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Reasons Your Midsize Organization Needs a Finance Technology Update

Posted by Robert Kugel on 05 April 2023
The chief financial officer of a midsize organization faces a different set of challenges than those in larger or smaller enterprises. These organizations have grown to the point of requiring capabilities similar to larger businesses, but typically lack the staff or financial resources afforded to bigger organizations. The past decade of IT innovation – especially the expansion of cloud computing... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Now with the Miracle Ingredient AI!

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 March 2023
Early last December, just before ChatGPT became the new, bright, shiny object, The Economist magazine ran a story proclaiming that we had finally arrived at the age of boring artificial intelligence (AI). From my perspective, it’s unfortunate that didn’t last and that AI has been relegated back to the buzzword league. AI will be an increasingly important feature of business software through the... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, continuous supply chain, AI and Machine Learning

Accounts Payable Automation is More Valuable Than You Think

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 March 2023
We added purchasing, sourcing and payments to our core Office of Finance focus areas this year to reflect new and important opportunities to use technology to gain effectiveness through greater efficiency. Doing a better job of record-keeping and organizing paperwork – especially in a minutiae-laden process like source-to-pay – may seem trivial. Yet digitally transforming core business processes... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Cloud ERP is the Path Forward for Manufacturing and Product Companies

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 February 2023
The cloud has come to dominate many business software categories, but until recently, enterprise resource planning for manufacturing and product-focused organizations has been a notable laggard. Cloud-based systems can be less costly to operate, perform better, be more secure and shift maintenance and update chores from the IT department to the vendor, freeing IT teams to concentrate on more... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, continuous supply chain

insightsoftware Enables a Predictive and Effective Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 14 February 2023
insightsoftware provides applications for finance departments and other business users in midsize and larger organizations, offering a broad range of functions including analysis, internal and regulatory reporting, planning, consolidation, tax provision and treasury. The software brings together applications that enable business users to maximize data collected in existing systems and streamline... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, embedded analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Trintech Streamlines a Transformed Record-to-Report

Posted by Robert Kugel on 09 February 2023
Trintech provides finance departments in midsize and larger organizations with software to accelerate their accounting close processes. This record-to-report (R2R) cycle is complex because it involves the coordination of numerous people, many systems and multiple sources of data. There are iterative portions that involve cycles of reviews and multiple levels of approvals. These include... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Intercompany Financial Management for Accountability and Accounting

Posted by Robert Kugel on 07 February 2023
Ventana Research coined the term intercompany financial management (IFM) to define a discipline for structuring and handling transactions within a corporation and between its legal entities designed to maximize staff efficiency and accounting accuracy while optimizing tax exposure, minimizing tax leakage and ensuring consistent tax and regulatory compliance. Technology has advanced to a point... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

FinancialForce Sharpens Customer Focus in Services Businesses

Posted by Robert Kugel on 31 January 2023
FinancialForce offers cloud-based ERP and professional services automation (PSA) software. The company targets midsize and larger services companies, especially those that provide professional services (such as consultants or field service organizations) as well as those that offer subscription-based or recurring revenue services and products. FinancialForce’s key point of differentiation is that... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Digital Commerce, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Subscription Management

Optimizing Subscription Management for Finance and Accounting

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 January 2023
The subscription and recurring revenue business models became a significant part of the economy this century with the advent of streaming services for entertainment and software as a service. They have grown in popularity because they enhance customer lifetime value by evolving what had previously been a one-time-sale relationship into a delivery of ongoing services which can create a more loyal... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Office of Finance 2023 Market Agenda: A Brave New World

Posted by Robert Kugel on 19 January 2023
Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 Market Agenda for the Office of Finance, continuing the guidance we have provided since 2003 on the practical use of technology for the finance and accounting department. Our insights and best practices aim to enable organizations to operate with agility and resiliency, improving performance and delivering greater value as a strategic partner. We craft... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Professional Services Automation Increases Efficiency

Posted by Robert Kugel on 17 January 2023
A professional services automation application marries front- and back-office functions, helping services organizations address core business challenges by ensuring that: Projects are optimally staffed by those with the right skills. Individual professionals are as productive as possible by maximizing their billable time within constraints (such as time required for improving their skills) as... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Epicor Enriches Vertical-Plus Approach for Growth

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 January 2023
Vertical strategies for enterprise resource planning systems are not new. They emerged more than two decades ago as vendors looked for ways to reduce costs and shorten time-to-value in a software category that was notorious for high costs and extended timelines. A vertical-plus strategy – the plus means it’s a platform, not just an application – takes advantage of recently available technology to... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Cloud Computing, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI and Machine Learning

Virtual Audits Improve Financial Statement Quality, Work-Life Balance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 15 December 2022
After decades of overpromising and underdelivering, technology has now evolved to the point where it is fundamentally changing how accountants work – for the better. The pandemic and resulting support of remote work set the stage for a transformation of how accounting efforts are structured and performed, all for the better. Remote audits that became routine during lockdowns are evolving into... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Manage Your Spending Purse with Emburse

Posted by Robert Kugel on 12 December 2022
Emburse offers a single platform that enables organizations — small, midsize and larger —to manage their travel and related expenses, pay invoices and handle their corporate spend. Today, technology has the ability to significantly increase the efficiency with which organizations handle expenditures while simultaneously containing costs, increasing controls and improving visibility into where the... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Oracle NetSuite Goes Full Suite Ahead to Deliver Customer Value

Posted by Robert Kugel on 25 November 2022
The theme of this year’s Oracle NetSuite SuiteWorld was “Full Suite Ahead,” with content aimed at demonstrating to customers (and prospective buyers) the value of using more of what NetSuite has to offer. The business logic behind this concept goes beyond the obvious objective of upselling existing customers to increase the average annual recurring revenue. As is often the case with subscription... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Finance Performance Management

Prophix’s Finance Platform Boosts Midsize Departments’ Effectiveness

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 November 2022
Prophix offers cloud financial software for planning, budgeting, reporting and statutory financial consolidation designed to meet the requirements of midsize organizations and divisions of larger corporations. The company was one of the first to offer a planning platform capable of bringing together a company’s diverse planning processes and financial planning and budgeting. Its consolidation and... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Vertex Manages End-to-End Indirect Tax Compliance Worldwide

Posted by Robert Kugel on 08 November 2022
The worldwide market for software to manage indirect income taxes, which includes sales and use, goods and services (GST) and value-added taxes (VAT), has been growing because of recent compliance mandates, the growth of e-commerce as well as a desire to accelerate business processes by reducing friction in areas such as tax compliance, cutting administration costs and lowering risk. Vertex... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

A New Approach to ERP for a More Effective Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 04 November 2022
ERP systems have been a fixture of organizational process management and record keeping for so long (more than three decades) that it is likely that few who use the software are aware that ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resources Planning. Its smooth and uninterrupted functioning is essential to an organization’s accounting and finance processes. In manufacturing and distribution, ERP manages... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

A Finance Department Data Strategy for ESG Compliance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 31 October 2022
Sensitivity to environmental, social and governance issues – or ESG – has grown over the years and with it, increasing attention by some investors and government entities urging organizations to measure and disclose ESG metrics. The discussion about ESG reporting is now focused on high-level issues such as what data to gather, how to use it in reporting, and perhaps how to manage the disclosure... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Building a More Predictive Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 05 October 2022
A predictive finance department is one that can command technology to be more forward-looking and action-oriented while still fulfilling its core role of handling the financial elements of its organization including accounting, treasury and corporate finance. Beyond just automating rote tasks, technology also facilitates a shift toward becoming a predictive finance organization. Greater amounts... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Data Management, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI and Machine Learning

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