Finance Monthly - March 2023

Fresh talent want more than mundane manual tasks When it comes to graduates joining finance teams. Traditionally, they are expected to spend the first few years of their career getting to grips with the intricacies of financial processes. Whilst in years gone by young talent has accepted this as a necessary step within their development, the time in which they are prepared to stick around just working on repetitive tasks within accounts payable (AP) for example, has significantly shrunk. According to Tipalti research, a third (32%) of young professionals say modernising finance with technology would be the most exciting problem to solve if they became a CFO. Given the ambitions of young talent, entry into the finance profession should no longer be confined to purely budgeting, forecasting and financial operations. Young professionals should be given the opportunity to be part of the pioneering direction that a career in finance can provide – if supported with the right processes. Capitalise on young talent’s ambitions to add value and thinking strategically Those entering finance teams start at the very bottom, getting to grips with the basics. But, too much time spent on repetitive tasks will cause an issue much quicker than it used to. Alun Davis, Head of Finance at Plentific highlighted this during the panel, “What I was finding was that our young talent were getting bored quite quickly and losing their attention” - this prevented Davis from getting the best from his team. Our research revealed that 40% of young professionals see identifying new opportunities to accelerate growth, productivity or profitability as an exciting opportunity as a CFO. It’s clear there’s much to be excited about a career in finance but when stuck in the tedious lifecycle of manuallyintensive processes employees, both new to the business and existing, will quickly become disillusioned and churn will be high. Alex Rogers, CFO at Design Cuts, notes that if their junior account hires were carrying out mainly manual, often mundane, tasks then they probably wouldn’t stay at the firm. Businesses should be capitalising on this passion, instead of isolating them into the back office function. For Maria Liston, CFO at Basebone, she didn’t want her team to be continuously processing. Instead, she said, “I want them to provide useful insights for the rest of the business.” When new talent enters the team, businesses should see this as an opportunity to capitalise on fresh perspectives for strategic insights. But to realise this opportunity, businesses need to be asking how they can limit the mundane tasks to create a more engaged, inspired and motivated team, who are likely to stay at the business long-term. Facilitate crossdepartmental collaboration by increasing efficiency Crucial to success through global financial instability is ensuring the business is lean, the finance team have an integral role in delivering streamlined operations which are agile enough to withstand change. Currently, 56% of finance teams spend over ten hours a week processing invoices and supplier payments – these inefficient and time-consuming tasks are simply not fit to deliver strategy at pace. Davis recognises how crucial automation is to increasing efficiency and providing strategic insights for the business. He said: “the automation journey is about getting the information in the timeliest manner in front of my C-suite. And if we can’t do that, these guys cannot make the right sort of business decisions.” Liston added, “we’ve grown but our 40% of young professionals see identifying new opportunities to accelerate growth, productivity or profitability as an exciting opportunity as a CFO.” “ Bank i ng & F i nanc i a l Se r v i ce s 48 Finance Monthly.

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