I’ve met with hundreds of CFOs and finance leaders throughout my career. Whether you are a CFO at a startup or a midsized organization, one thing remains the same – your time is valuable.
On average a CFO works between 50 and 60 hours a week. That may include overseeing accounting staff, reviewing finances, payables, payments, expenses, etc., preparing financial reports, budgeting for future endeavors, and of course problem solving – not to mention the hours spent on the phone, responding to emails, and attending meetings. It’s easy to see how the hours quickly add up. According to Gartner research, CFOs are recognizing the need to spend less time in the function, with many aiming to reduce time by 5%. CFOs are reviewing how their time was spent against what was planned to reveal root causes of time slippage.
As a CFO, there are responsibilities that you choose to do and tasks that you must do. Living in and endlessly manipulating Excel worksheets usually fall in the latter category. Whether you are using QuickBooks, Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, etc., to connect to complimentary software (i.e., Salesforce, Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday, HubSpot, etc.,) it usually comes with manual upload or extraction. Even if you are taking advantage of out-of-the-box integrations, it is common to see accounting and finance teams manually processing some data movement between applications because the software publishers’ standard connections do not meet all your requirements. Manual CSV or Excel extractions, transformations, and uploads – and the errors that can result, are seen as unfortunate side effects of being in finance. Can you imagine a world where that doesn’t have to be the case?
Simplify the Connection Between Systems
While DataBlend can’t solve all your Excel problems, the one thing we can do is simplify the connection between your systems. DataBlend’s iPaaS solution allows you to build, manage, and maintain integrations and workflows through a single platform, giving you a single view into all your connections. All this while building digital transformation within the office of finance and accounting.
iPaaS solutions make it simple to integrate your ERP (e.g., Sage Intacct, QuickBooks, Oracle NetSuite) to other applications like your budgeting and planning (e.g., Workday Adaptive or Vena) financial close (e.g., Blackline or Floqast), or CRM (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot, or Sugar CRM) applications. According to Forbes, iPaaS solutions are shaping the ecosystem for three reasons:
(1) the rise of cloud computing
(2) SaaS market explosion
(3) emergence of application programming interfaces (APIs) and the growing API economy.
According to a recent survey completed by PwC, they found that over the next three years – globally 83% of CEOs plan to increase their investment in digital transformation. In the same survey, digital transformation was also top ranked as an expected technology investment.
If you’re thinking – “it’s okay, I don’t need another system for something that takes me one-to-two hours a week to do,” well let’s break it down to see what that really costs.
The Cost of Manual Extractions, Transformations, and Uploads
For argument’s sake, if you’re a CFO in the Massachusetts area, where DataBlend is located, the median salary (according to Salary.com) is $430,525 a year, however to be conservative, and possibly more realistic, we are going to say that a CFO makes $250,000 a year. That breaks down to $125 an hour. From a cost perspective, if you spent an hour every week on extracting, manipulating/transforming, and uploading data that costs $6,500 a year. Let’s pretend that it involves a lot of manipulation every week and it takes two hours, that’s a grand total of
$13,000. That’s a lot of money. Even if you gave it to your Assistant Controller, who makes (again we’ll be conservative) an estimated $90,000 a year, that’s $2,340 for o
ne hour of work or $4,680 for two hours of work every year. That’s still a lot of money. Heck, a Finance Director making a conservative figure of $120,000 a year – would be $3,120 for an hour a week and $6,240 for two hours of work a week. Now, that’s just assuming you are extracting, transforming, and uploading for one connection – let’s multiply that by three and you are looking at costs between $2,340 and $13,000 a year. This could be even more costly if human error comes into play – even the most careful finance leaders make the occasional Excel error. How many Excel errors have you made over your career? Did you catch them right away, or did they sneak up on you when you least expected it? Having to go back and redo work is a nightmare – and the time wasted is a tragedy.
Automation is the New Easy Button
Automation is a cornerstone component in iPaaS and plays a significant role in digital transformation within the office of finance and accounting. In the survey from PwC, they found that 36% of CEOs are focused on productivity through automation and technology, which is a 124% increase compared to 2016. Digital acceleration has been in hyperdrive since COVID began. Nearly half of CEOs plan increases of 10% or more in their long-term investment in digital transformation. Automation is a huge benefit to adopting an iPaaS solution. Circling back to the cost of time, when you automate you save time – thus save money. The return on investment of implementing a finance iPaaS solution, such as DataBlend, becomes an easy YES.
It’s more than just money. It is your time.
The cost is more than just money – it is time. Your time is extremely valuable. Think about how you spend your time. Wouldn’t you be more efficient and productive when you could rely on good quality data? When you have great data, you can do more. If you were given back 8 to 10 hours a week, what would you do? Personally, I’d have more strategic capacity and be able to spend more time focusing on the business than in it, coaching employees, speaking to customers, and building and nurturing partnerships.
For the office of the CFO, a common use case of an IPaaS such as DataBlend is automating the flow of data from an ERP like Sage Intacct to an FP&A software. FP&A encompasses budgeting for future periods, timely projections/forecasts, dashboarding, board reporting, data visualization and much more. The ability to have timely and accurate information available to report on and analyze is paramount for the success of any organization. We are living through a time of economic uncertainty and have experienced firsthand how quickly the world can change with the movement to a remote workforce and changes to how our customers find and purchase products. A seamless flow of data to provide key stakeholders visibility into the financial health of an organization is as important as it ever has been. A CFO and their team require up to date financial reporting to make informed and nimble decisions to navigate these uncertain times.
Imagine what you, or your Assistant Controller (or albeit, Finance Director), can be doing with that time? For instance, that’s 52-104 hours you can get back. That’s an extra week or two of vacation! Or that’s tackling a large project that has been getting pushed aside. It could also be a much-needed date night with your partner, or family time to watch your daughter’s softball game. Precious moments are priceless. The one thing that COVID has taught me is to not waste time. Take control of your work-life – get back moments that truly count and focus in on the projects that bring the biggest ROI or the projects that you are most passionate about.
At DataBlend, our focus is serving the needs of CFOs, controllers, and financial planning and analysis (budgeting) professionals as they look to streamline processes, speed up closes, and increase confidence in reporting. Our turnkey, concierge service delivers fast, reliable, and secure integrations between your everyday applications without burdening your internal IT resources. If your organization is interested in learning more about how we can help you transform your accounting and financial office, contact us today.