The Technology-Enabled Accounting Team of the Future

This article is sponsored by Blackline. Read this white paper to discover the results from FSN’s global survey, which focuses on the wide-ranging effect of the pandemic - both short and long-term - and an accelerated drive for automation.

Technology is transforming Finance and Accounting. Yes, we have been hearing about this for ages, and now it is truly happening. 

Earlier this year, Accenture found that the rate of automation for transactional accounting processes has skyrocketed from 34% in 2018 to 60% in 2021. This is truly revolutionary! Not only is the shift finally happening, but it is happening at breathtaking speed. 

As it often happens with technological development, we overestimate the short-term impact and underestimate the long-term impact. When someone gets an idea about what is possible and proves it at a small scale, it always takes a while before it happens at a large scale. However, many begin talking about it as soon as the small-scale success is proven. 

Now, it is safe to say that the technology-enabled accounting team of the future has arrived. Let us examine what that means and start discussing how to make it happen for your finance function. 

Modern Accounting Revealed

It’s time to move to modern accounting, which is characterized by being unified, automated, and continuous: 

• Unified. Simple and standard processes that can be applied at a global scale and are easy to understand. This unlocks global visibility and at the same time, integrates all your disparate systems and the data that goes with them.
• Automated. This is where the shift is happening at lightning speed right now. Automation helps to free up time for higher value-adding activities and lets you focus on what matters most to your business.
• Continuous. This is the next shift that we should all expect to happen soon. Rather than the traditional month-end, we will see the dawn of Continuous Accounting. Close with the click of a button at any time, giving you access to real-time information and powerful analysis options. 

The key lies in process standardization and simplification. Why is this the most important aspect? Automation will pull us further and further away from doing the processes ourselves. This puts us at risk of losing a vital business understanding. 

Processes need to be simple and intuitive to understand so we can always process-mine to determine what and why something has happened in our business. Otherwise, we will be left as “clueless ice skaters” that are unable to go below the surface of our business and understand what happens when something unexpected takes place. Automation is essential, but if you don’t understand the processes you are automating, you risk putting your whole business at stake. 

That said, there are many advantages of modernizing your accounting team. Just consider what Coca-Cola, a truly global company, was able to achieve. They were facing inconsistent processes around the world and dealing with 50,000 GL accounts. This made it impossible to do proper follow-up and control, and as a result, visibility into the numbers was limited. 

Here are the results they have achieved by making the move to modern accounting: 

• A tangible FTE reduction of 55% in terms of people working on reconciliations
• Global visibility across entities in 200 countries
• A boost in efficiency, increased consistency, and truly global scale
• A much stronger control environment that helped minimize unwanted risks 

These are the kind of results that can transform any accounting and finance organization. 

What Could You Do with a 55% Efficiency Gain? 

We are no longer talking about small incremental improvements. The change happening in Accounting today is radical. Just consider what you could do with the 55% efficiency gain that Coca-Cola experienced. 

The natural step to many senior finance leaders would be to reap the efficiency gains and simply minimize the cost of Finance. But this isn’t the right next step.  

Instead, we should invest in our finance and accounting teams, giving them opportunities to upskill and perform higher value-adding activities. Business leaders are screaming for insights that can help them make better decisions. Those insights should come from the technology-enabled accounting team. 

However, according to Accenture, today only 20% of finance teams use operational or macroeconomic data as part of their analysis. That’s already a clear next step to take: expand from simply looking at financial data. 

Further, less than half of CFOs use advanced financial modeling in their insight generation. It is, of course, a prerequisite to use operational and macroeconomic data with sense. This is where the technology-enabled accounting team can excel. They identify new value and provide new depths of insights, whereas the traditional accounting team is mostly focused on efficiencies and improved reporting accuracies. 

The opportunity is significant. Modern accounting can deliver the resources needed to super-charge the technology-enabled accounting team to drive value creation at a level never seen before. 

Start enabling your accounting team with next-level technology today and ride the automation wave into the era of modern accounting.

You can read previous articles and posts from my collaboration with Blackline below:

• What would you do with 20% extra time?
• A Week In The Life Of An Accountant Post Finance Transformation
• Intercompany accounting headaches
• 4 Best Practices To Achieve Intercompany Accounting Excellence
• Cash in bank = cash in hand, right?
• Your post-transformation plan

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

8 Changes For FP&A To Make To Transform Strategy (part of a ten-article series about FP&As involvement in the strategy process)

An Open Letter To The CFO: Are You Ready To Transform FP&A?

The Future of FP&A – Two Ways To Take the Reins

All Successful Business Partners Are "Leaders" (part of a five-article series where we unfold our business partnering capability model)

Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering? (part of a 17-article series where we deep-dive on our business partnering framework "BP on a Formula")

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

You’re A Finance Business Partner, Now What?

Building A Team Of Finance Business Partners

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 9,500 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger on LinkedIn with 60,000+ followers.