work across industries with both large and medium enterprise firms.
Our SmartLoader tool makes deployments easier and more efficient, and thus more manageable for clients making the transition to Workday. SmartLoader automates processes to alleviate resource constraints inherent to the process of deploying a new financial management system. For instance, the tool automates the conversion of accounting and budget data to Workday and also offers best practice “recipes” for configurations to support specific Workday application setups, streamline processes, and optimize solutions.
Have questions? Ready to get started? Contact us today for more information.
