We all love things that make our lives easier. The same goes for non-financial professionals: the operations, sales, marketing, and other teams in your company who do not normally work with the company’s accounting and financial data. They need to understand it, of course, and certainly use it, but working through debits, credits, balance sheets and income statements may be too time-consuming or difficult for all but the most senior executives. Yet everyone on the team benefits by understanding the financial health of the company.
Accounting enterprise resource planning, or accounting ERP software, offers financial information for non-financial professionals in an easy-to-use format. But make no mistake—easy doesn’t mean simple. These systems provide robust data but do so in a way that makes sense to non-finance professionals.
Automated solutions in accounting ERP systems have also made it much easier to generate reports for everyone. Instead of the accounting department keying data into spreadsheets, they can generate reports, graphs, and other data visualizations with the tap of a mouse. No matter what a person’s job function, having access to such data is essential for companies to remain cutting-edge.
Accountants as Educators
For non-financial professionals, the world of accounting can seem daunting. But thanks to automation, accountants can now spend more time sharing their knowledge and less time typing in spreadsheets. Here’s how accountants use their knowledge and the time gained through automation to help others in the company understand complex financial concepts.
Accountants trying to help managers in other departments understand complex financial topics should reduce or eliminate industry jargon. Instead, look for simple ways to explain complex terms. Examples and real-life case studies also help tremendously when trying to teach non-financial professionals how to interpret complex concepts.
Provide Training Opportunities – Workshops and Webinars
Lunch and Learns never go out of style! They can be conducted in-person or remotely. Webinars, workshops, lunch and learns, and quick seminars are a great way for the accounting experts to cover basic accounting principles with non-finance team members. Help other departments improve their ability to interpret financial statements, budget, and forecast. Ensure your presentations are lively and filled with plenty of examples from both within your company and other companies in the industry to help participants grasp the topic.
Connect the Dots: Relate Accounting to KPIs and Companywide Goals
One of the best ways you can encourage accounting literacy in your company is to connect the dots for managers and demonstrate how accounting relates to their department’s goals and companywide goals and KPIs. Managers often think of accounting as a separate discipline unrelated to their work except when it comes to budgets. But if you can connect accounting to their goals, it may help them understand its importance to the company and to their job functions.
Foster an open and nonjudgmental atmosphere when you’re leading workshops. Keep an open-door policy and welcome all questions. You’ll be surprised at how well this encourages non-financial professionals to dive into their accounting data!
Accounting ERPs Provide Real-Time Data
Accounting ERP systems offer real-time data. This data, including real-time financial data, is invaluable to all departments. Demonstrate how to access this data and ensure all department personnel have access to it.
Accounting ERP systems save the finance department a great deal of time. With this time saved, they can turn their attention to other tasks, including improving financial understanding among their team members. The accounting ERP platform itself offers data that is immediately useful to all managers, and this in turn may encourage greater use of the system as well as higher levels of collaboration among the accounting team and non-finance departments. ERPs are a great way to improve collaboration, cooperation, and efficiency throughout the whole company.
Emerald TC provides expert consulting and implementation of accounting ERP systems including Acumatica. Contact us or call 678-456-6919 for more information.