Microsoft Dynamics 365

Article Dean Dorton

In the era of digital transformation, there’s no doubt that more and more companies are turning to the cloud as they continue to scale. Technology and cloud-based systems are the next big global trend- so are you prepared to join the journey?

Join Philip Massey, Director of Software Consulting Services at Dean Dorton for a high-level overview of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central platform- the new, up-and-coming path for current Dynamics GP users.

Anyone who plays a financial management role in their organization including (but not limited to):

  • CFOs/COOs/Controllers
  • VPs and Directors of Finance
  • Accountants, Bookkeepers, Office Managers
  • Presidents, Executive Directors

Resources:

Article Dean Dorton

This blog was reposted from our partner, AvidXchange.

We all know that the accounts payable process isn’t a straight and narrow path. Several small steps can make a big difference when it comes to paying vendors on time—invoice entry, approvals, and handling different payment methods. These steps aren’t all that simple, especially with paper.

Paper is the reason for most problems plaguing finance departments. Common obstacles that stem from paper include hours of manual labor, errors, and fraud risks that could cost your business thousands of dollars. The time and money spent solving these problems are one of the many reasons why finance decision-makers are considering a paperless accounts payable process—AP automation solutions.

Currently, there’s a lot of buzz around finance departments transforming from paper to paperless accounts payable processes. They want to reduce the time spent on manual tasks and streamline the process without missing critical steps. Businesses want flexibility, visibility, and security when paying vendors, which just isn’t possible with paper.

If your finance staff is facing any of the typical payment problems, we have four simple solutions to ease the pain:

4 accounts payable problems and reasons to seek a paperless AC process

1) Your paper-based accounts payable process makes it impossible to improve long-term strategies and visibility.

Even though paper-based accounts payable processes and strategies may be working just fine for your finance department, they’re not the best. Storing invoices, receipts, and vendor information in a file cabinet makes it nearly impossible to predict financial problems or opportunities accurately. Chances are if you’re analyzing payment data with piles of paper and Excel files, there’s a high chance of errors and limited visibility into ineffective spend or vendor costs over time. Not to mention the amount of time spent analyzing information, rummaging through file cabinets, and looking for lost printed invoices and vendor records.

With a paperless accounts payable process, finance leaders have easy access to historical payment information and customized reports to make well-informed decisions without paper or manual labor. The AP staff has all information needed for audits, tax season, and month-end closing, all in one cloud-based SaaS. AP automation’s increased level of visibility helps finance leaders stay ahead of potential overspend based on payment history.

2) You’ve established poor vendor relationships thanks to problems with paper.

Let’s face it: vendors dread calling your accounts payable department to checking on invoices or payment statuses. The reality is, that they just want their payments on time. AP specialists waste hours combing through piles of paper to answer these emails and phone calls from vendors.

Paper-based accounts payable processes often lead to late payments. Late payments and lack of communication often lead to poor vendor relationships. From a supplier’s point of view, they’re counting on your business’ payments from their sales to avoid debt and effectively manage their budgets just like your business. With paper-based accounts payable processes, it’s nearly impossible to provide vendors with real-time updates and visibility into your finance department’s accounts payable process.

The best solution to keep the supplier happy is a paperless AP process. AP automation solutions allow companies to log in to the supplier portal to get real-time updates on each invoice and view payment history without phone calls and emails. Many AP automation solutions also have the option to pay vendors in batches when using electronic payments. There’s also less worry about managing different payment types. For example, the AvidPay Network handles the heavy lifting of contacting vendors to verify payment types to save your finance department time and money.

3) You’re stuck in the Stone Age of paying with paper checks.

Why are businesses still clinging to the Stone Age with paper checks? For most finance departments, it’s convenience and cost savings. However, organizations that use paper processes often have to rely on internal processes to double check for fraud, but that’s not enough. Finance departments that stick to paper run the risk of duplicate invoices which can lead to duplicate payments. Or even worse, they may mail a paper check to a scammer who sent a fake invoice.

4) Your finance department is spending more than expected on payment processing.

Most finance leaders don’t invest in AP automation solutions because they’re afraid that they won’t see a return on the investment. There’s the common misperception that AP automation solutions are for larger businesses that have high payment volume. So, naturally, these companies stick to paper-based accounts payable processes that don’t seem to cost as much money, but in fact, paper processes cost more. On average, companies are paying $22 to process a single paper invoice. According to Due.com, some companies are spending as much as $40. If your company handles at least 500 invoices per month, you may be spending as much as $11,000 to process your payables.

Paper checks also have high costs. According to PYMNTS.com, processing one check can cost your business almost $10. That doesn’t include manual labor costs and hours spent. Multiplying these costs by the number of payments received each month can add up quickly. On the other hand, AP automation solutions cut accounts payable costs by as much as 60 percent for many businesses.

Article Dean Dorton

Repost from our partner, Nexonia

You may be surprised to learn that 49 percent of companies still rely on a manual expense management process. This data point comes from the recently-released 2018 Expense Management Trends Report by Certify, Inc.

Since 2013, the Expense Management Trends Report has helped organizations of all sizes stay informed of industry trends and best practices from their peers across North America. Nexonia is part of the Certify, Inc. Family of Brands—and this year’s report offers valuable insights into the industry.

Manual methods sticking around

Enterprise companies are leading the way in adopting technology according to the report, with 39 percent of companies surveyed using a web-based expense solution, and 32 percent relying on an ERP or accounting package for expense management. These companies are seeing the value in automating timely manual processes—letting their employees focus on other value-added activities.

Surprisingly, 11 percent of enterprise companies surveyed are still using a manual process. (A manual process is defined here as any process that uses Excel spreadsheets, pen and paper, homegrown systems, or any combination thereof.) At a company of this size, the risk and lack of spend visibility would likely make a CFO’s head spin. And without having visibility into expenses, the finance team is left in the dark when strategizing for the years ahead or negotiating better contracts with vendors today.

Biggest pains stay consistent

Expense management pains haven’t evolved much since Certify launched the survey in 2013.  For the 2018 report, Certify collected and analyzed responses from 546 CFOs, controllers, and other finance professionals outside its customer base to offer a snapshot of the industry, and where it may be headed. With technology becoming so ingrained in our lives, some readers may find it shocking that so many moments of struggle persist in the world of finance.

The biggest pain points for finance teams were losing receipts or submitting reports without a receipt, tying employees failing to submit reports on time cited by 50 percent of respondents. It’s easy to see why finance teams would be frustrated with a minor task holding up reimbursements and accurate reporting—yet this pain persists.

Time spent reconciling, reviewing, and approving reports was the second biggest pain, cited by 31 percent of respondents. With the average number of expense reports being 25-50 percent of the full-time employee workforce, manually reviewing and approving expense reports is a business activity that needs a streamlined process.

Another long-standing pressure on finance teams were errors on expense reports, with 30 percent of respondents citing this ongoing issue. Considering that employees should be submitting completed reports on-time and within policy, finance teams certainly want to spend less time “expense policing” and more time on strategy.

Leading pressures and top areas for improvement

Top organizational pressures on finance teams have stayed consistent with previous years. The top pressure driving organizations to improve T&E management was the need to reduce expense reporting costs cited by 27 percent of respondents. Improving the expense management process was cited by 34 percent of respondents as the most critical to improve in 2018.

Poor visibility into travel and expenses was the second biggest pressure (26 percent) driving change with finance teams across North America. Without finance teams having complete visibility into T&E spend, they can’t make informed strategic decisions that will help move the organization towards their goals. With the right integrations, an automated expense solution can provide nearly real-time expense data finance teams can budget against with confidence.

Travel booking was the third biggest area for improvement in 2018. Interestingly, according to the 2018 survey, 90 percent of companies had a travel policy in place, but only two percent of companies used technology to enforce policy—putting the company at a huge risk for overspending with manual policy checks or employee enforcement.

Having business travelers booking itineraries with any number of online services leaves a company at risk for overspending. With a travel book solution that is friendly for employees, travel managers, and everyone in between, you can provide a foundation for self-service bookings that fit within company policy and budget.

If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about Nexonia, contact us today!

Article Dean Dorton

2019 Success Recipe: 5 Ingredients to Prep Your Finance Team for Scalability

The end of the year is an excellent time for companies to get prepped to grow their business in 2019. The finance team, too, must be able to support their company’s ability to scale. Doing so requires finance to have easy visibility into real-time metrics, get information from multiple sources, keep their chart of accounts manageable—and have the flexibility and security to scale with confidence.

As the new year is right around the corner, your organization may be considering new financial management systems that can scale with the company’s projected growth. For example, a cloud-based system like Sage Intacct has all the ingredients that CFOs, controllers, and the rest of the finance team need to meet the increasing demands of a growing company:

Dashboards help you get reliable, timely metrics in front of the board of directors and provide the context and details needed to align on key decisions. For instance, performance cards, which are summaries pulled from account groups, are far more than groups of financial accounts. They can also summarize operational information, such as the number of employees or billable hours. Account groups can also be calculations, like revenue per billable hour and can be filtered just to show a particular location, department, or other dimensions. And charts and reports help show and explain financials to the board. Each visualization tells a big-picture story, while still allowing finance to drill into the report and transactional details behind the chart.

Best-of-breed integration with multiple systems. Cloud financial management software was built to “talk” to your other best-in-class systems with automated two-way, system-to-system communication. Web services API eliminates the need for business logic, and you have the flexibility to tailor your connections to your specific workflow processes. What’s more, you can connect the software to with any application you have—from proprietary custom applications or popular business systems like Salesforce CRM. This seamless integration serves as a foundation for adding new applications as you grow.

Dimensions to minimize the chart of accounts. Most financial solutions use a hard-coded structure for your chart of accounts. Say you want to track 3 locations, 5 departments, and 5 projects—you’d need 75 account code combinations. Plus, you’d end up with a complicated, unmanageable set of codes. Want to add a new location or department? You might be forced to add hundreds of additional accounts. Cloud financial management software lets you keep it simple with dimensions—all you have to do is set up your primary account codes. Dimensions also offer a new way to track and report on financial and operational data. You get quick access to insights that speed decision-making and help drive growth.

Reporting Flexibility. A cloud-based accounting infrastructure provides greater flexibility to your finance team. Whether you have staff working offsite, operate in multiple locations and entities, or have team members on the road, mobility and remote access are a requirement for efficiency and productivity. The ability to share data—anytime, anywhere—greatly improves your efficiency by providing real-time insight so you can take smarter action sooner. With the mobility capabilities of cloud computing, your internal and external stakeholders have full access to metrics, approvals, and financial reports—regardless of location.

Security. Major cloud providers have made extensive investments in deploying superior technology, processes, and initiatives to achieve extremely high levels of data security. Your company can benefit from levels of privacy and security that far exceed what on-premises solutions offer. That’s because cloud providers of financial management software can support millions of users to create more secure environments that incorporate the latest standards and controls for physical access.

Ready to scale and grow in 2019?

Cloud financial management software from Sage Intacct has the features, flexibility, and security—in other words, all the ingredients—that finance needs to scale the business into 2019 and beyond. The business technology experts from Massey Consulting can help; contact us for a free consultation today.

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Article Dean Dorton

5 Reasons to Be Unthankful for Your Financial Management Software in 2019

‘Tis the season of gratitude. You have much to be thankful for—except for your financial management solution. As 2019 grows closer with its new challenges and opportunities, the limitations of your accounting software become all too clear. Here are five reasons why it’s okay to be ungrateful this Thanksgiving season:

1. You’re trapped by difficult, costly, and time-intensive upgrades. It’s hard to get the latest functionality if your company lacks the IT resources to upgrade related software, databases, and operating systems that are required for the upgrade. It’s no wonder that you’re making do with the risks and inconveniences of outdated software. And should you decide to upgrade, you may find the updated accounting system still lacks key features—so you’re stuck using workarounds.

2. You’re held back by disconnected systems and processes. The cost of integrating your on-premises financial management system with various applications and databases can be prohibitively high. Your finance team has to use manual, error-prone spreadsheets for crucial tasks like enterprise consolidations and revenue recognition. Even if you do decide to fund your enterprise integration, you’re often trapped in a constant maintenance cycle, where every new software upgrade breaks your integration.

3. You can’t keep up with business growth. Your legacy accounting system likely wasn’t designed to support the fast growth and expansions that smart businesses are pursuing. If you’re acquiring business units, you may be trying to cobble together a consolidated view across entities that use different accounting systems. That leaves you unable to track the costs of different lines of business or services projects. Soon, you’re hiring more people just to keep up with transaction volumes.

4. You’re challenged by new business requirements and regulatory compliance. Considering a new revenue model like subscriptions? Great! However, that’s placing new demands on your finance team, because the billing and revenue-recognition requirements for subscription businesses are more complex. Unfortunately, when your traditional, outdated accounting system was implemented, these new requirements and rules didn’t exist. Attempting to bolt on or retrofit support for these sweeping changes is either painful, expensive—or impossible—because your accounting system was never intended to do so.

5. You can’t fully track your business. Your legacy accounting system may is still be operating in batch-processing mode—slowly and with no real-time visibility—simply to deliver rigid financial reports. You’re likely forced to rely on third-party reporting and analysis tools to get even basic answers. Creating new reports, asking new questions, or customizing your old reports to reflect changing business needs is impossible. And you can’t support the self-service capabilities that business users want.

Tis the season to give thanks, with Sage Intacct and Massey Consulting

The new year is coming faster than a turkey can trot—which is pretty fast, believe it or not! It’s time to kick your old accounting system to the curb and give thanks for new technology, such as cloud financial management software from Sage Intacct. It’s designed not only to meet today’s business’s needs but also to adapt as your business grows. By moving to a best-in-class cloud financial management solution, you’ll gain time to be more strategic as you move into 2019 and beyond.

You’ll find plenty of reasons to give thanks this season with a free consultation from Massey Consulting, your cloud financial management experts.

Article Dean Dorton

Is the Cloud Right for My Finance Organization? 6 Questions to Ask Yourself

Choosing a financial management solution is a major investment of time and money, and you want to make the right decision. There are many options, one of which is the cloud. The cloud offers compelling and unmatched advantages for deploying business software, and particularly financial applications. IDC estimates that worldwide spending on software-as-a-service (SaaS) will double, going from $29.8 billion in 2013, to $62.1 billion by 2017.

While your next financial solution very well could be a cloud solution, it doesn’t have to be. And it certainly should not be a choice based on “what everyone else is doing.” To discover if the cloud is right for your organization, conduct a quick gut check with these six questions.

1. Does my team need to work outside the office? Anytime, anywhere access to systems and data is a key benefit of moving to the cloud. Your finance team can work anywhere—literally—with only a standard and secure Web browser and Internet connection. There’s no need for extra security hardware or software, or a VPN connection.

2. Does my business need to accelerate financial processes—without increasing headcount or IT budget? Organizations who move to the cloud often enjoy a high ROI and rapid payback on their investment. A recent study by Nucleus Research found that cloud-based financial management and accounting implementations deliver 1.7 times more return on investment than on-premises ones.

3. Does my financial system need to integrate with Salesforce.com or other applications? Easy integration is what the cloud’s all about. API and Web services enable systems to connect so your organization can use the best applications for each area of your business—sales, operations, marketing, etc. You can eliminate costly programming and maintenance from your overstretched IT budget.

4. Do my managers want or need self-service access to their relevant KPIs? Real-time visibility comes standard with the cloud. You can provide access to both finance and non-finance users across the business. The management team can easily view the key performance indicators that apply to their department via real-time dashboards. Employees can also view dashboards as well as enter and approve expenses, and create purchase orders. Lenders, auditors, CPAs, and board members get real-time access to key information—improving visibility and building trust.

5. Does my organization struggle with inefficient processes? Gain company-wide efficiencies with the cloud. Standard finance processes such as consolidations and closes are streamlined. You can also leverage the Internet to connect other company functions and processes, as well as your customers and suppliers. For example, you can deliver a 360-degree order-to-cash process that links finance and sales. And you can create budget dashboards for department managers and help increase operational alignment. What’s more, the cloud helps companies avoid the pitfalls of spreadsheets and the limitations of single-user systems like QuickBooks that isolate information in silos.

6. Do we need to compete with bigger businesses—on a smaller budget? With the cloud, you get the power of a world-class infrastructure. Your vendor amortizes costs over thousands of customers, so they can maintain this infrastructure while providing 24×365 operations, continuous backups, disaster recovery, and superior security. That means you get far greater performance, reliability, and security than you could likely afford on your own. In addition, cloud applications can be provisioned immediately and are highly scalable, enabling you to get started—and change—quickly.

Ultimately, cloud computing is about capitalizing on a new software delivery model that accelerates payback of a larger ROI and better aligns the financial organization with the new dynamics of growing businesses.

Have more questions about moving your financials to the cloud? Talk to the experts at Massey Consulting—we’re here to help!

Get the 2018 Buyer’s Guide to Accounting and Financial Software

Download our free copy of Sage Intacct’s 2018 Buyer’s Guide to Accounting and Financial Software, where you’ll learn:

– The challenges of finding good financial software
– How to successfully go down the decision-making journey
– Comparisons of software delivery models
– How Sage Intacct comes into place in delivering the leading financial management solution for mid-market companies