Getting the best from finance professionals

From bean counters to business drivers At the heart of any successful business is an effective finance team. They act like the fuel management system of a high-performance car - maximising its power and maintaining efficiency.

And as we’ve moved into a digital world, our finance teams are taking on an increasingly important role. Cloud-based tools have given them powerful new ways to effectively manage and monitor company expenses.

It has moved the focus away from manual ‘number crunching’ tasks and towards a more flexible and proactive role for our finance teams - calculating risk; predicting and interpreting data.

While many organisations have successfully adapted to these changes, there are many UK companies whose attitude towards finance professionals remains stuck in the past.

It’s an issue worth exploring because the business consequences can be serious:

• Inefficiency
• Low staff morale
• Competitive disadvantage
• Poor staff recruitment/retention

This guide will, therefore, take a closer look at how outmoded attitudes are associated with ineffective and unhappy finance teams and how this can be challenged.

Survey findings

How finance teams feel

The stereotyped image of a finance department is of a roomful of bookish accountants hidden away in some back-office as they slavishly ‘crunch’ numbers. It’s an image which is increasingly rooted in a bygone business age.

But the findings of an independent study commissioned by webexpenses shows how these perceptions and working practices remain rooted within British business culture.

The research, carried out by censuswide, involved interviews with more than 500 finance professionals working in the finance departments of organisations throughout the UK.

Here are some of the key findings:

Undervalued

When asked what some of the biggest frustration people found with their work, the top responses were:

• 65% complexity of job not appreciated
• 60% don’t get any credit for company success
• 60% think their work gets forgotten about

While the majority of employees are liable to feel undervalued, these survey findings suggest a level of dissatisfaction which goes above and beyond the normal ‘office gripes’.

The additional comments left by respondents repeated the same kinds of concerns about the lowly status of the finance team workers.

There was a common feeling of ‘us and them’ with a perception that senior managers treated them as providing a form of unskilled labour. Typical comments included:

• Top management like to be seen as the heroes. We’re not important
• We’re not seen as income generators, but we are profit generators!

Stereotyped

The low-esteem felt by finance professionals is liable to be linked to the way respondents said they were treated in the workplace. The research found that 63% said they were regularly referred to by a work related nickname.

The most common names used were:

• 22% number cruncher
• 22% money man/woman
• 16% bean counter

Among the other names used were Nerdy, Pen Pusher, Calculator Kid and Rain Man. While these names may be used in a light-hearted manner, they highlight the type of negative attitude which disempowers finance workers.

It’s worth mentioning also that when asked about aspects of the job they enjoyed the most, 49% said it was interacting with different departments and clients. It’s a result which suggests the cliched image of socially inept human calculators simply does not tally with today’s finance professional.

Restricted role

Closely linked to the cliched attitudes towards finance teams were feelings of frustration at the restricted role of finance teams within organisations. The research found that:

• 53% felt treated as little more than ‘bean counters’
• 51% thought company had no real understanding of what they do

The overwhelming message from respondents, with 75% in agreement, was that they could operate more effectively if they were given a less restricted role. When asked what scale of savings could be made, they responded:

• 20% thought they could save their company £7,001 - £10,000
• 15% believe they could save their company £30,001 - £50,000

The results suggest that the frustrations felt by finance professionals is informed by a belief in the practical benefits they could bring to their company with a more expansive role.

Conclusion

The research findings help us to understand some of the challenges faced with the management of finance teams. It shows how a sense of frustration and isolation has been allowed to develop with the potential to damage morale and reduce efficiency.

It’s clear from our research that many of the UK’s finance professionals feel undervalued and are often frustrated by certain aspects of their job. Too many businesses still view finance as a function and are missing out on the benefits that can be reaped when finance professionals are given the time, autonomy and respect that will enable them to play a more strategic role. - Michael Richards, chairman of webexpenses

Effective management

The survey findings highlight the on-going challenge faced by all organisations when it comes to adapting to change. It’s a particular issue within the finance sector because of the way digital technology is so rapidly rewriting the rulebook.

Many of the manual processes carried out by finance teams in the past can now be done more effectively by automated systems. It has seen the traditional view of finance teams, as the back-office ‘bean counters’, becoming increasingly outdated.

For those companies who embrace the changes, it unlocks an opportunity to empower finance professionals. Freed from the ‘heavy lifting’ work, finance teams can now take on a much more forward looking and strategic role.

For this to happen, however, it requires a combination of a change in mindset and the adoption of the right digital tools.

Changing mindset

In practical terms this should be the simplest change to make. It can be done in an instant and for no additional cost - and yet it’s also the most challenging.

Getting the most out of a modern finance team requires ‘unlearning’ much of what has become entrenched in our business culture.

It means looking at how the core numeracy skills and financial knowledge of finance professionals can be used in a more productive and strategic way within the company.

Here are three key ways in which modern finance teams are changing:

Integration

The traditional view of a finance team which operates in isolation from the main organisation is being replaced. With digital communication tools the finance team is able to integrate into those areas of the business where cost related decisions are being made.

For many companies this opens up the abillity to allocate a member of the finance team to any new project team or working group. Rather than the finance team having to deal with expenditures which have already been made - they are able to advise and inform throughout the process.

Analysis

While automated systems are helping to replace many of the manual processes for finance teams, they are also creating a new set of tasks and responsibilities. This the analysis and management of the data which is generated.

It means that the focus for modern finance teams is shifting away from processing data and towards the effective management of data. It requires the ability to pull out those stats that matter amongst the surrounding data ‘noise’.

An effective finance professional will be able to use the data to gain a much deeper understanding of a company’s financial activities than was previously possible.

Predictive

With rich sources of real-time data now available, finance teams are no longer restricted to identifying existing expenditure issues. They now have the tools which enable them to predict the likely financial outcomes of various business decisions. This kind of predictive analytics allows issues to be identified before they become problems. But it can also support businesses taking bolder business with a greater understanding of the potential risks and outcomes.

The right tools

The change in mindset goes hand-in-hand with the use of technology to release finance professionals from the need to carry out manual and repetitive tasks.

A combination of digital systems and advances in cloud technology have helped to transform the world of the finance team. Tasks which were once reliant on slow paper-based processes are being replaced by faster and more efficient automated systems.

Automated systems

A new generation of business tools are now available to enable more effective ways of managing and processing company costs. It’s estimated that an expenses management system such as webexpenses can reduce processing time by around 25 percent.

The move over to these systems is therefore able to improve efficiency and free up finance teams to start focussing on more proactive and strategic tasks.

Reduced costs

The use of cloud technology reduces the dependence of a company on IT expenditure. With cloud services all of the maintenance and updating of the system is done by the third-party provider.

With many finance professionals now preferring to use their own devices for work purposes, the requirement for companies to maintain an IT infrastructure is significantly reduced.

Flexibility

The use of cloud services also means that finance teams are no longer locked to their office based computers. They can access the software they need from wherever they have an online connection.

It allows for a more flexible and mobile approach when it comes to managing employees. More companies are allowing staff to take greater control over where and when they work with remote working and flexible hours.

Real-time

One of the major advantages of moving to digital systems is the ability to provide finance teams with real-time information. An expenses management system such as webexpenses allows payments to be instantly uploaded to user accounts.

I believe that one of the ways to solve this problem is by allowing finance teams to invest in technologies that will free up their time and give staff more responsibility for handling tasks that they can do themselves.

This is one of the principles behind webexpenses – our software reduces the time burden on finance teams when it comes to processing expense claims, giving them more capacity to add value to their organisation in other areas.

Michael Richards, chairman of webexpenses