Today, many decisions must be made in real-time. As such, supporting data must be current and available on-demand. Similarly, your organization must be able to devote bandwidth to key matters (i.e., not be tied down with minutiae).

Absent these two critical variables, growth is difficult, if not impossible. But this is where your accounting team can be an enabler of growth.

For instance, automation and custom workflows can remove friction caused by many routine business functions and offer key insights. Real-time dashboards and the development of key performance indicators will reflect the current state of the business and enable course corrections when they’re needed. In fact, your financial team can often be the frontline in spotting potential issues or corrective actions.

Better decisions are made with better information – financial modeling helps you manage the “why” behind your business operations.

For example, a 13-week cashflow model is a dynamic planning tool that can bring actuals and forecasts together. Maintained on a rolling basis, it can help you with:

• Visibility: Longer outlook supports management decisions/actions.
• Planning: You can project sources and uses of cash, monetize the impact of decisions, and monitor and adjust.
• Engagement: You’ll receive essential input throughout your organization (sales, purchasing, production).
• Focus: An end result is being able to prioritize and execute tasks to achieve the cash.

It is critical to remain forward-thinking to ensure your organization has the right tools in place to navigate and forecast the outlook to be predictive, not reactive.

Here are three questions to answer through a collaborative strategic planning process:

• What’s our value proposition in the marketplace?
• Are we focused on the right customer and product lines?
• Where do we want to be in five years and how do we get there?

All too often, employers use hunches and assumptions, rather than hard data, to explain why their team is dwindling. Then they apply the wrong solutions to solve this problem, which is a great disconnect on their part. 

Highly engaged businesses often use data to identify and solve engagement challenges – they don’t rely on hunches or assumptions. They collect and review employee engagement survey data and compare to company metrics to reveal a clear picture of engagement in their business. This includes high and low areas, best practices, and risk areas, and provides an opportunity to home in on solutions that will make a quick and impactful difference.

This is where a third-party vendor can partner with an organization to plan, gather, and analyze data. This process also allows for preserving employee privacy, contributing to a greater likelihood for honest feedback.

Businesses that have been successful in engaging and retaining talent over the last two years have focused on the needs of their managers. Managers account for 70% of an employee’s engagement, which is more than any other factor according to Gallup; managers influence most of the levels of engagement.

Managing in this new environment is challenging for most, especially new managers. Employers should focus on providing training, as well as offering tools and guidance for how to navigate this environment and engage their team. Managers need leaders’ support, mentoring, and recognition, too, now more than ever. Get managers together in-person or virtually regularly to create a supportive learning and best-practice sharing community.

While remote-capable workers enjoy the flexibility, working remotely reduces manager and team interactions, providing less opportunities to feel connected and valued. Leaders can positively impact team engagement and retention by focusing on the most important needs of their workforce. One of the most impactful ways: increased interaction among managers and their team members. Managers should connect individually with each team member and gather the team as frequently as possible. A few ideas for these interactions:

• Connect daily. A quick “how are things going today?” can go a long way.
• Offer positive feedback. At the very least, this should be provided weekly.
• Think beyond daily work. Require managers to create and support development plans including career development options for each employee – and also for themselves.
• Provide clarity. Ensure goals, expectations, and priorities are clear – don’t assume everyone knows – and review them daily or weekly. Gallup reports that only half of all workers strongly indicate they know what is expected of them at work.

By implementing a comprehensive AI governance program, organizations can navigate the complexities of adoption while maintaining trust and integrity in their operations.

Here are a few practical steps:

• Develop AI Policies and Procedures: Create comprehensive policies and procedures that define the governance, development, deployment, and monitoring of AI systems.
• Establish AI Oversight Bodies: Set up dedicated AI oversight committees or boards responsible for guiding and monitoring AI initiatives.
• Conduct AI Risk Assessments: Regularly perform risk assessments to identify and evaluate AI-related risks, incorporating findings into risk management strategies.
• Implement AI Ethics Principles: Embed ethical principles into AI project lifecycles, ensuring decisions and processes are fair, transparent, and accountable.
• Engage with Regulators: Maintain open dialogue with regulators to understand expectations and demonstrate compliance with AI governance and risk management requirements.

Prepare to create cybersecurity policies by gathering information about your organization's environment and security controls. Use this information to develop comprehensive policies for your entire organization. This can include:

• Governance strategy and cybersecurity program (cybersecurity policy)
• Data management and protection strategy
• Risk assessment
• Incident response plan
• Business continuity plan
• Disaster recovery plan
• Vendor management

Whether you’re applying for cyber insurance or renewing, give yourself enough time to work through the process. For organizations renewing, start having conversations with your insurer at least 60 days prior to the renewal date. This will give you time to work through the added procedures that insurers are implementing and shop around the insurance market if needed.

Work with your IT team to ask these questions:

1. What are my organizations risks and cyber insurance needs?
2. What additional steps will my insurer require for me to obtain cyber insurance?
3. How much time do I need to work with my insurer on my policy or to shop around the market for a new provider?

Loads of technologies are available to improve your back-office processes, reducing the margin for human error, as well as the amount of human effort and time required to complete repetitive tasks — in turn, increasing bandwidth spent on high-yield projects and endeavors that benefit from a human touch, like employee engagement.

Where to begin? Start with an easy effort that yields a major payoff: transition from desktop accounting software to online, or cloud-based, software. This allows access from anywhere at any time and is easily shareable with internal staff and external clients—a huge benefit for a workforce that is largely moving to remote and hybrid scenarios. Features to look for when moving to cloud-based accounting software, we recommend: 

• Integrations. Look for capabilities that allow the software to integrate with bank feeds, credit cards feeds, payroll processing, and, for your sales team, e-commerce platforms. Any integration that reduces or eliminates the need for manual entry greatly limits the chances for human error.
  
• Document storage. Connect all the paper that supports accounting—invoices, bank statements, receipts, etc.—in one place. All these documents can be populated within the transaction. When the back-office team is asked to produce a statement or reconciliation, it’s one click away.
• Online bill-payment processing. Using online bill payment not only eliminates the time-consuming writing and signing of checks and stamping and addressing of envelopes but also the wait times on payment authorizations because payments no longer need to be initialed or signed in person. You’ll also avoid double entry, creating a clean audit trail. 
• Receipt management tools. Rather than back-office staff tracking down credit-card holders to get receipts and matching each to their individual transactions, receipt-management tool integrations can simplify this process, matching receipts to transactions automatically. Many can also send reminders to credit card holders, prompting them to take a photo of each receipt on their mobile device, so they can immediately forward to the accounting team for approval.  

While technology can greatly improve back-office processes and make the job of back-office staff easier, people are still at the heart of your back-office operations. Investing in your people is just as important as investing in technology. Clearly defined expectations and accountability are crucial for back-office staff. Sit down once a year to review and document back-office processes. Ensure that each task is clearly defined, all staff members understand who takes ownership of each task, and the time frame in which each task must be completed. 

Review your workflows as well. Can staff go from task A, B, and C quickly and accurately—or are there kinks in the process? If so, work together to identify the problems and solutions to smooth out those kinks. Evaluating your process for internal controls is important too. (For example, you don’t want the same person who is entering the data to reconcile the data.) 

Lastly, solicit feedback from back-office staff. These staff members are deep in the weeds every day; they will have great insight into the obstacles plaguing the back-office and, often, ideas of how to improve them.  

No matter how exciting your company, industry, product, or service, back-office work isn’t fun. It’s tedious, arduous, exacting, and highly demanding. And that’s exactly how it should be—if your back office is doing it right. By “right,” we mean staying on top of the critical, foundational aspects of running your business operations.

Consider a partner experienced in back-office operations to work with you in a consulting capacity, shoulder all of your back-office needs, or tailor our services to perform only specific tasks or support certain roles.

Surround yourself with trusted individuals who can help you navigate the journey ahead. Key members should include your:

• CPA and/or tax specialist
• Investment advisor
• Attorney
• Banker
• Insurance advisor
• Key employees
• Business partners

Determine the current value of the business and analyze business drivers to identify risk, opportunities, and even enhance value. For example, if your management team needs development, or is at risk for departure, training or recruiting needed talent can impact the value of the business.

There are many valuation methods available depending on the situation. If several comparable transactions “comps” exist, they can guide a valuation. If there aren’t many comps available, future revenue and profitability can be projected to determine a value based on discounted future cash flows.

Important note: owners must realize the sale price isn’t what they’ll personally net. Many factors determine what owners receive, including taxes, the business’s ownership structure, shareholder distributions, and more. Proper planning today could add up to significant savings later.

A formal plan helps take inventory of your current business and personal financial situation — determining where and when is the right time and what strategies are needed to get there.

A written transition plan should include:

• Clearly defined goals
• Tasks and accountabilities
• Definitions of your transition team and transition process
• An identified plan leader or project manager (exit advisor)
• Timelines
• Budget
• Clarification of your role before and after transition