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When your small medium business grows, your financials too experience a complexity which needs greater efficiency to tackle. Most SMEs start out using excel sheets and then quickly adopt an accounting software, but soon as a Finance person you realize that if you really wanted to take things to the next level – you need something better and holistic. The finance team is always on the lookout to make their work more accurate, faster and easier. In this article, experts at VC ERP talk about the best Financial Management Software for CFOs.

This holistic approach and visibility is available in SAP Business One® solution. Finance and Accounting functions go beyond the obvious Accounting & Finance department within any company. All business functions need capital to keep going. Therefore, end-to-end visibility of operations is a crucial factor when deciding to opt for a holistic solution.

SAP Business One is integrated, holistic and streamlines each and every accounting and financial process in your growing company including:
  • Accounts Receivable
  • Accounts Payable
  • Posting of Ledger & Journal Entries
  • Posting of Recurring Entries

What More do you Need in a Financial Management Solution for your Growing Company?


There’s always more! Your holistic Financial Management solution must be scalable. In other words, it has to grow just as your business grows. In addition, it needs to support automatic tax calculations and multi-currency transactions.

In addition, it should let you:
  • Manage Cash Flow
  • Fixed Assets
  • Track Budgets
  • Compare Actual & Estimated Figures for accuracy
  • Use Data Visualization & Powerful Reports
  • Accessible on your Smartphone or Device
As a holistic Financial Management solution, powered by SAP HANA®, SAP Business One offers all this and more.

Let’s explore the Financial Management Features in SAP Business One in greater depth.

What makes SAP Business One the best Financial Management Software for CFOs?


SAP Business One ERP Solution designed specifically by keeping the needs of SME businesses in mind offers an end-to-end Accounting & Finance management solution as part of its modules.

Accounting
Controlling
Banking & Reconciliation
Implement or adapt predefined chart of accounts templates
Define and manage budgetsAll incoming & outgoing payments can be managed using variety of payment options including cash, checks, electronic bank transfers & credit cards
Carry out accounting transactions, such as journal entries and vouchers and recurring postingsHandle payment terms, customer reminders, and cash collectionsProcess bank statements and perform automatic reconciliation of ledgers
Easily make use of multiple currencies for accounts payable and accounts receivable transactionsDirect & indirect expenses and revenues for multiple cost centers, branches, and business units can be managedClear multiple accounts receivable and payable invoices automatically in batches
Easily create financial statements including balance sheet, profit and loss statement & other financial reportsAutomated Revenue & Expense allocation using simple distribution rulesGenerate check and payment reports and Print check batches
Efficient fixed assets management throughout their lifecycleMultiple transparent depreciation methods for fixed assets

Let’s dive deep into the amazing benefits that this comprehensive solution offers for your CFOs, Finance and Accounts team.

1.  Capture all your Financial Information in a Single, Scalable Financial Management Software for CFOs


SAP Business One offers chart of accounts templates which can be easily customized based on your business requirements. These templates incorporate your country-specific legal requirements such as segmentation or specific numbering. As a result, it is easier to efficiently comply with local laws and regulations.

Tax Localization & Compliance

Regardless of where you conduct your business, SAP Business One offers support in 27 languages with localization for 42 countries complying with multiple global financial reporting standards and currencies.

Automate Accounting Processes

In addition, the transactions in SAP Business One automatically trigger corresponding journal entries in real time. For instance, a goods receipt posting will automatically create the necessary journal entry to adjust inventory levels and valuation and updates corresponding expense accounts.

Simplify General Ledger, Repeat Entries & Multiple Journal Entries

Use your rules and priorities to configure primary accounts so the right general ledger accounts are used in each transaction. For regular transactions that tend to repeat from one period to the next, you can effectively use recurring postings and posting templates.

Minimize the potential of errors and simplify redundant tasks that a simple template can take care of easily for recurring transactions. In case of multiple journal entries, you can process vouchers in batch mode increasing the speed of your work as all entries get posted simultaneously.

2.  Manage Cash Flow, Track Assets, and Control Budgets


Run your business profitably using intuitive features and reports for financial management within SAP Business One.

Optimize Liquidity through Cash Flow Management

Arrive at accurate cash flow and cash requirements forecasts so you can handle payment terms, customer reminders and cash collections with confidence.

For example, you can set up workflow-based alerts that notify you of pending payments that may affect your cash flow. In addition, you can track customers that have unpaid invoices and automatically generate reminder letters based on the length of delay, the payment terms, and the amount due.

The SAP HANA platform powers SAP Business One offering robust functionality and in-memory computing power. This takes your cash-flow forecasting to the next level of performance by including critical cash-related transactions in real-time calculations including but not limited to:
  • Sales Orders
  • Purchase Orders
  • Down Payments
  • Recurrent Postings

Multi-branch Cost Accounting for Total Visibility

Using multi-branch cost accounting, you can track departments, divisions, or various geographies separately to determine how much spending is being generated for various business purposes.

You can manage direct and indirect expenses and revenues, such as administration, advertising, and financing costs that are spread across multiple business activities, by setting up distribution rules for automatic allocation of revenues and expenses.

3.  Accelerate Month-end Close and Enhance Compliance


Accurate month-end closing process is crucial for all organizations. The month-end Financial Statements determine the business decision for the coming month. SAP Business One helps you accelerate this month-end closing with automation of business activities. As a result, the margin of error goes significantly down while efficiency receives a dramatic increase.

Quick Access to Real-time Data & Reports

Fast access to real-time and reliable financial information that brings down the time it takes to further close the books of accounts at the end of every period.

Automatic Tax Calculation & Adjustment for Easier Compliance

SAP Business One ERP solution for SME automatically calculates taxes, such as sales tax, value-added tax and withholding tax for each line item on each transaction taking into account country-specific allocation and reporting requirements.

Automated computation and reporting of tax processes based on your country’s requirements allows you to comply fully with the legal requirements of each country where you do business.

4.  Streamline Reconciliations, Bank Statements and Payments

Banking & Reconciliation Feature for Automation of Payments

This unique functionality allows your accounting team to automate and increase the speed of processing incoming and outgoing payments.

The inbuilt payment wizard feature enables you to clear multiple accounts receivable and accounts payable invoices in batch mode for checks and bank transfers payment methods. This means your team’s productivity gets turbo charged.

After you have specified the selection criteria and the payment method in the Banking and Reconciliation Feature in SAP Business One, the journal entry transaction can get automatically posted once the process is completed.

Process External Bank Statements for Reconciliation

In fact, SAP Business One makes your balance sheet reconciliation with Bank Statements even easier. Your team can save half their effort and time without compromising on accuracy.

All you need is to process external bank statements so you can generate incoming and outgoing payments. Moreover, you can use the exclusive reconciliation engine capability to match payments that are not automatically reconciled, for instance, all those payments that not made “on account”.

This can be done by simply opening items either automatically or manually and filtering by general ledger account or by business partner.

5.  Transform Business Planning and Audits with Sharper Insight


Keep on track by setting up budgets on local currency using budget allocation rules and then proceed to accurately track all such corresponding expenses.

Configure Alerts to Automatically Block Exceeding Transactions

Whenever a user exceeds a defined budget limit, the user can be alerted. Alternately, transactions that exceed defined limits can be automatically blocked.

Allocation Rules for Detailed P&L Statement

Create a detailed Profit & Loss statement that are based on direct and indirect revenue and expenses. These revenue and expenses can be defined in detail as defined in the allocation rules. Moreover, you can easily make the choice between annual and monthly display formats. Such views give you greater insights and clarity to compare the results for multiple periods.

Wide Range of Reports Available for Easy Use

Several types of financial reports are available in the Accounting and Finance module of SAP Business One which include but are not limited to balance sheets, profit and loss statements, profitability reports, multi-period comparisons, aging reports, and budget reports.

Explore Data to Get Answers

SAP HANA database transforms the processing power of your SAP Business One solution. This shows maximum impact on your capability to find actionable insights and answers through your data.

You an interactively drill-down in the data and then relate with the variables using drag-and-relate functionality so you can click through relevant data to find answers you need. Take your business reporting to the next level.

Multi-dimensional Analysis & Acaling on Live Data

Apart from the standard reports and dashboards in SAP Business One, you can also run multidimensional analyses on live operations data. As a result, you have greater clarity and sharper insight into the bigger financial picture before making all your business-critical decisions.

6.  Simplify Management of Multiple Branches or Business Units


Your business units may have a different reporting mechanisms depending on the stakeholders which usually include users (employees), business partners, customers, and of course other master data in your solution.

It becomes difficult, inconvenient and expensive to maintain multiple systems or databases for different business unit leading to inconsistencies and errors.

Now, thanks to the multi-branch capabilities in SAP Business One, the best financial management software for CFOs you can use a single database across all your branches.

Using a single instance of SAP Business One ERP solution with multi-branch capability you can:
  • Handle all the key financial processes for multiple different business units or branches
  • Create and maintain separate documents like invoices for all your separate business units
  • Manage bank transactions with centralized payment capability for greater control and transparency over operations
  • Carry out legal and financial reporting for each business unit with clarity

7.  Maintain end-to-end Control of your Company’s Fixed Assets

Easier Fixed Assets Accounting

You can maintain Fixed Assets Data in the Item Master Data. This allows you to
  • Track fixed assets through their entire lifecycle
  • Automatically configure depreciation
  • Make transfer to other cost centres when necessary.
In addition, your team has the control to plan the depreciation of your fixed assets using popular depreciation methods like straight line period control, declining balance or multilevel.

Faster Depreciation Accounting & Fixed Asset Revaluation

You can take the monthly base for depreciation calculation. Further, your fixed asset can be appreciated by creating a manual depreciation document to perform the revaluation of your fixed asset.

Using SAP Business One enables you to purchase and sell your fixed assets using documents such as an accounts payable or accounts receivable invoice, a credit memo, or a reserve invoice.

You can change the asset class of a fixed asset by creating a transfer document. Not only that, you can apply more than one set of accounts to a fixed asset so your asset value and transactions can be posted to more than one accounting area at the same time swiftly and efficiently.

8.  Realize Bottom-line Benefits with a Comprehensive Financial Management Software for CFOs


SAP Business One is a comprehensive, integrated solution that helps streamline your financial operations. You can:
  • Increase the speed of transaction processing
  • Improve cash flow by automating daily financial tasks which you can integrate in real time with business processes like purchasing and sales
  • Get a clear and accurate picture of where your business stands using cash flow management so you know the actual versus planned figures with budget tracking
  • Maintain control of your fixed assets throughout their lifecycle
  • Take the efficiency and accuracy of credit card collections and bank reconciliations through direct, online connections with financial institutions to the next level
  • Reduce the time it takes to close books at period closing by quickly and accurately compiling up-to-date financial statements to support business decision making
  • Comply swiftly and fully with the legal requirements of each country where you do business
  • Streamline payment and reporting of taxes to meet your company’s fiscal responsibilities
  • Improve top-level strategic decisions using powerful analytics by satisfying the financial analysis and reporting requirements of your business
SAP Business One has for a reason been the best financial management software for CFOs. In fact, this is just the tip of the ice-berg. If you’re interested in exploring the total and tremendous potential of managing your SME business using SAP Business One ERP solution, get a free Live Demo today.

Call +91 7948998911 (India), Whatsapp +254 111229970 (Kenya), Call +1 469 915 6026 (North America) or drop an E-mail at sayhello@vc-erp.com
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