Recognising the integral role finance teams play in a company’s big-picture plan can spark innovation 

The multi-faceted role of a finance professional is usually misunderstood by employees from other departments within a company. Too often, the rest of the team have little knowledge about the role of accounting and finance, other than the part they play in collecting money. Which is pretty reductive, considering the role finance professionals can play in forecasting and planning a business’s future when they’re given the scope to do so. 

Finding ways to streamline costs and operations, managing income flow and advising on new market opportunities all fall under the remit of finance departments – and all of these processes impact the day-to-day running of an enterprise. The lack of understanding about the integral role that finance professionals can play in a business’s success often leads to them becoming segregated by the wider team – where the only inter-departmental interaction happens when an invoice needs chasing. When in fact, it would be hugely beneficial for other departments whose contribution is more immediately visible – creative, sales, operations – to see how the output of the finance team should be informing their decisions. 

It’s understandable why this dynamic tends to occur. Until companies are of a certain size or stage in their development, they’re often unable to fulfil the potential of their finance team. When finance is positioned as a money-managing cog, it’s easy for employees within the department to get bogged down in repetitive, manual transactions (processing and paying invoices, data entry, keeping records of financial activity). But as businesses grow, it’s well worth taking a more strategic approach, and broadening the horizons of their finance teams so they can apply their talents to more innovative tasks. 

It takes direction from management to change things up and create a more forward-looking function for their finance team. And a key step is to invest in automating manual accounting processes – and thereby freeing up finance professionals to take on tasks that are focused on growing the business. 

Digitally transforming these processes can be labour-intensive and daunting for a finance team, but if the vision is there, it can transform their contribution and the dynamism of their day-to-day roles. Using tech to handle laborious transactions not only lets managers reallocate their financial talent to analysing and forecasting their company’s future – it also provides said talent with the right tools to do so – automatically-calculated metrics (such as free cash flow) – so they can monitor their company’s financial health more efficiently than before. 

By being bold and overhauling their company’s financial processes to building something more sophisticated, management is effectively planning for the future. At present, the vast majority of businesses have not made this leap yet – according to findings from Financial Executives International (FEI) and the Financial Executives Networking Group (FENG), 46% of accounting professionals say they spend the majority of their resources on transactional or cash accounting/reconciliation activities. But the arguments for rethinking the capabilities of a finance team are many – it should lead to lowering bank fees and risk, borrowing less, and better managing cash flow. What’s more, it allows companies to truly make the most of financial professionals’ skills. 

Aside from investing in tech to innovate their finance departments’ processes, companies should consider ways to better integrate them into the wider team. Be it through regular financial briefings or presentations to the other departments, or building a working environment that allows professionals to really connect with the rest of the team, it’s about making more opportunities for open communication, and building understanding. Communal areas of flexible offices are designed to boost interaction and help employees appreciate each other’s contributions to a common goal. 

In any business, facilitating collaboration between different teams and departments is crucial not only for creating a positive working environment, but also for building success. Identifying where certain departments need to be better integrated and understood by others is a strong strategy for creating a team that pulls together, and understands how their actions impact others, and vice versa. 

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