Finance teams are often so focused on managing outdated software or fragmented systems that they rarely pause to reflect. Is their current setup still meeting their needs effectively?
With constant pressure to hit business targets and manage overwhelming workloads, teams can lack the time and space to assess their needs. On top of that, there’s often hesitation to switch platforms due to the perceived time and cost involved. Despite this, 57% of finance leaders have considered switching to a more cost-effective provider in the past year.
As a result, finance teams may not realise when their software has shifted from being a helpful tool to a barrier to growth.
But in a market where technology plays a crucial role in meeting the expectations of modern finance leaders, CFOs must evaluate their systems and find solutions tailored to their organisation’s size and needs.
How much is ‘too much’? Avoiding tech bloat with financial systems
When a company grows in size, incorporating more entities and entering different locations or markets, its accounting needs become far more complex. There are more employees, departments, transactions, regulations, currencies and business goals to account for. Therefore, the expanding business needs to switch to a new financial management system (FMS) to manage all of these needs.
If the scaling business adopts the new FMS and it’s not the right fit, two things can happen. The first is that the implementation of the new FMS turns into a costly and drawn-out process: there is little time for training and too many enterprise-level features for their size. The second is that, because of this complexity or lack of integration with existing key systems, processes become laboured and it ends up using a range of disparate systems for different tasks – an accumulation known as ‘tech bloat’.
Therefore, not only should finance leaders recognise when they have outgrown their software, but they also need to spot the true impact of costly and complex systems on their finance teams and the wider business.
Here are three ways you can spot whether your finance software is holding you back.
1. You’re experiencing slow data processing and limited insights
As businesses scale, the number of entry and exit points for data will naturally increase. Finance teams need to process more transactions and report on a greater number of factors like multiple entities and locations in a streamlined way – something overcomplicated software can hinder, both in terms of processes and time. Consequently, data processing slows down and becomes more complex.
A key reason for slower processes is having to form manual workarounds for tasks that could be automated. If your finance software has problems integrating with other business systems like CRM, payroll or expenses, for example, then finance teams have to manually rekey data from one system into another. This is not only a time-consuming process but increases the likelihood of errors and, crucially, inhibits real-time data visibility across the organisation.
This is a persistent challenge. Our survey of CFOs last year showed that 86% feel decisions about financial strategy occur without sufficient insights – and that the problem increases as companies grow. But with today’s automation technology and API connectivity, there’s simply no need for this to happen.
2. Your software has too many capabilities for your needs
The flip side is that, in an attempt to meet your growing needs, you’ve ended up with ERP software that offers functionality and complexity you don’t need with hefty costs to match. What’s more, these bigger and more complicated packages also take longer to implement, taking up valuable resources and adding significant stress on the team to boot.
Gartner revealed a startling statistic that “by 2027, more than 70% of recently implemented ERP initiatives will fail to fully meet their original business use case goals”, adding that “as many as 25% of these will fail catastrophically”.
Just as a lack of capabilities can lead to frustration, too many features can trigger information overload, with finance teams struggling to get to grips with what they can use for various tasks. Mid-sized companies, for example, won’t require all the capabilities an ERP system provides – and its complex implementation can impact their team’s work.
Imperatively, the costs of an FMS or ERP can vary significantly, both for their implementation and ongoing use. Some providers will charge you only for the features you use, whereas others will include ‘everything’ as part of one package, meaning you’re sending money down the drain for supplementary services you don’t use.
Many will also harbour ‘hidden’ costs such as fees for third party support, price hikes for the same features, or subscription to AI packages without the possibility of opting out. All of this can throw teams off budget.
3. Your finance team is feeling overworked, stressed and unable to enjoy a good work-life balance
Technology should be there to make processes easier and free up time for finance professionals to focus on value-adding activities. So, if your finance team is bogged down in time-consuming admin tasks, overwhelmed by work-related stress or missing out on personal commitments for work, consider whether your software is causing this work-life imbalance – either because you have outgrown its capabilities or it is overcomplicating workflows.
Of course, this rings true for CFOs too. Another highlight from our survey was that the vast majority (85%) of finance leaders felt they needed a six-day work week to manage their ever-growing workload. A prime reason for this was not having adequate data insights to make effective decisions, especially as the role of the CFO evolves to focus on making a broader business impact.
Therefore, this increases the need to enhance financial performance by automating processes and achieving better financial visibility.
Setting your growth ambitions free
Different software providers will offer various features either more or less aligned to your specific requirements. By determining the wider business’s requirements and how software can connect to your existing infrastructure, you can benchmark different platforms and understand what features are necessary and beneficial.
The right platform will allow you and your finance teams to make optimal use of the software’s functionalities for great business value and cost. Once you have this solution in place, the benefits will be numerous: your team can work faster, more efficiently and live better due to reduced stress and an improved work-life balance.
James Hunter , Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at AccountsIQ
James Hunter is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at AccountsIQ, a provider of cloud-based accounting software.
