Finance teams know better than most that time is a limited resource, whether it’s month-end to deal with or budgets and forecasts that need to be submitted. Regardless, management still expects accurate information timeously, and this can make implementing new finance technology difficult to prioritise, even when the existing reporting process is consuming more time than it should. 

“We often speak to finance teams that know they need to change a process, but they struggle to see where they will find the time to implement that change,” says Alwyn Pretorius, General Manager at Finnivo Solutions, who helps finance teams make their reporting processes more efficient.

“The answer lies in using your available resources differently. Think of an implementation as a sequence of different expertise rather than one continuous demand on the same group of people. This means taking time to understand who needs to be involved in an implementation process and when, and making sure that person is available.”

Different stages need different people

During the initial demonstration and scoping stages, the implementation partner needs to understand what the finance team is trying to achieve, how its current reporting process works and what the eventual output needs to look like.

Once implementation begins, IT may be among the first stakeholders required to provide access to the relevant environments and help establish how information will move between systems where they may need to be connected or data integrated. 

The finance team then takes on a more prominent role, with the group financial manager or relevant finance lead bringing their crucial understanding of reporting structures, templates and conventions and what the numbers ultimately need to look like. Their involvement helps establish the framework from which the implementation team can build. 

Once those requirements are understood, however, that person does not necessarily need to remain continuously involved. This is also where the composition of the implementation team becomes important. 

Finnivo Solutions, for example, provides its software and services through experienced reporting specialists who are finance professionals themselves. Their financial backgrounds mean they understand the terminology and logic behind the client’s requirements, while working alongside technical specialists where integration, software configuration or further customisation is required.

“Because our consultants come from finance backgrounds, they can work relatively independently,” he says. “They understand that the client still has a day job. They can make reasonable assumptions and keep the project moving, then bring the client back in when their input or approval is required.

“More broadly, I think the combination of financial and technical expertise is important when implementing finance technology. The people doing the implementation need to understand not only how the software works, but the finance processes it is being introduced to support. That makes it much easier to translate what the finance team needs into a system that actually works for them,” Pretorius explains. 

Making the time investment count

Of course, even when stakeholder involvement is carefully planned, implementation still requires time from the client. Finnivo implementations, for example, are typically completed within six to eight weeks, during which key stakeholders will need to make themselves available at different points for scoping, testing, validation and user acceptance.

“It can feel like a significant commitment when you are already dealing with everything that a finance team needs to deliver,” says Pretorius. “But you have to weigh that initial investment against the time you are spending on the same manual processes month after month. If you can put the right people into the implementation at the right points and build a process that removes hours or days of repetitive work from every reporting cycle thereafter, the return on that time becomes very clear.”

With this approach, Finnivo has helped many organisations drastically reduce the amount of time they need to complete their consolidation, reporting and planning processes. In one of the case studies published on its website, the client noted that their consolidation cycle reduced from 8 days, to less than a day.

For Pretorius, this is why waiting for a quieter period is rarely the answer. “Finance teams are always going to have deadlines. The important thing is to plan the implementation around those realities, be clear about whose time is needed and when, and recognise that the time you put in upfront is ultimately about giving the finance team more of it back.”