Efficient Finance Team

In all organizations worldwide, finance department basic roles do not differ significantly from one to another. However, and effective finance management requires going beyond routine of finance

Some areas where finance department should focus on to be an effective department could be following:

Value adding activities: A significant time of finance team should be devoted to value adding activities. Treasury operations and Balance Sheet management (with direct impact on cash flow), involvement in cost optimization, pricing are among those activities with high value to the business

Accurate and relevant management reporting: For each case where the Business needs financial data, finance department should provide relevant report to stakeholders. Reports should be lean, should show relevant indicator for the case discussed and should be free of unnecessary details and guide stakeholder into correct decision.

Data Integrity & Governance: Finance department should effectively use ERP and other tools to ensure an integrated, usable, high quality set of business data. Data derived from business systems should be usable, free of noise and understandable. Moreover data should be derived from one source making sure that Single Source of truth is in place.

Communication with other departments: Finance team should communicate with other departments and should create tools to enhance communication. Sharing analyses, analytical reports and setting monthly meetings with predefined subjects should be part of finance department routine.

Contribution to Business Strategy: Finance team should be involved in defining strategies of the Business and make sure that those strategies serves for maximizing the Business Value.