Accurate, real-time financial data powers business success

An accu­rate, real-time view of finan­cial data is the lifeblood of any busi­ness. It pro­vides the cru­cial insights required to make the right deci­sions, and it’s the cur­ren­cy of good account­ing and book­keep­ing. It is a les­son that, unfor­tu­nate­ly, many busi­ness­es have learnt stark­ly dur­ing the shut­ter­ing of lock­down. And yet too many organ­i­sa­tions are still at the mer­cy of out-of-date data, with no fail­safe for assur­ing accu­ra­cy. The result is busi­ness­es over­pay on tax, have lit­tle over­sight of their cash flow and oper­ate with­out a true pic­ture of their finan­cial health.

A com­pa­ny may have a great prod­uct or ser­vice, but if its chief finan­cial offi­cer (CFO) is fore­cast­ing incor­rect­ly, or fail­ing to man­age cash flow in real time, well-inten­tioned deci­sions based on shift­ing num­bers can become a risk for the busi­ness. The ten­den­cy to focus on what has hap­pened, not what is going to hap­pen, with the busi­ness sees finan­cial fore­sight eclipsed by finan­cial archae­ol­o­gy.

Mean­while, the sig­nif­i­cant amount of time required to man­u­al­ly enter, cat­e­gorise and make sense of finan­cial data can drain vital resources in the finance team or account­ing firm. For CFOs, it’s a frus­trat­ing dis­trac­tion from their real desire, which is to play a strate­gic, high­er-val­ue role for their busi­ness. CFOs have reached their lev­el because they under­stand busi­ness, but they are shack­led by man­u­al report­ing and book­keep­ing process­es, as well as a lack of ana­lyt­i­cal tools.

“I’ve nev­er known a CFO who doesn’t want to take a strate­gic view of their busi­ness and be a key part of dri­ving its suc­cess,” says Adri­an Blair, chief exec­u­tive of Dext, whose account­ing and book­keep­ing plat­form pow­ers bet­ter finan­cial data and insights. “But the more you and your accoun­tant or book­keep­er spend man­u­al­ly crunch­ing the num­bers, the less time and data there is to have a strate­gic dis­cus­sion about which course brings the great­est ben­e­fit to your organ­i­sa­tion.

“CFOs want to be able to view as much rel­e­vant finan­cial data in real time as they can, as well as have the tools to work with their accoun­tant to turn that data into finan­cial insights on the busi­ness­es they work in. Being at that C‑suite lev­el means you have a lot of deci­sions to make and often have to make them quick­ly with the infor­ma­tion you have in that moment.”

To be suc­cess­ful in a com­plex, fast-evolv­ing busi­ness land­scape, com­pa­nies require more than just an his­toric record of their per­for­mance, they need a clear under­stand­ing of their finances and cash flow look­ing for­ward. Their busi­ness might look like it’s doing well on the out­side, but there could be holes in their finances which can be quick­ly exposed dur­ing times of dis­rup­tion.

A com­plete, up-to-date under­stand­ing of their finances makes busi­ness­es much more resilient to dis­rup­tion and ready to lever­age oppor­tu­ni­ties when they arise. Remov­ing the man­u­al parts of col­lect­ing and organ­is­ing data, and automat­ing it in real time through bank and sup­pli­er con­nec­tions, pro­vides the vis­i­bil­i­ty and action­able insights to pow­er that resilience and agili­ty.

Dext pro­vides the tools to turn data into finan­cial insights, mak­ing accounts more pro­duc­tive, prof­itable and pow­er­ing that essen­tial rela­tion­ship with CFOs in busi­ness­es. Dext Pre­pare com­bines real-time accu­rate data with pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tools to accu­rate­ly extract, sort and cat­e­gorise every line of data to free up finance teams. Dext Pre­ci­sion, mean­while, offers error-free data and action­able insights to help account­ing and book­keep­ing prac­tices become busi­ness part­ners for their clients.

“We free accoun­tants and busi­ness­es from the man­u­al num­ber crunch­ing that takes their time and atten­tion away from being a busi­ness part­ner for their clients,” says Blair. “With Dext, CFOs ele­vate their role in the busi­ness by being able to have a new rela­tion­ship with their accoun­tant or book­keep­er. Real-time, accu­rate data means com­plete trust in the num­bers they fore­cast with, as well as the abil­i­ty to ‘look around cor­ners’ with the finances more fre­quent­ly and iden­ti­fy areas for sav­ings and growth with sup­pli­er and cash-flow analy­sis.

“When CFOs can bring accu­rate finan­cial data, and have time to use their ana­lyt­i­cal abil­i­ties, they’re help­ing every­one in the busi­ness make the right deci­sions.”

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it dext.com

Pro­mot­ed by Dext