Financial Services Firms’ Guide to Creating Business Insights

Some companies struggle to get enough data to make smart, strategic decisions. Financial services companies, on the other hand, often have the opposite problem. The sheer volume of data available to finance leaders within wealth and asset management firms presents real challenges. Moreover, the time, technologies, and resources required to normalize and make meaningful use of that data are enormous. 

How can your wealth and asset management firm maximize the value of its data stores while minimizing the resources required to unlock them? Sage Intacct offers some ideas in a new E-book, Create Business Insights When You’re Data Rich But Time Poor. The book is filled with helpful insights into how your firm can overcome some of the common barriers surrounding data accessibility — barriers like these:

 

Complex multi-entity reporting 

Multi-entity management and reporting are highly complex tasks. Many firms spend a significant portion of every month assembling the required data, reconciling it from spreadsheets or multiple QuickBooks instances, and finally creating the reports. In fact, a report from Deloitte referenced in the E-book found that many financial firms spend 20+ days each month performing consolidations and closes. 

Wealth and asset management firms that adopt a financial management solution built for the way they work can gain back that time. For example, one firm you’ll read about in the E-book reduced the time they spend gaining a consolidated view across funds for the board book from over 100 hours to just minutes when they switched to Sage Intacct. 

 

Lack of data integration

You’re working with data from various sources and applications, and without an efficient way to bring that data together, your firm is left with an incomplete picture. Filling that picture typically involves redundant, error-prone, and time-consuming data entry.

Modern cloud-based financial management applications like Sage Intacct are designed with open APIs that facilitate information sharing across systems. You’ll gain a holistic view of the firm beyond financials by linking to applications such as Salesforce, ADP, Bill.com, or industry-specific software.

 

Regulatory compliance

Financial services firms like yours have to comply with various regulations such as KYC (Know Your Customer), AML (Anti-Money Laundering), and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Of course, there are also revenue recognition rules and regulations layered on top of these, and likely even multi-currency transactions to account for. 

With a financial management application that maintains a comprehensive audit trail, is designed for compliance, and takes foreign currency conversions and consolidations in stride, you can work smarter and more productively — while ensuring your firm’s regulatory compliance.

 

Insights locked up tight

You must fully see what’s happening in all business areas to make the best decisions. Yet, data analysis and reporting tools can be complex, and expensive, and often require an experienced data analyst to use. 

Modern financial management applications often have powerful, easy-to-use business intelligence tools built in. One such tool is dimensions, tags or labels used to group and filter data. (Think of them like Twitter hashtags.) Dimensions make tracking the business drivers that matter easy, providing answers to your business questions faster. In the E-book, you’ll hear from the VP of Operations at one financial services firm who said, “I can see trends way better than I could see them before. Our statistical reporting and the ability to use KPIs and dashboards have helped me as a finance executive. I spend more time on investing funds rather than just tracking them.”

 

Thinking ahead

As a finance executive at a financial services firm, you have a lot on your plate. You’re undoubtedly working hard, maybe even putting in nights and weekends to bring it all together. The right financial management software can’t solve every challenge you face. Still, it can automate routine tasks, make decision-making data easily accessible, and streamline complexities that will earn you back more time in your day and deliver the confidence that comes with working with accurate, real-time data. 

 

Learn more about how Sage Intacct is powering insights for data-rich-but-time-poor finance execs like you in Create Business Insights When You’re Data Rich But Time Poor. In addition, our Sage Intacct consulting team is here to answer any questions.