The Controller’s Guide to Finance Automation

In this guide
According to a survey conducted by Deloitte's Center for Controllership and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA),* 65% of respondents in finance and accounting say their organizations' controllership function is either unprepared or only somewhat prepared to meet future demands. In this guide, we’ll cover how to identify key areas of weakness throughout your financial reporting processes, and how and when these can be addressed using automation in accounting and finance to help you arm your organization, including your board and executive team, for the future.
The financial controller: At the center of the action
As a financial controller, you operate at the center of a high-performing reporting function. With one eye on daily processes and the other on business strategy, you act as the lynchpin between multiple internal stakeholders from FP&A, internal audit, and general counsel, all the way to the CFO. This comes with a unique set of responsibilities—and risks:
Providing accurate financial data
Leading the reporting cycle
Delivering respected business insights
Top three concerns of financial pros: A recent Workiva survey** revealed that minimizing risk, protecting data integrity, and ensuring efficiency are the three top concerns for finance professionals.
From key priorities to external pressures
While these priorities remain steadfast, your financial controller role probably looks quite different from how it once did. Expectations placed on controllers are increasing. In fact, 80% of controllers surveyed by Deloitte and the IMA feel their jobs have become more forward-thinking and analytical.* This is because of a quickly evolving backdrop:
Economic volatility
Between volatile markets and an unstable socio-political landscape, there’s more pressure than ever to arm your company with regular, accurate insights that enable agile decision-making. Cash flow might also be tighter, so it’s likely you’re being asked to do more with less.
Regulatory demands
New regulations are coming in and shaking things up. The information contained in reports is being scrutinized more closely, heightening the need for traceable data. Integrated sustainability and financial reporting requirements mean that more data needs to be reported on and verified. For you, this means keeping the ship steady as your team adapts to new requirements while mitigating risk by continuing to ensure accuracy across everything you report.
Staffing struggles
Talent shortages and the rise of remote work have transformed the way accounting, finance, and sustainability teams operate. While businesses strive to break down silos, departments remain disconnected and overstretched, using inefficient systems and outdated tools. With overstretched processes and staff burnouts to contend with, keeping your team productive and satisfied in their work has never been more of a challenge.
Why use financial process automation?
Doing more with less
Speed and accuracy
Choosing the right tool
Lara Wilson
Step 1: Establish where financial automation is needed
As pressures mount, it can be tempting to tackle problems on a case-by-case basis.
Consider your insights
The story you tell with your data is instrumental in helping steer business decisions. Start by considering the value your insights hold for your CFO in the context of board and executive reporting. How has this changed in recent years? Make a list of the shareholder expectations and regulations guiding what needs to be reported on, noting the main areas that are currently evolving.
Next, consider the speed with which you can deliver these insights. If your CFO asks you for a particular figure, how quickly can you provide it? Take note of what information you can provide or verify quickly, and what data would be more challenging, or slower, to access.
To deliver high-quality insights, two things are needed: trust in the accuracy of your data and enough time to dive deep in your analysis and proactively anticipate questions and concerns. Highlight which areas you feel confident and less confident in reporting on with speed, accuracy, and depth. This will help you to flag the areas in your process that could be addressed with finance process automation.
Consider your data
As controllers are being made responsible for more financial and non-financial data than ever, it’s essential for you to have a clear view of where all your information originates. Your data points are most likely generated from multiple systems, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), business intelligence (BI), and enterprise performance management (EPM) platforms. Map out how and where your data is gathered and what software is being used.
Continue building your map by following individual data points along their journey from point of origin to the final report. Make note of all the different teams, systems, and processes a single data point encounters.
As you map out your data journeys, make note of the controls and processes that ensure information remains accurate and unchanged. How is data verified at source? What controls are in place as it passes from one team or software to the next? Consider whether information is being passed along manually (e.g., by copy/pasting) or automatically, and who is in charge of transferring, amending, and verifying figures.
Consider your teams
As stakeholders demand more financial and non-financial insights, it’s likely that you’re working across more teams than you may even realize. As you map out your data journeys, compile an inventory of everyone involved in the financial reporting process and what roles they have, from input providers (e.g., FP&A, tax) to report creators (e.g., corporate accounting), to reviewers (e.g., executives, department leads).
As you map out your teams, consider how they work together. Take note of how edits are made, how comments are exchanged, where people are able to collaborate in real time, and where they circulate individual document versions (e.g., using emails or print-outs). How efficient, fast, and traceable is communication at every step? Consider how this works both within and between disparate teams.
Examining these different team processes should start to give you a clear picture of where the main inefficiencies and areas of weakness lie. Taking this information into account, ask your team members what their biggest frustrations are, what their most time-consuming tasks currently are, and what they feel they should be spending more time on.
Step 2: Know the signs of a strong solution
Answering the above questions in detail will help you highlight and connect underlying issues in your process and identify which areas are in most need of addressing with financial process automation.
Positive Signs
According to our survey,** 51% of businesses are planning to spend more on their finance transformation. Look at where investments are currently being made—what overarching problems are they aiming to solve? Aim to leverage and expand upon existing areas of investment.
Consider also what ROI you hope to achieve with the platform, and find out what ROI other companies have achieved by using it. Strong finance automation solutions will often give prospective customers the chance to connect with their current users to discuss their experiences before they commit.
Am I aiming to solve one timely problem, or tackling an underlying issue? Ask yourself:
- Will this solution help improve data quality?
- Will it support team efficiency?
- Will it strengthen my insights?
If the answer is yes to any of these, the solution is more likely to have a long-lasting impact on your organization. As the need to report on both financial and non-financial data increases, finding a financial process automation solution that unites disparate functions by impacting two or more of the above areas is key.
In the current landscape, lengthy implementation processes simply aren’t feasible. Modern, cloud-based solutions offer the option of a much faster adoption process. Look for automated financial reporting solutions that are designed to work with your existing tools, rather than simply adding to them, and that have a familiar user interface that will be easy for your team to adopt.
Step 3: Plan your implementation
Our Recommendations
While a strong solution should be quick to implement, successful implementation still needs planning and care. If a new tool is being implemented during a reporting cycle, running both old and new systems in parallel before fully changing over can help ensure a smooth transition. Consider the needs of all stakeholders and ensure everyone has enough time to get on board.
It’s important to include all key users from early on in the decision-making process to fully understand their needs, roadblocks, and reservations. Your team members may have varying levels of experience, ability, and confidence when it comes to technology. Internal onboarding sessions can go a long way to get everyone up and running more quickly.
From decision-making to implementation, adopting the right tools can be all-consuming. Make sure you speak to solution experts who can guide you through the entire financial automation process, help you make the right choices for your team, and provide support along the way. Involving partners and experts from the very beginning can help maximize your ROI and help you see results more quickly.


Riley Drummond
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