Finance Transformation Goals

What are your firm’s Accounting and Finance Transformation Goals and Objectives? How do you actually determine what are the right finance transformation goals and objectives to target while considering a critical change program?

As for typical goals and objectives to consider and include as a part of your finance and accounting transformation business case and roadmap, here are some broad categories and specific goals and objectives:

Accounting and Finance Transformation Goals and Objectives

Core Finance and Accounting Transactions:

• Eliminate processing errors
• Enforce upstream accuracy
• Decrease time spent on core transaction processing
• Reduce data errors
• Embark on policy led standardization of core processes

Enterprise Performance Management:

• Increase time spent on planning and decision support activities
• Gear toward a “Soft” close and not be bound by monthly close
• Provide relevant, timely and actionable finance and accounting data for strategic decision-making
• Introduce ability to simulate business scenarios and forecast financial implications

Finance Organization Structure:

• Transform finance from a function into a service
• Introduce a shared services competency center
• Consider outsourcing for all non-core finance and accounting activities
• Capability or Service-based organizational structure so as to provide optimal services
• Introduce communities of practice and centers of excellence

Staffing:

• A judicious blend of general athletes and specialists
• Well defined roles with clarity of purpose
• Mapping of skills to roles

Information:

• Create a robust finance and accounting data model that is extensible and evolvable
• Reduce the amount of replication of data
• Adopt finance MDM
• Identify single source of truth or golden copy for all data entities

Culture:

• Change “We will get back to you” with “Here you go”
• A service orientated attitude
• A shift in mindset that finance and accounting is a critical business function, not the traditional bean counters of the yore

Technology:

• Embrace the cloud
• Open to best-of-breed applications, rather than just sticking to complex and monolithic systems
• Focus on user experience as well as self-service
• Multi-entity, global, multi-currency system that can work well with operating entities and subsidiaries

Do you have other Accounting and Finance Transformation Goals and Objectives which are important on your list? Please feel free to share with our community.

If you are in the process of taking on the challenges of a finance and accounting transformation, then check out the other CIOPages.com resources. We offer a variety of finance and accounting transformation resources and a set of customizable deliverables as a part of the Finance and Accounting Transformation toolkit.