In this report, Dion Hinchcliffe, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research outlines a guide to develop an effective digital transformation (DX) plan for the office of the mid-market CFO. Discover how intelligent automation tools build a strong finance growth engine, powered by data analytics to accelerate decision-making and aid revenue growth.
This report explores the capabilities and technologies required to fully rethink, digitize, and automate the finance function more effectively than is possible with piecemeal or incremental approaches, yet largely without the risks of big-bang IT projects that have attempted this before.
Chapter
01
The Digital Transformation Of Finance
Proactive chief financial officers (CFOs) today must give serious consideration and devote appropriate resources to proper digital transformation of their operating model within the finance organization. The overwhelming majority of CFOs today—86% 1—now view the digitization of financial processes such as accounts receivable/accounts payable systems as central to improving customer satisfaction, customer retention, and revenue generation.
As a result of this need to rethink business operations, it’s clear that adopting automation and digitization is not only the new normal, but is essential. In other words, it’s a must-have to build companywide resiliency and long-term sustainability. This accelerated path to digital transformation also helps to better connect the Office of the CFO with the overall organization to not just thrive effectively but also to guide the organization into the future. For these reasons, CFOs must now play a more strategic role by guiding critical business decisions.
One of the main challenges the Office of the CFO faces is that finance data typically is relegated to traditional systems such as accounting and budgeting systems and spreadsheets. Even when there is no future-looking financial transformation plan in place, manual processes create major roadblocks around the order-to-cash (O2C) and record-to-report (R2R) process. This leaves data that’s not accessible to members of the wider organization who may need visibility into that data to make strategic decisions effectively. However, with digital O2C processes in place, the process of turning orders into cash typically costs 56% less,2 a figure that rises the smaller a business is, due to fixed minimum overhead of accounts receivable.
HighRadius Integrated Receivables Software Platform is the world's only end-to-end accounts receivable software platform to lower DSO and bad-debt, automate cash posting, speed-up collections, and dispute resolution, and improve team productivity. It leverages RivanaTM Artificial Intelligence for Accounts Receivable to convert receivables faster and more effectively by using machine learning for accurate decision making across both credit and receivable processes and also enables suppliers to digitally connect with buyers via the radiusOneTM network, closing the loop from the supplier accounts receivable process to the buyer accounts payable process. Integrated Receivables have been divided into 6 distinct applications: Credit Software, EIPP Software, Cash Application Software, Deductions Software, Collections Software, and ERP Payment Gateway - covering the entire gamut of credit-to-cash.
