Introduction

Webexpenses is the award-winning provider of web-based expense management software. As such, we keep up-to-date with leading thoughts and opinions in the industry, to add to our own experience and ideas for the development of the sector.

We believe the finance department will change dramatically over the next decade, moving from a primarily number-crunching role to adopting a strategic position in business and we see cloud computing accelerating this trend.

Already, IT development has automated many of the day-to-day tasks of the traditional finance department. Whilst business software systems have been core to the finance department for a number of years, increasingly we are seeing tools which, rather than simply processing data, enable us to add real business value. The advent of cloud computing and its impact on the finance department over the past 5 years in particular is difficult to ignore.

But does this automation spell the end for finance departments? Will technology eventually automate all financial activities? It is clear technology is dramatically changing the way finance departments work but is this the beginning of the end of the internal finance function?

We spoke to the Finance Directors and a CEO of leading businesses to see where they predict the biggest changes will be and to hear what they foresee will be the major developments of the finance department.

We have spoken to these FDs and CEOs because we believe that the finance function will continue to change and play a vital role in business growth. We would like to thank everyone that contributed for their insight.

Sanjay Parekh, Managing Director, webexpenses

Fast forward to 2020

What will the finance department look like? As part of the rapid adoption of cloud services, finance departments have begun to look at how their function and its role within business is changing. Without making changes to the way they work and use technology, overall business benefit is unlikely to be fully realised.

It is plain to see that most organisations will still need a finance function in the future. However, it may well be smaller in size; the automation that cloud provides saves cost by removing or reducing the number of employees; and what that department will be called upon to do will change considerably from today. The need however still remains. This then raises the question: what will the IT department of the future look like?

“I suppose my dream might be to have finance departments with no one in them”

Rapid globalisation and technological advances have seen remote working growing exponentially over the last decade to become a now common feature in modern businesses. This increasing workforce mobility and worker empowerment is being fed by legislation emphasising work/life balance and the increasing consumerisation of IT. Employees will increasingly expect to be able to work and access corporate data remotely on personal devices. As remote working grows workers will increasingly expect to see business travel, beyond the home to office commute, reduce. Technological advances will see more and more meetings and events held virtually, and the locations of employees will become irrelevant.

“Paper based reporting processes that exist will gradually become relics”

This year, Gartner predicts 80% of the enterprise workforce will soon be mobile and the implications of this for 21st century finance, are wide-ranging. Businesses will no longer take a paper-based or PC-centric approach to business processes, but must operate systems that can capture information across the modern array of personal devices. This paper-less approach, as well as streamlining processes, will enable intelligent software to analyse emergent behaviour patterns to stop problems or flag issues before they occur.

“The data capture platform will become a lot more fluid”

Modern cloud-computing software empowers businesses to manage and implement powerful, integrated business processes at the click of a mouse. It allows small firms with limited budgets to create strong, scalable systems without being restricted by size or cost and allows large organisations to make dramatic savings in the time and cost of monitoring, recording and managing transactions. Outsourcing to software-as-a-service (SaaS) models reduces an organisation’s dependency on employees, by offloading the number-crunching and data storage into the cloud, a trend which is set to continue. The key role of SaaS in business is to drive efficiency and increase productivity. Finance departments will no longer rely on manual processes for day-to-day tasks, business and accounting software will streamline and automate these processes, eliminating gaps and freeing up staff to focus on driving business growth.

“Smaller core finance team”

As automation increases the average finance department is likely shrink, in terms of staff numbers, whilst expectations of the finance department will likely increase. The finance function has been placed under increased pressure over the last five years, the recession, increased regulation and changes in the roles and demands from within business have seen a need for faster information and more flexible finance teams. Finance departments have increasingly been expected to not only provide information but to offer real insight into what the information means. As more of the number crunching is automated, finance teams will be increasingly expected to use the information available to them to offer more insight, support more business decision making and to enable them to make recommendations for the benefit of the business as a whole.

“I really hope that business managers will be the financial leaders for their department”

While the finance department will increasingly become involved in strategy and decision making, and more aware of the business implications of financial information so too will business managers become more aware of the financial implications of the decisions they make. The automation of financial processes will mean financial data will be more readily available throughout organisations and will become a bigger part of everyday decision making, throughout the business not just the finance department.

“Outsourcers have the same vision as the organisation”

Outsourcing finance functions to the cloud or outside organisations will usually save money, and this has clearly been a key motivator in finance departments outsourcing to cloud services over the past few years. However, we expect to increasingly see businesses outsource to organisations that don’t simply saves costs but which add real business value. Service is at the heart of why customers choose outsourcing partners, especially with software as a service. SaaS solutions take the stress out of software for finance departments and, in theory, the provider does the worrying for them.

Yet many suppliers see customer service as an afterthought in the design and delivery of their solution, putting too much emphasis on functionality and the ‘self-service’ element of selling services on the web. Good outsourcers will seek to ensure they are customer focused and not remote suppliers of cloud based systems, that they don’t simply saves costs but add real business value.

Conclusion

So, as the economy continues to evolve and technology continues to develop so too will the role of the finance department in business. Although some have argued there will be no need for a finance department in the future, it is clear the need for good finance professionals will remain even if their role within business is evolving.

The role of the finance department is, if anything, growing in importance even if shrinking in size, as finance professionals will increasingly be expected to move away from a number crunching role to a strategic business role. This transition is expected to accelerate and the finance department of the future will rely on carefully selected outsourcing partners and technology to process and reconcile, and in some cases analyse transactions, whilst finance personnel will use the information produced to more heavily support the business decision making process.