Cash culture and finance transformation | EY

Similarly, controllership stands to benefit from levers that can streamline cash processes, deliver automation and improve cash controls.  For example, technology enhancements to treasury systems can improve downstream accounting processes and provide efficiencies during the fiscal close. These streamlined processes enable more efficient bank-to-book reconciliation and a standardized finance operating model that improves controls around critical cash processes.

Data is the key, and technology underpins the entire transformation

Bottom line, the increasing importance of data elevates the role of technology in a finance transformation. Technology advances are enabling the acceleration of the Finance function as a more strategic partner, and Treasury is at the forefront.

Robust technology platforms enable organizations to deploy a fully integrated system infrastructure that is “data-centric” as opposed to “system-centric,” enabling access to data that supports holistic reporting and analysis. Coupled with tools to support advanced analytics such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, along with other modernization efforts such as robotic process automation, advances in technology are driving more informed decision-making and process enhancements that organizations can leverage to deliver value-added outcomes.

Conclusion

While cost-cutting can deliver significant financial benefits, an exclusive focus on cutting costs misses the boat in a Finance transformation initiative. It’s also important to remember that stronger cash management and achieving cost reductions are not mutually exclusive goals. An enterprise that embraces a robust cash and balance sheet strategy — and elevates cash so that it occupies an equal playing field with other key financial levers¹ — will typically position itself for more sustained value creation.  As such, finance organizations that focus their transformation programs on value creation by targeting outcomes that can be achieved by optimizing cash-centric levers will position themselves for long-term success. 

An often overlooked yet powerful benefit of a transformation is the unleashing of innovative creativity within the finance organization. A well-designed technology and data ecosystem built to support organizational finance objectives will yield tremendous benefits. Finance professionals will find themselves liberated from inefficient and boring tasks related to managing and manipulating data. Instead, they will be able to focus attention on the strategic value that finance brings to the organization, inspiring fresh ideas from those with an innovative streak. Enabled by a data-oriented approach, the freedom to create will energize finance teams, unlocking what is still the most powerful value creation lever: the human factor.