UNLOCKING THE POWER OF FINANCE AUTOMATION
Businesses across EMEA are increasingly adopting finance automation initiatives to stay competitive in their respective markets. These initiatives are aimed at improving their financial management capabilities, reducing risks, ensuring compliance and increasing efficiency.
As a NetSuite user, you already have access to a powerful cloud-based financial management solution that can help you stay ahead of the curve.
Here are some of the key financial automation trends and how they can be implemented using NetSuite Financial Modules and BlackLine.
Automation:
One of the key challenges for businesses in today’s fast-paced economy is the need to stay agile and efficient. As companies grow, their financial processes can become increasingly complex, with multiple stakeholders, data sources, and compliance requirements to manage. In this context, Process automation has emerged as a key trend in financial transformation, as businesses seek to reduce errors, improve efficiency, and save time.
However, implementing this automation can also be a challenge. It requires a deep understanding of business processes, data flows, and system integrations involved. This is where solutions like NetSuite Advanced Financials and NetSuite Planning & Budgeting can help. These NetSuite Financial Management Modules provide businesses with features such as automatic journal entries, reconciliations, and controls, which can help businesses automate their financial processes and streamline their operations.
Risk Management:
Managing financial risks is a critical aspect of any finance expert’s role, as it has a significant impact on an organisation’s bottom line. These risks can arise from various sources, such as market volatility, credit risk, liquidity risk, interest rate risk, and operational risk. The finance team’s responsibility is to identify, measure, monitor, and control these risks effectively to minimise their impact on the organisation’s financial health.
NetSuite Advanced Financials and NetSuite Planning & Budgeting provide businesses with tools such as risk ratings and templates to help manage financial risks. With NetSuite, businesses can also set up workflows and approvals to ensure compliance with policies and regulations. Additionally, NetSuite allows for real-time visibility into financial performance, which can help identify potential risks and opportunities for improvement.
Furthermore, incorporating BlackLine into the financial management process can enhance risk management efforts. BlackLine automates financial processes such as journal entries, reconciliations, and controls, ensuring that financial data is accurate and compliant with regulations and industry standards. By unifying data, policies, and procedures securely in the cloud, BlackLine can streamline audits, improve transparency, and support Environmental, Social and Governance, (ESG,), efforts.
By leveraging NetSuite’s advanced financial management tools and BlackLine’s automation capabilities, businesses can improve risk management and enhance financial transparency. This not only helps to mitigate financial risks but also drives success and growth for the organisation in the long run.
Compliance:
Finance compliance is an essential component of financial management, and businesses face various challenges in ensuring they comply with relevant regulations and standards. One of the primary challenges is auditing financial processes to identify any areas of non-compliance or potential risks. For instance, a business may need to ensure that financial statements accurately represent the company’s financial position, performance, and cash flows.
Another significant challenge is the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing, which requires businesses to implement rigorous know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures. Failure to comply with AML regulations can result in significant penalties and damage to the company’s reputation.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) applies to US companies, and it is serving to strongly influence regulations being put in place by other countries. For example, in the UK, the government has already announced details of its corporate governance reforms, which will move the UK closer to US regulations. The new UK SOX will provide a framework for organisations to act on risk activities and ensure the accuracy and completeness of financial data across the organisation.
To help businesses manage finance compliance, NetSuite Advanced Financials and NetSuite Planning & Budgeting offer features such as proactive identification and management of risks, execution of control workflows, and templates for financial reports that comply with regulations. By utilising these features, businesses can stay on top of compliance requirements and mitigate risks.
BlackLine takes compliance to the next level by automating journal entries, reconciliations, and controls, ensuring accuracy and efficiency in reporting. By automating these processes, businesses can reduce the risk of errors and ensure that they are compliant with regulations. Furthermore, the platform provides a single source of truth, making it easier for businesses to track and manage their financial activities while improving transparency and streamlining audits.
Compliance is a crucial aspect of financial management for businesses, and using both NetSuite and BlackLine can help businesses stay on top of compliance requirements and mitigate risks.
Achieving Financial Close Excellence:
Financial close is a crucial process that can be a major challenge for many businesses. It involves consolidating and finalising financial information at the end of a reporting period, such as a month or quarter. The process can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially for businesses with multiple entities or complex financial structures.
BlackLine can help businesses achieve financial close excellence by automating key tasks such as transaction matching, journal entries, reconciliations, and controls. This saves time and improves accuracy, as manual processes are prone to errors and can be time-consuming. By automating these tasks, businesses can free up their finance teams to focus on more strategic activities, such as analysis and planning.
In addition, BlackLine can help businesses increase agility and support future growth by unifying and accessing data, policies, and procedures securely in the cloud. This allows businesses to easily integrate entities, ERPs, and other data sources with secure Connectors and APIs that limit complexity and improve flexibility. This is particularly important for businesses looking to expand or scale their operations, as they need to be able to quickly adapt to new requirements and regulations.
Finally, BlackLine can help businesses streamline audits and support ESG efforts by managing audit requests and deliverables from a single source of truth to improve transparency and prevent delays. This reduces paper, storage, T&E, and other unnecessary costs, while ensuring compliance with regulations and promoting sustainability.
As a NetSuite user, you have access to a powerful financial management solution that can help you stay competitive in your respective markets. By unlocking the power of NetSuite and adopting these financial transformation trends, you can remain agile and efficient, and take your business to the next level.