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Navigating the BPM Vendor Landscape: Key Insights from the 2023-2024 Report

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Business Performance Management (BPM) is a critical aspect of modern organizations, helping them streamline operations, enhance decision-making, and achieve their strategic goals. In the fast-paced world of BPM, choosing the right vendor and solution can be a daunting task.

The Vendor Landscape Matrix 2023-2024 Edition by BPM Partners provides a comprehensive overview of various BPM vendors, their capabilities, and customer satisfaction ratings, enabling organizations to make informed decisions. The Vendor Landscape Matrix, an annual report by BPM Partners, offers a comprehensive view of the BPM vendor landscape. The report delves into the specifics of various BPM vendors, highlighting their strengths, core capabilities, customer satisfaction ratings, and more.

According to the most recent report, “In the past 12 months, with a somewhat uncertain global economy, the need for performance management systems has continued to grow … The focus this year for companies looking for new or replacement systems are offerings that are integrated, intelligent, and intuitive.” The report also highlights that as extended planning and analysis (xP&A) grows into other areas of operations, “so does the need for seamless integration with a growing list of financial and operational source systems.” As a result, “the vendors are upgrading their data integration capabilities to keep up with this need.”

BPM Partners notes that “the next area of focus is intelligent performance management solutions. This includes both artificial intelligence (AI), as well as financial intelligence.” The report states that “the latest iterations of AI capabilities in most products are aimed at business users, not data scientists.” They define “financial intelligence” as the system “natively understand[ing] income/expense, asset/liability and balance/flow.”

BPM Partners Vendor Landscape Matrix is designed to provide “a point-in-time snapshot of all the core players, their status in the market, and the focus of their offerings.” The 2023-2024 Matrix covers the following BPM vendors: Aceterys, Anaplan, Board International, Centage, Fluence Technologies, IBM, JustPerform, OneStream, Pigment, Planful, Prophix, SAP, TalenTia, Unit4, Vena, Wolters Kluwer CCH Tagetik and XLerant.

Revelwood partners IBM (IBM Planning Analytics) and Fluence Technologies were named a Premier Leader (IBM) and a Leader (Fluence) in the 2023-2024 report. IBM received an Overall BPM Pulse rating of 4.14 (Very Good), while Fluence received an Overall BPM Pulse Rating of 4.67 (Outstanding).

IBM Planning Analytics

The BPM Partners report states that, “IBM Planning Analytics is designed for integrated and extensible planning and offers a unified set of capabilities for budgeting, planning, forecasting, analysis and reporting for financial as well as operational data.” The solution has an 82% recommendation rate. Recent developments include a new SaaS option for IBM Planning Analytics with AWS and IBM Envizi working with Planning for ESG reporting.

Fluence Technologies

According to BPM Partners, “The Fluence Close-to-Disclose platform is a cloud-based, consolidation-first solution that includes Fluence Account Reconciliation, Fluence Consolidation with out-of-the-box consolidation models and calculations, close management, Fluence Disclosure Management” and more. The solution has a 95% recommendation rate.

BPM Partners’ Vendor Landscape Matrix 2023-2024 Edition is a valuable resource for organizations seeking a comprehensive guide to BPM vendors. It offers detailed insights into vendors’ capabilities, customer satisfaction, and strengths, making it an indispensable tool for anyone embarking on their BPM journey. In a world where informed decisions drive success, this report empowers organizations to select the right BPM solution with confidence.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

Navigating Economic Volatility: Insights from CFOs

Workday Adaptive Planning Recognized with the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Financial Planning Software

No, Artificial Intelligence Will Not Replace Finance Jobs

Home » Fluence Technologies

The Evolving Role of the Modern CFO

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This is a guest post from Christine Peart, CFO at our partner, Fluence Technologies. Christine discusses the how the roles of CFO and the Finance team are changing.

Recently, there has been a realization that the finance team is in an ideal position to deliver real value to the organization beyond monthly close and reporting. The back-office financial stewardship role of controlling, compliance, and governance services alone no longer satisfies the needs of the organization. We have a unique position as keepers of financial data with a high level of analytical skills to use this information to drive the business.

As a result, the roles of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the finance teams have shifted significantly. We are expected to leverage our end-to-end view of the organization to drive decision-making.

To meet these new expectations, we need to adopt a change mindset and develop a skill set to focus on what the organization is needing: more strategy, insight, and leadership.

This changing role of the CFO is clearly illustrated by the results of a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. (see figure 1) where 157 CFOs ranked their top ten priorities for 2023.

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Caption: Figure 1: Top 10 CFO Priorities for 2023. Source: Gartner (January 2023)

Of these ten priorities, a significant proportion is highly strategic in nature, with four of the top five priorities related to redefining how finance supports the organization. The CFO is now seen as working alongside the CEO as a co-pilot, vastly different from the traditional role of the CFO, which is to primarily oversee the work of the finance team. To succeed, CFOs need to have a broader strategic skillset than ever before.

So, where do we start this evolution? It goes without saying that, to play the co-pilot role, the CFO must have a deep understanding of the organization beyond the finance function. We need to understand the objectives of the organization and how the goals impact internal and external stakeholders. We need to understand how the organization operates, and what makes it tick. We need to understand the market sector and the competitors. When we have this knowledge, we can support and influence major initiatives.

In the digital age, embracing and leveraging modern technology is crucial. A modern CFO is expected to use technology to effectively guide their business and to lead the ‘setting finance’s technology strategy and roadmap’ initiative. With respect to finance, this includes systems that support the entire finance team, including remote working and collaboration, process automation (RPA), disclosure management, and reconciliations. Then there are solutions to support the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) team, such as planning systems, data repositories, and business intelligence (BI) tools for advanced analytics. These will also help us lead on other strongly linked initiatives, such as ‘improved budget process efficiency’ and ‘developing a planning, budgeting, and forecasting strategy’, both of which are likely to be achieved by leveraging technology.

Of course, while technology is an enabler to improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, it is never the silver bullet. The importance of people to the success of any organization cannot be understated. And the success of CFOs is no different. As a CFO, we can only achieve success with the support of a strong and capable team. With high-quality finance staff currently a scarce resource in the market, we must lead the way in attracting, developing, and retaining talent and, thus, leading the initiative of ‘improving staff engagement’. Meeting this challenge will require the development of talent programs, in partnership with human resources, to source talent from diverse backgrounds, build employer branding, enhance digital skills, and improve employee satisfaction.

Finally, it is not surprising that ‘communicating and engaging with the board’ is a priority initiative for many CFOs in 2023. Developing effective communication and collaboration skills is now a requirement for the modern CFO. Not only must the CFO be a ‘financial storyteller’, understanding and explaining complex financial results and business performance to internal and external stakeholders, but we must also become expert collaborators across the organization.

Challenging as it may be modern CFOs need to develop a change mindset and skillset to meet the demands of the organization. As a result, the CFO’s evolution is very much a journey of self-development.

The Changing Role of the Finance Team

Along with the changes to the CFO role, the finance team is no longer simply responsible for recording financial transactions and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. They are expected to support us in all aspects of our evolving role and evolve as a team to deliver better insight to the organization.

While the finance team’s role is changing, the fundamentals of the traditional accounting back-office function remain. Transaction processing, general accounting, financial close, and reporting continue to be core activities in every organization. However, there is now added pressure on ‘doing more with less’, and to achieve this we need to improve the efficiency of core processes. The automation of the back-office processes, such as transaction processing, reconciliations, and financial consolidation, are repetitive tasks high on the list. It is only by improving the efficiency of these processes that we can ensure the close is timely and resources are concentrated on ‘value-added’ tasks that directly support the evolving role of the finance team.

FP&A teams have also grown in importance within organizations as budgeting, planning, forecasting, reporting, and analyzing take center stage. To maintain best-in-class status, the FP&A team must be seen as a trusted business partner, working closely with other departments to provide insights into financial performance while identifying areas for improvement. As with the role of the CFO, understanding the business beyond the numbers is a fundamental prerequisite.

We have already noted the importance of technology when discussing the CFOs changing role. Ultimately, the finance team members will make technology work for the organization and lead the success of any finance transformation projects while working closely with the CFO on these initiatives.

As we move increasingly towards automation and data analytics, we must recognize the need to align capabilities with changing skillset requirements. Where once the finance team was the domain of the trained accountant, we now see data analysts, scientists, and project managers on the team. We are in the perfect position to invest in the current team creating more job fulfillment by looking beyond traditional finance skills to include analytical, problem-solving, communication, and leadership development in the team.

As a CFO, I expect to see my role and the role of my team continue to change as we strive to meet the organization’s more strategic and analytical needs. To meet this challenge, we need to adopt a change mindset, develop skillsets to provide insights that inform business strategy and decision-making and achieve this while continuing to deliver efficient back-office services. This is a journey of self-development for the CFO and our finance team that will result in us meeting, and exceeding, the expectations of the organization.


This blog post was originally published on the Fluence Technologies blog.

Read more about Financial Close & Consolidation:

Making Work Meaningful for Finance & Accounting

What’s F&A’s Role in Responding to Instability & Volatility?

Challenges Facing Finance Leaders in the Mid-Market

Home » Fluence Technologies

Financial Consolidation Software Reduces Risk and Accelerates the Close

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This is a guest post from Ventana Research, published by Fluence Technologies. It details how financial close and consolidation software can reduce risk and speed up the close process.

The Importance of Time to Close

An important measure of the effectiveness of a finance and accounting department is the time it takes to close the books. Finance department executives should take a fresh look at this decades-old topic to assess the benefits of a faster close to the entire organization, from turning early actionable insights into performance to providing a working environment for the accounting staff that can attract and retain the best talent. This reassessment is warranted due to the relatively recent availability of full-featured cloud-based software that is affordable to midsize companies and readily managed by their finance department.

Our recent Smart Close Dynamic Insights Research finds that organizations using the right technology complete their accounting close sooner than those that do not. Software that manages the consolidation process is essential: 67% of participants that say their software manages the process very well can close within six business days compared to 36% that do not. Dedicated consolidation software can enable an organization—not just very large corporations—to streamline and accelerate its close while reducing the risk of financial statement errors. Ventana Research asserts that by 2025, one-half of midsize and larger organizations will use close management software to speed their close and achieve greater control of the process.

Since the 1990s there has been a consensus that organizations should complete the process within one business week. Our research consistently finds that the main reasons why organizations want to shorten their close are to provide more time for analysis that identifies issues and opportunities and to provide accurate data to their organization sooner. These can include issues such as the root cause of a significant cost variance and opportunities like unexpected strength in a region or product line. Shortening time-to-close shortens the time-to-know. Modern consolidation software can enable the department to spend less time on unproductive work, so it has more time to focus on providing executives and managers broader and deeper analysis and insight into improving their performance. Reducing unproductive effort also helps create a working environment that can attract and retain the best accounting staff. Closing faster means the finance department can complete the financial and management accounting sooner, which gives the entire organization the necessary information to react to opportunities and challenges earlier and in so doing, become more agile and promote a bias for action.

Limited Progress Over Time

Ventana Research has been doing research quantifying the accounting close for the past two decades and we have found that there has been limited change over this period: our research found that 56% of participants close their month within six business days and just 40% complete the usually more rigorous quarterly process in that amount of time. Using the right information technology can be the key to closing faster without requiring additional staff and without sacrificing quality.

Our research repeatedly finds that there usually are multiple reasons why organizations take longer than one business week to close their books—if there was a single snap-your-fingers fix the issue would have disappeared. Typically, we find that there is a set of interwoven and often self-reinforcing issues related to people (including training and attitudes), process design and execution, the quality and availability of data as well as the software that is used in the process. One often overlooked opportunity to a faster close is using a dedicated consolidation application.

How Dedicated Consolidation Software Helps

Modern consolidation software is designed to accelerate the creation of consolidated financial statements by automating computations, streamlining processes, and reducing the need for checks and reconciliations, while increasing control and auditability. Using consolidation software to manage workflows ensures that best practices are baked in and hand-offs between staff and others are smooth. Our research found that 69% of organizations that used workflows for all or some of their processes were able to close their quarter within six business days, compared to 29% of those with limited or no process automation. Consolidation software ensures that detailed accounting work such as currency conversions and amortizations and allocations are handled accurately and consistently.

Corporations that have been or are expecting to make acquisitions will find that consolidation software can eliminate financial frictions that arise when maintaining multiple ERP systems is the best pragmatic option. It can make assessing different financing and capital structure options easier and accelerate their ability to see the impact on cash flows and the balance sheet, especially when evaluating the impact of different interest rate and currency exchange rate scenarios.

This type of application has been available since the 1980s but until recently was mainly adopted by larger enterprises because of cost considerations, and the need for IT department involvement to maintain on-premises software. However, within the past decade, cloud-based software with the same functionality and capabilities have made this type of software much more practical and accessible for a wider set of organizations. There are three simple diagnostics that any CFO or controller can apply to determine if consolidation software would improve their organization’s performance.

Three Simple Diagnostics

  1. 1. The time it takes to close the books

If it takes more than a business week, consolidation software should be a consideration as a part of a process to shorten the process.

  1. 2. Complexity

Are there two or more general ledgers? Are more than a handful of legal entities? Are there operations with multiple countries with multiple currencies? Does the ownership structure feature any complicated elements (including partnerships, joint ventures and crossholdings)?

If any of these factors are present, dedicated consolidation software could be helpful in shortening the time it takes to close while ensuring calculations and journal entries are accurate easily audited.

  1. 3. The number of spreadsheets staff accountants use to get around the limitations of their existing software

The consolidation capabilities of general ledger applications may have worked initially, but rapidly growing companies, those that now have operations in multiple countries or that have made more than a couple of acquisitions are likely to discover that the series of incremental workarounds now require a growing amount of staff time and diligence in ensuring the accounting is correct.

Ventana Research recommends that organizations that take longer than one business week to complete their close, as well as those that “finish” within one week but routinely continue to make adjustments and journal entries for another week or more, should investigate whether dedicated, modern consolidation software would improve their process.

About Ventana Research

Ventana Research is the most authoritative and respected benchmark business technology research and advisory services firm. We provide insight and expert guidance on mainstream and disruptive technologies through a unique set of research-based offerings including benchmark research and technology evaluation assessments, education workshops and our research and advisory services, Ventana On-Demand. Our unparalleled understanding of the role of technology in optimizing business processes and performance and our best practices guidance are rooted in our rigorous research-based benchmarking of people, processes, information, and technology across business and IT functions in every industry. This benchmark research plus our market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers mean we can deliver education and expertise to our clients to increase the value they derive from technology investments while reducing time, cost and risk.

Ventana Research provides the most comprehensive analyst and research coverage in the industry; business and IT professionals worldwide are members of our community and benefit from Ventana Research’s insights, as do highly regarded media and association partners around the globe. Our views and analyses are distributed daily through blogs and social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

To learn how Ventana Research advances the maturity of organizations’ use of information and technology through benchmark research, education and advisory services, visit www.ventanaresearch.com.

This blog post was originally published on the Fluence Technologies blog.

Read more about Financial Close and Consolidation:

Making Work Meaningful for Finance & Accounting

Challenges Facing Finance Leaders in the Mid-Market

Ventana: Continuous Accounting Helps Companies Close Faster

Home » Fluence Technologies

Making Work Meaningful for Finance & Accounting

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This is a guest post from Christine Peart, CFO of Fluence Technologies, a partner of Revelwood, defining a future-ready finance workforce.

A few months ago, an article in the Wall Street Journal documented a troubling trend for finance; accountants are beating a path to the exit with more than 300,000 U.S. accountants and auditors leaving their roles from 2020-2022.

After almost a year of hearing about “quiet quitting,” accountants seem to be just . . . outright quitting.

That would be bad enough in itself, but the article suggested retention was only one part of the challenge finance departments are facing:

“The huge gap between companies that need accountants and trained professionals has led to salary bumps and more temporary workers joining the sector. Still, neither development will fix the fundamental talent pipeline problem: Many college students don’t want to work in accounting. Even those who majored in it.”

The WSJ interviewed one college student who bemoaned the idea of being “bogged down in the repetitive tasks of accounting, such as balancing cash sheets.” Instead, he found greater fulfillment in his data analytics class.

If this sounds familiar or reminds you of a similar refrain within your accounting and finance team, you might want to consider what will most deeply engage the talent you employ today, and what they’ll need to continue thriving tomorrow. I’m calling this a future-ready finance workforce, and if it’s not already, it should be at the top of every CFO’s agenda.

The search for meaning in finance and accounting

The evidence that working conditions within finance and accounting departments need to change isn’t limited to a few interviews and anecdotes. Last year consulting firm Deloitte conducted a survey in which careers.

You probably already guessed the number one answer, which was compensation. Number two, however, was “meaningful work” at 28% of those surveyed. This was far more important than other factors you might have expected to rank high, such as recognition (cited by only 6%) or even upward mobility, which came in at less than ten percent.

If those in accounting and finance find work meaningful, in other words, they may not be looking for their next big promotion. They might just be looking to build upon their skills and deliver greater value for the organization.

“People are most often engaged and productive when they do activities that energize them and leverage their skills. When organizations connect people to work that uses their skills, the result is likely to be high engagement and productivity,” the Deloitte report’s authors wrote. “Transitioning from a role-based to a skill-based finance organization can empower the workforce to own their development and establish a culture of internal mobility.”

Your future-ready finance workforce to-do list

It might seem difficult to develop finance and accounting roles in such a way that they compete in terms of prestige or glamor. And yet being able to make sense of financial information and guide corporate strategy can transform the ability of an organization to grow and succeed. It can help leaders in every other department outside finance be in a better position to achieve their goals. It’s hard. And it matters.

With that in mind, the call to action for finance leaders couldn’t be clearer:

1. Listen and act upon employee experience indicators

A future-ready finance workforce is one in which leaders have taken the time to develop a culture among their team where this value is clearly understood and to clearly reinforce it based on the employee experience they deliver.

By “employee experience,” I don’t simply mean what happens when an employee is welcomed on their first day, or the exit interview that’s conducted as a sort of post-mortem once they’ve tendered their resignation. The employee experience spans the entire journey someone takes with your organization, including what they see, think and feel on a day-to-day basis.

Whether through a formal survey or just seeking feedback through team meetings and one-on-one check-ins, ask your team about where they’re spending their time. Not to suggest they’re spending in the wrong areas necessarily, but whether it’s making the best use of their skills. Explore where they feel they could be making a greater contribution. Think about what kind of tools can best support them.

2. Conduct a skills audit to inform career development and hiring strategies

For some organizations, turnover in finance and accounting may be the one place where they’re not trying to trim back personnel. Challenging economic headwinds are forcing leaders in every industry to consider the people and skills they have in place, and whether it’s sufficient to meet business needs.

As a recent article in Fortune pointed out, the mass layoffs we’re reading about in the news could be the beginning of a transformation in who gets hired in accounting and finance roles.

“While most finance organizations were built with folks that have backgrounds similar to mine—accounting, risk, controls—what CFOs are now looking for are people with a much greater degree of tech fluency, data analytics skills,” said one of the CFOs interviewed for the piece, which predicted a rise in the use of cloud computing, artificial intelligence and more automation in general.

While you’re keeping an eye out for those future stars, begin building up those you already employ. That may require looking at automation too, so you can free them up from the manual and error-prone tasks that may make it impossible for them to reskill and upskill as they should.

3. Align your workforce around functional and organizational goals

Regardless of industry or size of company, finance leaders are pretty consistent in where they want to modernize operations: the close.

Just look at the results of a 2022 CFO survey from market research firm Gartner, which showed the most common goals included a faster, real-time close (86%), a cheaper close (68%), and an error-free close (64%). The future, in this case, isn’t very far away: these were all goals finance leaders expected to reach by 2025.

Even Gartner admitted that a fully autonomous close is unlikely to happen anytime soon. However, the purpose-built, finance-owned solution finance and accounting teams need to achieve those other targets is here today. The challenge with technology, though, is that most organizations are still leveraging legacy solutions or worse yet, still relying on Excel. These outdated tools tend to perpetuate the need for repetitive, mundane tasks and inhibit their ability to do ‘meaningful work’. Arming your workforce with modern tools that are easy to use and maintain is the first step in preparing them for what’s ahead and enabling your team to do ‘meaningful work’.

Conclusion: The value of working definitions

What is a future-ready finance workforce? A team whose leaders make the work feel meaningful. A group where everyone is motivated to continually develop their skills in response to business changes. A department equipped with the modern tools to tackle the biggest organizational ambitions.

That’s how I’d define it today. If we’ve learned anything over the past few years, though, it’s that the future evolves in highly unexpected ways. And it’s going to be critical for CFOs to modernize their office of finance with a future-ready workforce to be prepared for whatever comes next.

This blog post was originally published on the Fluence Technologies blog.

Read more about Financial Close and Consolidation:

Challenges Facing Finance Leaders in the Mid-Market

Ventana: Continuous Accounting Helps Companies Close Faster

Modernizing Financial Close and Consolidation with Best-of-Breed Corporate Performance Management Solutions

Home » Fluence Technologies

Challenges Facing Finance Leaders in the Mid-Market

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This is a guest post from Michael Morrison, CEO of Fluence Technologies, a partner of Revelwood. 

From financial consolidation to reporting, finance has to sort out some supply chain issues of its own.

Fluence recently conducted an independent survey of mid-market finance leaders on the needs and challenges they face stemming from their financial consolidation, close and reporting processes, as well as their aspirations for these processes looking forward.

Everything from attracting and retaining top talent to playing a more influential role in shaping the future of their businesses.

In certain cases, we learned some new lessons. In others, we heard that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Here’s my take on the results and implications of the study, but if you want to jump straight to the report, download The Roadmap to Modern, Mid-Market Finance today.

Supply chain issues for the finance and accounting function

There are all kinds of reasons an accounting team might have for being late with the financial close. Maybe some of the numbers just didn’t make sense. Perhaps a substantial amount of data had to be double-checked. The team might simply have run out of hours in the day.

There’s one more reason you could add to the list, though.

Supply chain issues.

It sounds like a joke, but it’s not.

People outside of finance might assume it’s a joke because, lately, it’s been hard to ship and receive almost anything.

Pre-pandemic, most people outside of the logistics sector might have struggled to even define the term supply chain. Now we’ve all come to realize how dependent we are on the myriad processes that get products from A to B.

This has made “supply chain issues” a sort of sarcastic shorthand for “stuff happens” in some circles. In finance, however, supply chain problems have been there for some time.

The difference is that you’re not shipping products but critical data – whether for financial reporting purposes or to drive business decisions. And the supply chain issues come in forms you’ll likely find familiar – and typically manually intensive – including:

  • collecting data from different sources in different formats
  • reconciling accounts, consolidating financials and closing your books
  • providing trusted reporting for management, auditors, regulators and more
Supply chain issues in the financial close
Image courtesy of Fluence Technologies

The missing links in financial reporting today

When the finance supply chain breaks down, companies wind up getting financial data long after they truly need it.

Much like making do without a product you ordered online when it gets delayed, though, companies move on. They make the best decisions they can with older information, or simply gut instinct. Which, of course, is never the best move.

Some areas of your business might complain to the accounting team as though they were demanding answers from customer service. It can be difficult for the accountants to provide a good explanation of where the supply chain cracks are, however. There’s no time to investigate because you have to move on to prepare for the next close.

This is one of the reasons Fluence recently published The Roadmap to Modern, Mid-Market Finance, an in-depth study of financial close, consolidation and reporting challenges – and why mid-market finance leaders need to overcome them.

The results may leave you feeling in great company.

A big number you usually don’t see in the average executive survey

What we found was something almost unheard of in a lot of market research: complete unanimity. Among the finance leaders we surveyed, 100% said they want software that ensures an automated close.

100% of finance execs want software to automate the close process
Image courtesy of Fluence Technologies

True, it’s hard to imagine someone putting up their hand to say, “Let’s keep it all manual!” But the stat is significant, because it speaks to how hard the journey to an automated close has been. In fact, only 20% have actually done it.

It’s difficult to make a significant change of any kind across a business, even mid-market firms. But automating the close involves not only technology. It also means recognizing differences in process and a greater attention to how the data will be reported and acted upon.

This — along with governance, controls and audits — is what makes up the financial reporting supply chain.

Financial close, consolidation and reporting are critical links here, because they are where data capture and controls affect everything else.

More than a dozen years ago, the accounting profession may not have realized how badly automation would be needed. In 2008, for example, the International Federation of Accountants (IFA) released a study of its own.

Financial Reporting Supply Chain: Current Perspectives and Directions had a lot to say about auditing standards and regulation. Software applications, not so much. “Lack of forward-looking information” was one of the areas of concern, though. So was the need to “include business-driven information in financial reports.”

Excel and ERPs: The more things change…

Today, a group like the IFA would probably discover the same challenges we did about legacy software – that the vast majority prefer more flexible, modern tools.  

But this doesn’t just include large, complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, but also the one software tool that every finance professional knows (and many love) – Excel spreadsheets.

As popular as they’ve become over time, 66% of finance leaders admitted that standalone Excel spreadsheets hinder informed business decisions.

66% of finance leaders say standalone spreadsheets hinder business decisions
Image courtesy of Fluence Technologies

Of course, that doesn’t mean getting rid of them is all that easy – or that you should. With the right controls, governance and data connectivity, Excel can still be the powerhouse it has been for four decades (watch some of our demo videos to see how).

While “Excel Hell” and the usability, accuracy and flexibility challenges of today’s ERP systems are well recognized, our research highlighted another, arguably more important cost of the status quo – your employees.

After the time they’ve invested in a college degree, CPA accreditation and professional development, how much do you think accountants enjoy spending a week or more every month copying and pasting numbers from spreadsheet to spreadsheet? Or having to put a ticket into IT to add a single field to a financial report?

More to the point, what’s the human capital cost of using legacy systems and spreadsheets in your financial close and reporting processes?

88% of finance execs say modern software is critical to attracting and retaining employees
Image courtesy of Fluence Technologies

From our research, the answer is clearly a lot. A full 88% of finance executives told us modern software and tools are critical to attracting, retaining and rewarding employees.

What’s driving today’s supply chain issues?

Finance leaders know that maintaining the status quo is no longer an option.

In fact, 95% said an increasingly volatile business environment and the speed of technological change calls for something better. Instead of being held back by legacy solutions, they want something lightweight and agile.

95% of finance exes say volatility calls for something better than legacy software
Image courtesy of Fluence Technologies

The pandemic is increasing the sense of urgency here, too. Like many other business functions, finance teams are increasingly working remotely at least part of the time.

70% of finance execs are reevaluating their processes and tech post-COVID
Image courtesy of Fluence Technologies

That’s good from an employee experience standpoint, but poses potential risks around the accuracy and security of financial data. That’s why 70% said they are reevaluating what their consolidation, close and reporting processes should look like in a post-COVID era.

Using research to find common ground — and a common path forward

Our hope is that this research will serve as a way of helping other finance leaders to feel less alone. Wrestling with these challenges is common across the profession.

There are consistencies in the difficulties today’s accounting teams face in consolidation and reporting – with the process, the people and the technologies involved.

There’s also a lot of hope that a shift to more advanced ways of working is under way.

Beyond what I’ve touched on in this article, here’s a rundown of what you can expect to find when you download the full report:

  • A self-assessment among finance leaders about the state of their close and consolidation processes today
  • The top 3 challenges they encounter when they turn to technology for help
  • The functions that are most often poorly handled in today’s consolidation and reporting solutions
  • The value finance leaders put on agile and lightweight solutions
  • How actively firms are improving the quality of data for analysis

We have numbers for all of these areas, plus plenty of analysis on what the numbers mean. We also offer some recommendations on how to use this data to move your own financial close, consolidation and reporting forward.

Without giving away too many spoilers, what you’ll find is that the opportunities to improve aren’t limited to large enterprises.

There are more mid-market offerings available than ever. And they offer far more than efficiency gains or faster close times.

Indeed, how you modernize your consolidation and reporting today can lead to a better performing business tomorrow.

This blog post was originally published on the Fluence Technologies blog.

Read more about Financial Close and Consolidation:

Modernizing Financial Close and Consolidation with Best-of-Breed Corporate Performance Management Solutions

Nucleus Research Finds 50 – 150% ROI on Financial Consolidation and Close Solutions

Fluence Technologies Earns “Outstanding” Overall BPM Pulse Rating from BPM Partners

Home » Fluence Technologies

Ventana: Continuous Accounting Helps Companies Close Faster

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Ventana Research, an authoritative and respected market research and advisory services firm, recently looked at Revelwood’s partner Fluence Technologies and how the company helps organizations automate tasks for faster monthly, quarterly and annual closing. 

According to Ventana, by 2025 two-thirds of midsized organizations will have applied continuous accounting principles to close their monthly books within one business week. A key objective of continuous accounting is achieving a fast, clean close. 

This is part of a larger digital transformation of accounting departments, which aims to eliminate manual tasks such as consolidations and reconciliations by using software automation. 

The firm’s Smart Close Dynamic Insights report shows:

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  • 56% of organizations close their month within six business days 
  • 40% of organizations complete their quarterly close in six business days
  • 69% of those that automate all most of the close process complete the quarterly close within six days
  • Only 29% of companies that only use some or no software automation close within that six-day window

Ventana states, “Financial executives who are committed to enabling their finance organization to play a more strategic role in their company should focus on ways to streamline their close process.”

Read the full piece on continuous accounting and Fluence Technologies.

Read more about Fluence Technologies:

FP&A Done Right: The Role of Narrative Reporting in ESG

Fluence Technologies Earns “Outstanding” Overall BPM Pulse Rating from BPM Partners

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Modernizing Financial Close and Consolidation with Best-of-Breed Corporate Performance Management Solutions

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This is a guest post from Michael Morrison, CEO of Fluence Technologies, a partner of Revelwood. 

Ask an artist to show you what a tree looks like and they might create a beautiful painting that shows a maple tree’s leaves changing from green to orange and yellow at the height of autumn.

If you ask a scientist the same question, they’re more likely to walk through a detailed breakdown about the genus and species to which they belong, how tall they’ll grow and where they tend to thrive.

Now imagine you have to make a strategic business decision about trees: though both of them are valuable, it’s pretty easy to see why the scientist would become your preferred source of expertise. Some disciplines may be a mix of art and science, but others are more clear-cut. The differences between financial planning and analysis (FP&A) and financial consolidation are a perfect case in point.

The strategic roadmaps FP&A teams develop for their organizations could be considered an art in the sense that they involve studying data in the context of organizational objectives and finding insights that will chart a successful path forward. While the results need to be firmly grounded in fact, there’s some creativity involved.

“Creative” financial consolidation, on the other hand, is of no help to anyone in an organization, especially its leadership team. When companies consolidate and close the books using manual, ad-hoc processes, they risk introducing errors, inconsistencies and wind up taking accounting teams more time than they should. Instead of a clear representation of where the business stands, the result is more like an abstract painting that’s difficult to interpret.

Financial consolidation needs the rigor of science because it provides the foundation on which all the creative thinking is built. This includes budgeting and planning, but also identifying growth opportunities and operational efficiencies.

Perhaps even more importantly, financial consolidation is key to meeting reporting requirements, where the accuracy of balances, journal entries and intercompany matching is essential to a successful audit.

With these kinds of requirements in mind, it’s no wonder growing companies often struggle to choose the right technology solutions. This is where a best-of-breed approach provides functionality with flexibility to address the needs of those involved in both financial consolidation and FP&A.  

A Brief History Of Best of Breed

Anyone who has ever gone camping with a Swiss Army knife can appreciate the versatility of an all-in-one platform.

When you’re spending time in the woods, for instance, a Swiss Army knife has the advantages of being small to pack, light to carry and containing all the tools you might need during your trip. This not only includes a blade for cutting but a tiny magnifying glass, a corkscrew and even a fork.

Once you’re back at home, though, using the fork in a Swiss Army knife for eating at your dining room table feels almost ridiculous. Instead, we turn to what might be called a best-of-breed fork – a utensil that was built specifically with a single purpose in mind.

Something similar has been going on within organizations that originally standardized many of their business functions on an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform. This is the Swiss Army knife of software, handling not only accounting but procurement, project management, supply chain operations, payroll and more.

An ERP might be fine if the company using it never bought another firm, or if it decided never to expand into other markets or add more customers. The reality is that M&As often lead to a single company owning multiple ERPs, complicating financial consolidation by requiring deep integration and fine-tuning.

“Best-of-breed” can be defined in many ways, but think of it as technology that is purpose-built to do one job really well. You’ll recognize these solutions because they tend to be:

  • Cloud-based: Traditional, on-premise solutions tend to lock companies into features that become difficult to update or change. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) financial consolidation solutions make data more accessible while providing a streamlined upgrade path.
  • Out-of-the-Box: Instead of bringing on an army of consultants to set up and deploy them, best-of-breed solutions can be set up in far less time, with key functionality ready to be used immediately.
  • User-centric: An ERP might be designed with almost every business function in mind. A best-of-breed solution hones in on the specific needs and challenges of a particular team or set or role. In this case, it means finance and accounting professionals will see features that align with their ideal workflow.

Sometimes the prospect of researching and selecting best-of-breed software might seem so daunting that companies are tempted to put it off indefinitely. There’s a risk in doing nothing, however.

Sticking with an all-in-one platform like an ERP (or several of them) means finance and accounting teams might run into consolidation challenges that require them to figure out workarounds – another form of “creativity” with all the risks we walked through earlier in this post.

Maintaining the status quo could also make consolidating, closing the books and reporting on the data more of a chore for already-overworked teams. Companies that want to hold onto these valuable employees (or avoid the threat of “quiet quitting”) should think about what a best-of-breed solution could mean for the employee experience.

Finally, failing to make best-of-breed solutions a priority means you may become less agile, productive and strategic as competitors who opt for more modern technologies to navigate uncertain economic times.

Fortunately, making the shift to best-of-breed finance software isn’t as difficult as you might imagine.

Best Practices For Choosing And Deploying Best-of-Breed Software

Your search for the right best-of-breed financial consolidation and close solution will depend in part on the catalysts that started you on this journey in the first place.

For fast-growing companies, it often stems from a combination of outgrowing tools such as static spreadsheets or facing enough complexity (M&A, international growth, intercompany transactions, etc.) that ERPs no longer make sense.

As you evaluate the options, consider the following principles:

1. Tie Clear Goals To Finance And Accounting Performance KPIs

FP&A and accounting groups already track plenty of metrics, from working capital to net profit margin, compound annual growth rate and beyond. In this case, though, you want to think more about the key performance indicators that demonstrate success among your team members.

These could include time spent completing the financial close, time spent reporting, error rates and more. Make sure you’re not constrained by a platform where the number of scenarios or versions you can work with are limited – you may only close the books once a quarter, but modern FP&A needs to support continuous planning processes. 

Settling on a few of these KPIs – and setting goals to move the needle on them – will ensure you select the right best-of-breed solution for your business.

2. Scope The Full Breadth Of Feature Capabilities That Matter

It’s easy to get used to the way things have always been done in FP&A and close and consolidation. This is an opportunity to dream a little, looking at the functionality that will meet your current needs and those that may come up as your firm continues to grow.

For instance, some of the most burning issues could be integrating data from multiple locations and subsidiaries, or consolidating and reporting financial results across multiple hierarchies. 

Over time, though, you may also want to think about how your potential solution can streamline the dissemination of financial data into board books, dashboards and other forms of reporting to help key stakeholders. The right product should also assist with what-if analysis for those doing the “creative” work in FP&A.

3. Assess Current And Future Finance Data Complexity

Regulatory compliance is an ever-evolving beast, as is the nature of what guides strategic direction in a company. Best-of-breed technologies should therefore offer a seamless way to bring together both financial and non-financial data to create a more comprehensive picture of business performance.

Why non-financial data? Because a true best-of-breed solution supports company-wide planning, where line-of-business leaders and their teams can adapt models to reflect their specific goals and allow them to easily collaborate with other functional groups. 

Factor in variables such as having to contend with multiple languages, multiple currencies and any planned M&As or growth tactics will affect the chart of accounts you’ll need to manage.

And of course, all this should come with strong security and a complete audit trail. Data integrity is not a nice-to-have. It’s essential.

4. Determine The Degree Of Finance Ownership

Given the technical nature of ERP and similar enterprise-grade software, it has traditionally been up to IT departments to procure and make changes to the technologies used by finance departments. Cloud-based platforms today should require less oversight and intervention by the CIO’s team, however. Instead, accounting and FP&A groups should steer the overall roadmap for which new features should be turned on (and when), as well as any changes to business processes like the monthly close.

A good example is reporting: best-of-breed platforms should mean an end to the days when IT had to help finance teams develop reports. Instead, self-service reporting capabilities should support the development of ad hoc reporting so the company can respond to changes with intelligence and speed. 

Calculating Best-of-Breed ROI And Next Steps

Automation should always accomplish a few key objectives. It should bring speed and simplicity to otherwise difficult or complex processes. It should position employees to focus more on the tasks that make the best use of their time, experience and expertise. And it should create greater standardization and consistency as it offers more trustworthy data for the business’s strategic use.

Best-of-breed financial consolidation and close software can tick all of these boxes, and many more. The return on investment should be based in part on factors such as:

  • The ability of the solution to scale with the business
  • The ongoing development of more sophisticated features tied to user needs
  • The ease with which the platform can work with related solutions and technologies
  • The ability to answer increasingly complex questions

The shift to best-of-breed finance software is also not one fast-growing companies have to make on their own. Watch this on-demand webinar by Fluence and Revelwood, where we go into more detail about actionable steps that will help you reduce the time to value and reap the biggest benefits.

This blog post was originally published on the Fluence Technologies blog.

Read more about Financial Close and Consolidation:

Nucleus Research Finds 50 – 150% ROI on Financial Consolidation and Close Solutions

FP&A Done Right: The Role of Narrative Reporting in ESG

Fluence Technologies Earns “Outstanding” Overall BPM Pulse Rating from BPM Partners

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Nucleus Research Finds 50 – 150% ROI on Financial Consolidation and Close Solutions

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Nucleus Research has determined that SMBs can expect a “payback period of 12 months and an average annual ROI of 50 to 150 percent within the first three years of deployment” for financial consolidation and close solutions. 

The analyst firm is a global provider of ROI-focused technology research and advisory services. According to Nucleus, “Midsized companies contend with the same accounting complexities of large enterprises with multiple business units spreads across various geographies and industries, but often lack the budget and bandwidth for a drawn-out implementation.” These companies turn to midmarket financial consolidation and close solutions to “migrate off disjointed Excel processes while lowering the technical and cost barriers of traditional enterprise technology.” 

Nucleus defines financial consolidation and close (FCC) solutions as “covering the consolidation and reporting of financial information for the monthly, quarterly, and annual close … [they] help organizations streamline daily tasks for accountants, controllers, and the CFO.” 

Furthermore, Nucleus explains that “midmarket companies deploy an FCC system when they have difficulty meeting compliance requirements, reporting actuals on a timely basis, evaluating the progress of accounting processes, and visibility to financials across their various functional departments, sales channels, and subsidiaries.”

Download the report today to learn about the benefits of FCC solutions, including:

  • Productivity
  • Cost reductions
  • Revenue drivers
  • Organization visibility
  • Culture and morale

The report also covers the total cost of ownership (TCO) of FCC solutions.

This report is courtesy of Revelwood’s partner, Fluence Technologies.

Read more about Financial Close & Consolidation:

Fluence Technologies Earns “Outstanding” Overall BPM Pulse Rating from BPM Partners

Financial Close & Consolidation: The Vital Need for Automating Accounting

Modern Accounting: Adjusting Journal Entries

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FP&A Done Right: The Role of Narrative Reporting in ESG

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ESG (environmental, social, governance) reporting is the talk of the Office of Finance. Does our company need to start thinking about ESG? When do we need to start reporting on our ESG efforts? And most importantly, how do we do this?

There are many approaches: leveraging existing investments in planning software and data analytics, relying on home-grown solutions, purchasing new, purpose-built applications, and more. One aspect of the ESG reporting continuum is that of narrative reporting.

In July 2022, Revelwood’s partner, Fluence Technologies, acquired Sturnis365, a solution for collaborative disclosure management and narrative reporting. “[The Sturnis365 acquisition] complements Fluence’s robust, enterprise financial consolidation, close and reporting solution, enabling time-pressed finance departments to spend more time on analysis while addressing broader mandates for narrative reporting, including internal board books, investor presentations and more stringent ESG reporting,” said Robert Kugel, SVP and Research Director at Ventana Research. 

What is Narrative Reporting?

Narrative reporting goes beyond the numbers – and statutory disclosure – to automate the production and distribution of any internal or external report. It enables you to combine and consolidate financial, operational and external data sources and narrative text components such as management letters and notes to financial statements. It allows for input from multiple contributors from across a business – from auditors to executives.

Fluence states, “Bringing financial and non-financial together through integrated reporting sets you up to tell a more meaningful story about the business … You can tell those stories through an annual report, board books, lender reports or other investor updates.” 

Narrative reporting provides meaning and context to your reports. 

Narrative Reporting and ESG

According to Accenture, 68% of CFOs globally take responsibility for their organization’s ESG performance. ESG reporting encompasses non-financial data that needs to be linked to financial information. ESG metrics can help uncover business opportunities, attract investors and offer a competitive advantage. More and more companies are incorporating ESG concerns into capital allocations and plans. Sustainability is falling under organizations’ enterprise risk management strategy. All of these factors point to the significance and importance of reporting accurately and thoroughly on ESG. But numbers alone won’t tell the story. 

“Organizations need to understand their ESG reporting obligations – today and into the future – and this reporting responsibility typically falls on the Office of Finance,” said Michael Morrison, CEO, Fluence. “At Fluence, we are committed to addressing these ESG reporting needs with our modern consolidation, close and reporting platform.”

Read more in our series on ESG reporting:

FP&A Done Right: Finance’s Role in ESG Reporting

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